2 weeks without social media

I thought quitting short-form content would be hard. It wasn't. Two weeks in, my productivity tripled and my baseline mood went from a 5 to an 8.

I’ve been living without a social media feed and stories for two weeks.

At first I thought it would be hard to give up short-form content, but it turned out not to be. As soon as the dopamine receptors in your brain clear up, you simply lose the desire to go back to how you lived before.

My productivity went up roughly threefold compared to when I was glued to social media. And that’s far from the only effect:

1. New time appeared out of nowhere.
2. I started sleeping better. Now I need less sleep to fully recover.
3. My focus improved and so did my memory.
4. My favorite effect — original solutions to old and current problems started showing up in my head. In these two weeks I launched three projects I could never make myself start before.
5. Life tastes better. Now I just walk down the street and enjoy the day. Or drink tea and love it. My overall mood went from a 5 to an 8 and has stayed there for two weeks.

I can be standing in the shower in the morning and suddenly a solution shows up for a question I’ve been chewing on for ages.

It’s a very cool process when your brain hands you the answers itself — and they turn out to be remarkably precise.

I could keep this list going, but these things are best experienced firsthand.

The result of quitting social media exceeded my boldest expectations.

I had no idea how badly I’d been torturing my brain with short content and stories. And even though I rarely spent more than an hour a day on social media, that was enough to keep my productivity and capacity at rock bottom.

Here’s what I’m thinking about now.

If two weeks ago I believed I was using my time fairly efficiently, and it turned out that was only 20–30% of my real capacity — where else am I leaking my energy and attention?

What else could be an equally invisible devourer of my inner resources?

If I find the answer, I’ll definitely share it with you.

Have you ever tried spending two weeks without social media?