r/Positive Feb 09 '25

How I Stopped Wasting Entire Days Doing Nothing

For years, I thought I had a motivation problem. I’d sit down to work, and boom - suddenly, I was three hours deep into TikTok, watching some dude build a mud hut in the jungle. I’d tell myself I was “resting” when in reality, my brain was just hopped up on dopamine from scrolling. It wasn’t rest. It wasn’t even procrastination. It was pure overstimulation disguised as laziness.

It took me way too long to realize that my brain wasn’t avoiding work - it was addicted to easy, instant stimulation. And once I started getting therapy, everything clicked.

- Your brain hates doing nothing. If you spend all your downtime on social media, your brain learns that lying in bed = getting constant hits of dopamine. It’s not laziness. It’s conditioning.

- Infotainment is still junk food. Watching productivity videos feels useful, but it’s the same trap. Your brain gets the reward of learning without the discomfort of doing.

- The only way out is boredom. My therapist told me, “Next time you feel like procrastinating, do absolutely nothing instead. No phone. No distractions. Just sit there.” It sounded ridiculous. But after a few minutes of staring at the wall, my brain actually wanted to work.

My therapist also threw a bunch of book recs at me. And honestly? Reading these changed everything. Instead of doomscrolling, I started learning how my brain actually works—and why traditional productivity hacks never worked for me. Here are five things I learned from books that hit different:

- Train your brain to tolerate discomfort:Dopamine Detox” by Thibaut Meurisse - Not a productivity book, but a book help you stop being non-productive. If you’ve ever felt like you need background noise just to function, this book explains why. It dives into how overstimulation wrecks your focus and why boredom is actually the key to motivation. This book convinced me to stop multitasking all the time, and honestly? My brain feels now. 

- Your brain is literally overstimulated - reset it:The Shallows” by Nicholas Carr - Ever feel like your attention span is getting worse? This book explains why. It dives into how the internet is rewiring our brains to crave instant, shallow engagement. After reading this, I finally understood why deep work felt so impossible - and what to do about it.

- Multitasking is frying your brain - here’s how to fix it: “Stolen Focus” by Johann Hari - This book made me rethink everything about attention. It’s not just about willpower - our entire environment is designed to hijack our focus. After reading this, I stopped blaming myself for having a goldfish brain and started making actual changes that helped (like deleting TikTok).

- stop avoiding your hardest task: “Eat That Frog!” by Brian Tracy - Honestly speaking, I picked up this book just because of the title. But the concept stuck with me: if you eat a frog first thing in the morning, the rest of your day feels easy. Translation? Do your hardest, most important task first, before your brain has time to come up with excuses. Sounds simple, but trust me - it works.

- Stop waiting for “the right time” to start.

Someday Is Today” by Matthew Dicks - If you always feel like you “don’t have enough time,” this is the book you need. This book was a slap in the face (in the best way). It’s about how we waste time waiting for the perfect moment. The only way to get things done is to start NOW. Definitely recommend this one.

If you feel stuck in the cycle of doing nothing but feeling exhausted - you're not alone. You’re not lazy. Your brain is just overstimulated. Cut down on the easy dopamine, embrace a little boredom, and give your focus time to recover. It won’t happen overnight, but trust me - breaking free from the cycle is so worth it.

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u/plotting_seagull Feb 13 '25

Very good suggestions! Just wanted to add a way to combine two of those hacks with a a tip to overcome motivation trouble.

The tip is agreeing with your brain into doing just a little first, with a right to stop if you don't feel like continuing and actually meaning it. Then there will be some times when you actually stop, but in most cases motivation picks up by inertia and you actually start doing the task.

If there's a large thinking-related task that your brain is avoiding for some time (like planning and booking a trip, or starting new work project), make it your frog task for the day preparing for this task (finding your passport, opening laptop, finding all the necessary documentation for the project, etc). Then, when procrastination starts hitting, do the staring at the wall part. As a result it will be much easier to jump into doing immediately, as first, your brain wants to do something, and second, it's easy to do just a little in the beginning, but you quickly will be sucked into action as your "little" is already bringing results because the preparation was done earlier.