How did my first year without short-form content on social media go? Here's what changed in my focus, motivation, and how my school runs.
How did my first year without short-form content on social media go?
On September 3rd, 2024, I stumbled on a YouTube video called “The Dopamine Pit” and decided to try going a few weeks without watching reels or stories. Back then, I could easily spend 40 to 60 minutes scrolling reels and watching my friends’ stories.
Within the first few days without short-form content, I felt like a completely different person. My focus improved, I had more motivation, and I became far more organized.
I managed to start important strategic work at our school, New Lifestyle, that I’d been putting off for months.
I was struck by how much my mindset and productivity changed from something as simple as cutting out short-form content.
Over the past year, a number of strategic changes happened inside my school: we started selling courses through websites, launched chatbots, got a CRM system (a tool that keeps track of all our customers), started email marketing, and added automatic payments.
My “content factory” started running in a much more autonomous way, without needing my direct attention.
I now have a manager who oversees everyone’s work. If I used to be “elbow-deep” in operational processes, now I’m “wrist-deep,” and in the coming months I’ll be down to “one finger.” That’s possible because we’re building a training academy inside our school for the whole team.
We’ve brought on good specialists, and thanks to them we’re making our products even better.
Naturally, a set of changes like this has a positive effect on income, reduces the operational load on me as the owner, and frees me up to focus on strategy. A lot of this became possible specifically because I gave up short-form content on social media.
I didn’t used to understand that watching reels and stories doesn’t let dopamine build up in your body in meaningful amounts.
Picture it like this: every hour, 50 hryvnias show up in your wallet. If you don’t spend that money for a long time, it adds up into a large sum, and you can meaningfully improve your life with some big purchase — a new computer, phone, bike, or car.
But if you spend those 50 hryvnias every single hour, all you can buy is some chips and soda. They bring a little joy in the moment, but in the long run they’re bad for you.
The same thing happens with our dopamine. When we pick up our phone every hour and scroll through something, dopamine simply doesn’t have time to build up enough for us to tackle something that actually matters to us.
Dopamine isn’t just responsible for pleasure — it’s responsible for our motivation and our willingness to work on hard, complex ideas.
That’s why giving up short-form content a year ago had such a radical effect on my effectiveness.
When Nastya and I went on a two-week vacation to Odesa at the end of August, I deliberately let myself watch short-form content again for a while. I quickly felt drained, less motivated, and slipped into procrastination and a mild kind of apathy.
So I’ve confirmed for myself, in practice, that there are two very different modes of living: one where you’re chasing your goals and making progress, and one where you’re just scrolling a feed and watching other people’s lives.
And if you ever decide to watch less short-form content — including mine — I think that could turn out to be one of the wisest decisions you make.
Real life is a lot more interesting.