The Notebook That Broke My Infinite Scrolling Addiction

Do you ever pick up your phone for just a second and suddenly 30 minutes are gone? We've all been there. It happens all the time. But what if I told you that a simple pocket notebook could save you from this endless scrolling, could help you recapture your attention and put your intention on things that really matter to you? This isn't just another productivity hack. It is a practice. For helping you feel more focused and present in your daily life. And it takes only a few seconds to use. There's a reason this channel focuses on analog tools and practices, and it's because digital tools and digital everything is so ingrained and embedded, no pun intended, in our everyday lives. Years ago, I started using these pocket notebooks. This is even different than the bullet journals that I've been using for several years now. My first big video was about bullet journaling, but this constant companion that I have alongside my phone, and at times in replacement of my phone, are these simple thin pocket Field Notes notebooks. And I'm not saying that Field Notes is the only brand you should use, but it is the one that I love the most. What's cool about notebooks is that they're not just some nostalgic throwback. They are also a representation and a tool that some of the greatest minds in history have used to capture their ideas and develop them into real innovations that help move humanity forward. Now, you don't have to think that big about it. What I want us to focus on is how you are practicing and focusing your attention and your intention for things that you want to spend more time on every day. And I'm going to leave it— the just the amount of additional mental clarity you're going to gain by not automatically picking up the phone and instead picking up notebook or a book to receive some of your entertainment or focus your attention and ideas on something specific. I promise you will feel calmer, more focused, and more present if you follow these steps. Science backs this up as well, which I find really interesting and exciting. Studies have shown that when you write something down with pen and paper, even on a whiteboard and marker, your brain just engages and encodes the information helps you retain that information better than if you were just tapping it out on your, like, laptop or desktop computer, or even like the tap tap tappy tap of using your phone. But it's not just about memory and retaining information either. Using a notebook interrupts the endless scroll potential of your phone. One of the things that I started doing was every time I reached for my phone, I would try and ask myself the questions, Could I write this down? Especially if I'm trying to kind of like trick myself and be like, well, I'm going to open my phone and do something productive. Could I write down the kernel, the spark of the idea first? And then when I have more dedicated phone or computer time for work, I can go to my notebook and draw out those ideas that I've written down or sketched out on the notebook. I've even gone so far at times to change the lock screen photo on my phone to something that might say, can you write this down? And I have like the notebook open and it's just like a picture of the notebook that shows up as the picture on my phone just to remind me like, ah, am I, am I really doing this because I have something to say or write down? And if so, can I just use the notebook for that instead? Okay. Now let me tell you how to make this work. It's very simple. First thing you're going to do is grab a notebook. This doesn't even have to be this Field Notes notebook, even though these are my favorite. They're, they're flexible, they fit in the back pocket really easily, or any kind of like backpack or bag that you might be using. But you can just go to the dollar store and get like those little tiny composition notebooks that cost 99 cents. And then what you're going to do is you're going to use it for everything. So write down reminders, write down ideas, write down notes, write down draw little sketches, write down anything. Go back to my 5 journal methods video that I released recently. I'll put a card up and you can look for it in the description below. But one of the things that you can use for this, like, as a, as a concept, is Austin Kleon's Ship's Log or Daily Log method. And so it's just writing down, like, hey, what's, what's going on? What are you experiencing? Just get the words out, get the ideas out. It may feel a little like the friction's gonna be there at the beginning just because you're not used to it, but I encourage you to push through it and write things down even if you don't think they're that important, because you'll be surprised how often you'll either need to remember something that you thought was rather mundane at the time, or something that you like, just like, I jotted this down, be like, wow, that was really important. That is the spark of an idea that could do something much bigger than the, like, than the priority that I gave it at the time. Once you start doing this, something really cool happens. Instead of reaching for your phone out of habit, you start to reach for your notebook instead. You start to become more intentional with your thought and your thinking. Is that the same thing that you were before? You notice things, you're more present in the moment, and best of all, you don't lose track of random ideas, tasks, like things that you want to remember, they're all in the notebook waiting for you to come back and find them. And what's better is like, yes, you could do all of this on your phone, but I can promise you, I can tell you from experience, if I was to jot everything down in Reminders and like, oh, I got to go find that reminder, it may sound simple saying it out loud and maybe I'm just the weirdo, but the amount of times I'm like, oh, this like one reminder is in Reminders or it's in Apple Notes or it's in Notion. The ease and speed with which I get diverted and distracted by other things on my phone, even other things that might be happening in a tool like Notion, which is productive and which I do use. But if I see notifications or I see like this other thing, it's like, ooh, I should check that out versus open up the notebook, go back a couple of days. There it is. Could I also see something else in here that is like, ooh, I should check that out? Yeah. That does happen. But I find that the moments that that happens are a lot more like, there's just a nice bit of serendipity. That's the word I was looking for. There's a nice bit of serendipity connecting ideas in the notebook versus being distracted by something on the phone. The real magic in this, and honestly, I do think there's a little bit of magic in this, is you'll start to feel calmer. You'll start to feel more in control. You'll have a handle on your thoughts. I've found that I'm a little bit more able to dismiss negative or harmful distracting thoughts because, like, am I gonna— am I gonna open up the notebook and write this down? Well, probably not. This is not, not a great thought that I need to entertain. I'm just going to kind of push it to the side. Where before, if I had a frustrating, you know, series of thoughts, if I was like kind of spiraling a little bit, being negative about something, I would just open up my phone and I would like, oh, look at something happy, like how disappointed I am in a sports team. That's gonna help. Instead, I'm like, yeah, I'm just— maybe I might write it down here, but then it's like, you know, Dumbledore in Harry Potter with the Pensieve, where just like pulling that thought out and I can just kind of toss it to the side, you know. Metaphorically in the notebook. Basically, instead of reacting to notifications or doom scrolling, you are more intentional with your actions and your thoughts. Do me a favor, try this for 1 week and then come back and let me know in the comments. You can also download a 5-day, like, really short, simple email prompt that you can then sign up to that and reply to me each day with what you're learning about yourself and the type of notes that you're writing down and how, like, just how you feel. You can do that, link in the description below. I know there are many people who watch this channel who are watching this video who already use a notebook. So what you can do besides continuing to do the great stuff that you're doing, focusing on the notebook, directing your attention, your intention for life, what I want you to do in the comments is really cheer people on who are commenting that are doing this for the first time. And let them know like, hey, this, this really changed things for me. So go ahead. Like if you've been doing this for a little while, let people know how great it is. Encourage people that you see posting. If you're just doing this for the first time, comment, let me know how this is changing, like honestly, your life. And if you want like just some encouragement, you know, a few days of prompts, 5 days of prompts, actually go ahead and sign up in the description below. And that way you can reply to those emails and let me know how things are going. So really simple, totally free to sign up, 5 days of emails. You don't have to get any emails from me after that if you don't want, but go ahead and click the link in the description and sign up.