On Saturday morning, Nathan wakes up

with a full to-do list ahead of him. If

he learns how to write code better, he

can get a big promotion at his day job

along with a 30% pay raise. So, he wants

to spend at least a few hours going

through some coding tutorials. He's also

planning on starting the first steps of

his side business idea that he's been

daydreaming about for a while. And last

month, he made a New Year's resolution

to finally get into good shape. So, he's

planning on starting to hit the gym

today, too. Nathan's got big ideas and

big plans and he's going to get out of

bed and get started on them right after

he scrolls through Instagram for a bit

and then checks his emails and then

checks how the stock market's doing and

then watches the news or an episode of

anime over breakfast. By the time it's

already noon, he tells himself, "All

right, let me just grab another coffee

to get some energy and then I'll be good

to start on my goals for the day." But

just like the AI robots in Westworld,

Nathan's been replaying out this same

unproductive routine almost daily for

years, just constantly putting off the

important things he needs to do until

later until tomorrow. Does Nathan's

story resonate at all with you? In your

mind, you're rationalizing to yourself

that if you just get these little baby

dopamine hits running through you, it'll

become easier to focus on your main task

in just 5 more minutes. But what's

actually happening is that as more and

more of your day gets wasted, that key

important task on your to-do list

becomes less and less appealing, it has

a smaller and smaller chance of getting

done. If you constantly feel a nagging

pull towards some type of distraction,

like checking your social media, going

out for a walk, or reorganizing your

files, anything that will let you put

off getting down at business for just a

few more minutes, then this video is for

you. In his book, Dopamine Detox, Tibo

Mirez argues that it doesn't need to be

this difficult. He discusses the steps

you can take to undergo a dopamine detox

so that you can get rid of the over

stimulation in your environment, feel

focused and peaceful at work, and easily

avoid wasting time on unproductive

activities and distractions. I'll be

taking you through a visual journey that

summarizes the key tips and takeaways

from this book. We'll cover the science

of dopamine and how it works. We'll talk

about the specific reasons for why

you're having so much difficulty

focusing. And then we'll dive into the

specific things you can do to stop

procrastinating and achieve easy and

effortless productivity. Now, without

further ado, let's dive in. The science

of dopamine, friend or foe? If you're

watching this video, surely you've heard

of dopamine before, but let's do a quick

recap and cover some misconceptions.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, and

dopamine is a good thing. Without it,

humanity probably wouldn't exist today

because dopamine can act as a mental

guide for our minds for where we

anticipate rewards. Thousands of years

ago, it played a critical role by

spiking when we thought about doing

things that were critical for our

survival and reproduction, like finding

food and mating. But the problem today

is that with all this new technology

that we have at our fingertips, the very

intelligent engineers behind all those

apps and user experience design have

figured out a way to hijack our dopamine

processes in a way where dopamine now

acts against us instead of for us. All

these little beeps and boops and

notifications and social stats put you

in a state of overstimulation. And when

you experience over stimulation, it

becomes extremely difficult to

concentrate on that one important thing

that you actually wanted to do today.

Contrary to what many people believe,

dopamine is not a pleasure chemical.

Simply because an event triggers the

release of dopamine doesn't mean that it

is something that we like or get

pleasure from. In fact, when you pay

close attention, you'll notice that as

soon as you obtain the expected reward,

you'll often feel empty and unfulfilled.

the problem with your routine. Why your

daily routine is sucking you dry.

Remember these two facts. One, dopamine

is triggered when you anticipate a

reward or just before you actually

receive the reward, not when you

actually get the reward. Two, when you

habitually place yourself in a state

where dopamine shots keep getting fired,

you will become uncomfortable being in a

state where your stimulation drops back

to normal unstimulated levels. Keeping

these two facts in mind, let's analyze

the morning habits of your typical Joe

Six-Pack. You check your email expecting

that there might be some important

message from someone. Regardless of

whether there actually is or not, just

by checking the email and anticipating

it, boom, it's a dopamine spike. You

check your stock portfolio, which can be

wildly unpredictable on a day-to-day

basis. Boom, it's another dopamine

spike. You check your social media stats

or chat conversations, anticipating that

maybe there's a change there. Does it

matter if anyone actually messaged you

or liked your photo? Nope. You

anticipated it and you checked it. So,

boom, it's another dopamine spike. And

so, even though your brain tries to

rationalize that, all right, once I do

these few quick things, then I'll get to

work and focus, you're actually shooting

yourself in the foot, because by the

time you sit down to focus on your work,

your baseline dopamine level has been

thrown completely out of whack. And if

you don't get your next dopamine hit

from somewhere, you'll start to get all

fidgety and start rationalizing random

excuses to go do something else. If your

brain is really sneaky, it'll get you to

step away from your main task by

convincing you that the other task

you're doing is also still productive,

like organizing your closet or cleaning

up your office drawers. When in reality,

these tasks are just as useless at

bringing you closer to achieving your

goals as playing video games. The more

our environment or actions trigger the

release of dopamine, the more we'll want

our next shot of dopamine. In fact, this

self-reinforcing mechanism is also how

many addictions work. Your mind is a

trickster. Your mind is a sneaky little

sucker and it's always trying to pull a

fast one over you to get its hit of

cheap dopamine. Do a thought experiment

and see if you've ever been fooled by

your mind. One, while procrastinating,

do you ever have a thought run through

your head of getting back to work will

be easy once I feel refreshed from this

break? If so, your brain is lying to

you. It won't be easier to get back to

work. It'll be harder because you'll

increase your baseline state of

stimulation. Two, are you conflating

excitement with fulfillment? If you're

running an online business and you're

spending time refreshing your sales

figures or your subscriber count all

day, that's excitement. But it comes at

the cost of not spending that time

actually doing the things that will

actually grow your business, which would

lead to real fulfillment. Try running an

audit every couple hours for a little

while and ask yourself if what you spent

the last couple hours on will actually

lead to your fulfillment. Three, do you

suffer FOMO? you're checking your email

or your messages or the news so

frequently because subconsciously you

feel that if you don't, you might miss

out on something that's important. You

should get out of this scarcity mindset.

Understand that opportunities will

always be there and that you'll be

better off just focusing on your

long-term vision than jumping around to

make sure that you're always caught up

on everything. All right, now let's talk

about how to detox to improve your

focus. The three types of detoxes. The

book outlines three different types of

detoxes you can try depending on your

personal situation and your bravery

levels. The first is a 48-hour complete

detox which dictates that for 48 hours

you completely cut out any and all

sources of stimulation including drug or

alcohol consumption, internet, movies,

your phone, social media, sugar,

processed food, and video games.

Obviously, this would free up a lot of

extra time, so you can fill that time

with things like going for walks,

journaling, reading books, meditating,

doing stretching exercises. If this

sounds too ambitious for you, you can do

a 24-hour detox, which is the same thing

but for one day instead of 2 days. If

even that sounds too difficult, then you

can try doing just a partial dopamine

detox, where you pick one thing that is

your biggest source of stimulation, like

Tik Tok or Instagram or anime, and then

removing it from your life for a period

of time. friction and lube. Our brains

are lazy and hate wasting energy. So,

make it more difficult to do the bad

habits that you're trying to remove from

your life. For example, if you notice

that your biggest source of over

stimulation is Tik Tok or Instagram,

then install apps on your phone that

limit when or how often you can use

those apps. Then, when you get to work,

turn off the Wi-Fi on your phone and put

your phone in a drawer on the other side

of the room. That way, when your brain

gets a craving to just check your phone

real quick, it will be more inconvenient

to do so, and you'll have a higher

likelihood in successfully fighting back

against that urge. This is called

friction. Similarly, you want to apply

lots of lube to whatever you do want to

spend your focus on. Do you want to get

started on writing your book or paper

first thing in the morning? Then, the

night before, make sure your room or

office is clean and organized with

anything distracting put away in a

drawer somewhere. and have Microsoft

Word open and ready on your computer

screen so that it's the first thing you

see when you turn on your computer.

Master your morning. How you spend the

first part of your day will set the

momentum for the rest of the day. It is

far easier to continue an existing

action than to start a new one. So, make

sure you get started on your highest

priority task first thing in the

morning. Whereas, if you spend the first

10 minutes after you wake up scrolling

your social media feeds, you've set up

the rest of your day for stimulation,

cravings, and failure. Additional tips.

The author goes into some additional

tactics you can use to make it easier to

stay focused and fight back against your

dopamine spike addictions. One of those

tips is building a consistent routine

where you're doing the same tasks in the

same places and having a consistent

trigger that sets the ritual in motion.

If you watch professional tennis, you'll

notice that each player has a very

specific ritual they do before they

serve the ball. They get into the exact

same position and they bounce the ball

exactly the same number of times every

time before serving. This is because

when you have a consistent ritual, your

subconscious makes it extremely

automatic to do the next steps in the

ritual without any resistance or effort.

I go into a lot more detail on the

science behind building your environment

and these triggers for a Q craving

response reward loop in my summary of

James Clear's book, Atomic Habits. So,

if this is a topic you want to explore

further, be sure to check out that

video. Another tip the book discusses is

that when you make a decision that

you're going to get deep, focused work

done for the next hour. Take a minute to

set the stage to completely minimize any

chance of interruptions. You want to

work with your environment, not against

it. Remove anything from your room that

could be a distraction, like a phone or

a TV. Go somewhere where nobody will be

knocking on your door with a random

question or comment. Don't treat your

time to be in a deep, focused,

uninterrupted state as being any less

important than someone else's ability to

reach you immediately. Your focus is

worth a lot of money, which is why

different social media companies do

everything they can to keep you glued to

your screen. However, your focus is also

worth a lot of money to you. When you

reclaim your focus and use it to achieve

your biggest goals, you can transform

your life radically. All right, that

wraps up this summary of Tibo Mirus'

Dopamine Detox. I hope the summary was

helpful, and if you enjoyed the content,

I recommend picking up a copy of the

full book. It's a pretty quick read, and

it covers more details and advanced

topics that I didn't cover in this

video, like tips on how to avoid a

dopamine relapse and additional tactics

you can use to reduce your chances of

getting distracted. The author also has

a number of other books that cover

complimentary topics like taking

immediate action, mastering your

emotions, and building a strategic

mindset. So, if you're interested in

exploring those further, I'll link them

below in the description. And if you

want to be able to easily refer back to

the lessons from this book, I put

together a really nice one-page visual

mind map with illustrations that cover

all the key lessons from this video.

It's 100% totally free. If you check out

the link in the description, I'll get it

emailed to you right away. And if you

already subscribed to my newsletter,

this mind map should already be in your

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Thanks again so much for watching. Good

luck in your adventure and I'll see you

in the next one.