Aligning behaviour with a dream future state using the Pennebaker Journaling Method

Hello, this is a write up for a long term behaviour change and transformation experiment.

Please hit me up with any questions, feedback, input etc. I will do my best to remain not-too-emotional-yet-still-authentic.

TL;DR: I’m going to identify my problem behaviours, trace them to core wounds, tear them open in a controlled journal setting, knit myself back together, reload, re-calibrate and re-engage.

To see if it’s helping I’ll use a pretty heavy-duty level of self observation and tracking.

The whole point? Align my character more toward my dream lifestyle. And also, why not? Let a thousand blossoms bloom.

Questioning: What can I do to heal destructive aspects of my character?

Avoidance, intolerance for negativity, defensiveness, dopamine addiction…

Is it possible to transform these behaviours from their core?

Like pulling a weed from its roots rather than breaking off the top above ground…

What ‘signs and symptoms’ would illustrate successful transformation of my core character?

As much as I’ve accomplished in the past few years, there remain many aspects of my behaviour and character that don’t serve me or my loved ones.

Doomscrolling, food-as-medication (basically any quick-source dopamine addiction…) the list goes on.

I’ve had a little success in treating these symptoms with things like the Pomodoro technique, or The Get $#!7 Done Method (my gateway drug into Personal Knowledge Management, PARA by Tiago Forte and Life OS by August Bradley). But overall… ‘Treating’ these actions with new productivity or task management tools doesn’t change my behaviour in a lasting way.

Ideally, when I’m done with this experiment I’ll have a reliable, consistent way to identify, outline and transform the root memories beneath any behaviour.

I want a method to edit my subconscious.

Since I journal plenty already, I’ll start there.

Aim

To transform myself using journaling techniques.

Aim expanded

To build and refine a templated transformation process. increasing high leverage habits and decreasing low leverage habits using the Pennebaker journaling method.

Method

  1. Track and record standard behaviour in minute detail for a baseline of habit data.
  2. Identify characteristics which hold me back in life by writing about core memories attached to low quality behaviours (typically destructive or quick-dopamine seeking).
  3. Target one such characteristic using the Pennebaker Journaling Method by writing about the worst, most traumatic memory related to it once per day over four days for fifteen minutes a day.
  4. Plan and initiate self care options on the hourly, daily and weekly level to handle potential re-traumatisation or possible ‘kickback’ after stirring trauma memories.
  5. Update the experiment log to capture lessons, examine efficacy of self care, refine strategy or technique and pivot experiment design for another targeted behavioural transformation.

Rinse and repeat steps 3, 4 and 5 until I get bored, achieve the aims or find a better option.

Method expanded

I’ll use Simple Time Tracker and Notion.

Simple Time Tracker.

A free offline android app for time tracking. This app will be in constant use throughout the experiment phase. Over the first week of the experiment I’ll be capturing baseline behaviour and habit data, building out the database of what I spend time on. By the end of the week I expect all my behaviours and habits will have a button of their own.

Using the app is very simple, it’s colour coded with fancy hexi-stuff as well so I have the same colours for the same categories of time tracking as I currently use in my Google Calendar system, noice.

Previously, Google Calendar was my go-to for time tracking by recording my behaviours at the category level, now with Simple Time Tracker I’ll have much more granular data capturing the exact level of minutes I spend checking incremental games every day. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Notion.

A free online pc / android / ios app for database management to write, track, manage projects or do so many things.

I’ll use Notion for writing the trauma-targeting journal entries directly into a database to easily tag and categorise the experiment inputs.

Perhaps in the future I can run statistical analyses on the journal entries.

I have a daily habit tracker I’ve used for a couple years now, to that I will add a new metric for whether today is a ‘yes’ (+1) day or a ‘no’ (-1) day.

I currently manually count and tally all the hours I spend on different tasks by using Google Calendar so lowkey I’m super excited to have Simple Habit Tracker’s robust automatic data analysis tools.

Observations

The main data point for this experiment will be a simple +1 or -1 every day.

Secondary data will come from journal entries (qualitative) and time spent in habits and behaviours (quantitative).

Observations evaluated

This experiment will generate three forms of data. In terms of observation value, +1 / -1 per day is relevant, trustworthy and convenient. The data from Simple Time Tracker (time spent per behaviour) is also relevant, trustworthy and convenient, but less so of all three. I expect the journal entries will be relevant, trustworthy and inconvenient - highly likely that writing about trauma will be disruptive in ways I don’t yet predict.

Something to note: I have completed a massive time tracking experiment in the past, I’ll cover more detail in the Problems section below (because it was bloody intense! Almost broke me NGL).

As for the all important question, data relevant to what exactly?

I’m glad you asked.

Observations expanded

The plus or minus habit judgement is built from a simple gut feeling yes or no to the following question: ‘When I’m living my dream life in 2034, will I be grateful for the actions and behaviours I chose today?’

In other words, +1 days reflect yes and -1 days reflect no to this highly personal evaluation.

I’m curios to ask, what do you think about this phrasing and also this data point? Does it look valuable to you? Why, why not?

How you might phrase a similar question for yourself will depend on your inputs (subconscious and otherwise), goals and intentions.

To create clarity around this gut feeling I’ve spent many hours writing about my future in varying degrees and forms. Using ‘The Airport Exercise’ written about in Pat Flynn’s book Will It Fly and via journaling both on computer (yeah, in Notion) and with pen and paper. The more clearly I can sense my future in my imagination, the taste, smell, sight, sound and feel of it, the more clearly I can evaluate whether I’m on the right path to get there.

How can I know for certain whether this path is the right one? I can’t! But I never let something as fun as uncertainty stop me from taking a leap of faith.

Problems:

This experiment hinges on consistency.

Tracking habits and behaviour is the only way I’ve defined a proof / disproof. Highly likely that qualitative measures will begin to appear when I have the baseline week of data tracking recorded and beyond. I’m relying on sheer will power to continue and maintain tracking consistency. I expect this will be fine until life gets busy or hectic (during travel, large project deliveries etc).

Self observation can be tiring.

This experiment relies on lots of unbroken self observation. Experience tells me this kind of tracking has a high emotional toll. What experience, you ask? I once wrote every single thing I did every fifteen minutes for three weeks. This experiment almost broke me, with very high highs and very low lows, yet the reward of self knowledge was immense. The rollercoaster I believe had much to do with maturity and attachment to outcomes. With more experience, patience and detachment this time I think I’m much better prepared for what to expect.

Alignment requires articulation and isn’t very scientific.

To define a +1 or -1 day (aligned or misaligned to my dream future) I need clarity on what 2034 looks like. This clarity isn’t easy to come by. While I am naturally a dreamer, articulating in enough detail to cause real vivid expectation and vision costs a lot of brain power and concentration. Plus, nobody can help! I feel like I’m setting sail into the night sky with only my guts to guide the direction.

Value judging my behaviour offers unknowns.

Actions and behaviours aren’t black and white. By trying to answer the question of whether a choice is aligned with my dream future or not, I’m introducing a wild forcing function into the ecosystem of my consciousness. I have no doubt this force will be a net positive pressure, but it comes with costs I haven’t experienced before. Tracking my actions each fifteen minutes is one thing, defining and articulating their inherent value is completely another. I’m not sure what to expect here.

Wishing life away.

If you’re going to try something like this, keep an eye on how self-observation affects you. Constant self awareness and continuously asking ‘is this behaviour aligned with my most ambitious future?’ can do funny things! For me it’s really important to remember to appreciate and enjoy the life I have now, even while building and focusing on the life I want in the future. This balancing act requires conscious effort in the art of being - which sounds like a bunch of wank. In practice this means I track some very simple behaviours like ‘Mindful Breathing’ and ‘Delight Someone’. If I gain financial freedom and physical fitness but don’t have good relationships, who cares?

Sheer time cost.

This write up has already taken me four hours across three days (the exact number is three hours and fifty eight minutes as I write this!). This time cost will of course increase as I self observe, organise a baseline, journal to create targets, then apply the Pennebaker method and report my findings. I’ve got a lot of other things competing for my time: career, business, content to create, a wonderful partner, so it’s not easy to say no to all that so I can indulge my addiction to data collection! I justify this experiment by telling myself it will be super high leverage if I can pull this off. Easily the most valuable thing I could possibly spend my time doing as it has infinite upside, so long as I can manage the downside and still maintain my other responsibilities.

Theory:

Pennebaker journaling method.

Apparently one of the most widely scientifically validated and peer reviewed methods of journaling for healing.

Brought to the mainstream by Andrew Huberman in his podcast on it. The scientist who brought this technique more attention than any other is named James W. Pennebaker who’s also written a few books I’m keen to get my hands on including Expressive Writing: Words that Heal that outlines the method and Writing to Heal: A Guided Journal for Recovering from Trauma and Emotional Upheaval.

The airport exercise.

The main method by which I articulate my dream lifestyle in 2034.

Popularised by Pat Flynn in his book Will it fly? the method asks you to cast your mind and imagine you’re in an airport five years in the future (he picks five years because that’s typically what you can somewhat realistically imagine). You bump into somebody you haven’t seen for ages, more than five years. They ask you ‘omg how’ve you been?’ and you answer from a deeply grounded and centered place ‘I… have actually been incredible.’ You think about it and realise, yup, your life is absolutely how you would design it in every way imaginable. Now you reel yourself back into the present day, pull out a pen and paper and write in as much detail as you possibly can about what you tell them.

Obliger personality temperament.

I am an ‘obliger’ which is my main reason for posting all this.

Knowing my personality temperament has been a game changer, it’s kind of like finding the hidden control panel in my brain. I can get to the secret knobs and dials and much more effectively influence my behaviour consistently than I could before I found this. Super exciting if you’re as much of a nerd for personal growth as I am! The ‘Obliger’ temperament comes from Gretchin Rubin’s Four Temperaments framework (you can do her test for free on the website). The short story is: I’m highly likely to do what I tell others I will do, therefore I tell as many people as will listen so I’m super compelled to go ahead and follow through.

The slight edge.

Heaven and hell aren’t waiting for us after we die, they’re right here in this very moment.

Reading The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines Into Massive Success by Jeff Olsen gave me a perspective I always wanted but could never find. It gave me a simple answer to the question: ‘If everyone knows what they ‘should’ be doing, why don’t they do it?’ This experiment is massively driven by ‘the slight edge’ in its examination of not just the big life changing impact of trauma healing, but also the slight, almost invisible impact by examining the smaller stuff, inconsequential day to day habits and actions.

The law of diminishing intent.

If you delay taking action, your likelihood of never taking it shoots right up.

I came across this theory through John C. Maxwell which he got from Jim Rohn. I’m regularly wrestling with the reality of this law in my everyday life because I have so many ideas so often that I don’t have the resources of time or money to pursue. This is the underlying reason of why I really want to create more freedom for my partner and I, because I’m so tired of saying no to great ideas! Imagine an iceberg where everything that I do and publish is the 1% that makes it through the resource barrier, and the 99% is frustratingly locked, hidden away in some Notion database hoping to see the light of day.

The gap and the gain.

Measure from how far you’ve come to feel good, measure how far you’ve got left to feel bad.

This book by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy has become a key defense in my mental health over the past few months. I think attempting any kind of big-and-crazy tracking or behaviour change experiment needs to include a basic understanding of these concepts.

Meta:

I will post updates here as I go and on my blog.

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Preparation Phase

Baseline - Thursday 28/03/2024

Day four of habit and behaviour tracking.

Day one I recorded seven hours worth of data, the next two days recorded twenty hours worth of data. I’m getting used to it! The emotional toll so far has been very low. I think it’s important when tracking habits and time to not judge it.

I do have an unexpected problem. The habit tracker I’m using asks for me to choose between two different forms of tracking, either concurrent tracking where multiple habits can be recorded at once, or non-concurrent where it’s only a single use of time available to be tracked.

I lean more toward single-use and the implications for mindfulness feel immediate. How often do I spend my time doing ‘two things at once’ (in which case I’m really doing less than either)?

Plan update:

The original plan was to track for roughly a week or so while completing preparation for the experiment, then to begin the Pennebaker Method next week.

After having read more about the Pennebaker Method and finishing Andrew Huberman’s podcast episode on it, I’m going to extend the period of preparation for at least as long as it takes to read James W. Pennebaker’s book on the writing method.

Trauma is no joke.

Reprocessing it can cause people to have psychotic or depressive episodes and I already have a genetic disposition toward schizophrenia.

If you’re thinking about doing an experiment like this, take your time to set yourself up for success!

Interesting post.

I have never heard of Pennebaker before although I now have a copy of hiis 2007 retrospective paper thanks to Google Scholar. Checked out the price of those books via Amazon; currently listed at over $50 US.

Will be equally interesting to see how you mix quantitive and qualitative data together.

Cheers. Yeah pricey for the journal one.

It’s actually got its own short quantitative and qualitative survey for each day of writing, cool to see. I’ll borrow what works and share about it when I cross that bridge.

Preparation Phase

Baseline - Saturday 30/03/2024

Day six of habit and behaviour tracking.

Gathering the Baseline

This time tracking app is insane. I’m learning new fancy features every day. I love how the design is so obvious and simple it requires no tutorial or lessons. Just begin, fool around and figure it out really intuitively.

It’s clear that a lot of effort from many people have gone into the Simple Time Tracker.
I’m not sure on how best to slice my day up, whether a new day should default begin at midnight or around when I tend to rise or fall etc.

Stick with midnight because :man_shrugging: If you have any suggestions or input please share!

Many small decisions like this I’m making on the fly as I go.

This can be tough because the temptation to maximise for the endgoal is strong, but doing this requires lots more brain power and time. I gotta remember that what matters today is taking the step I can, and trust the end to work itself out as I go.

Pennebaker’s book on Journaling
I’m 30% of the way through the book on journaling. The author writes in a cheeky way inviting the audience to hold skepticism for his entire life’s work. I find his tone humble and endearing.

The Flip-Out Rule

If you do intend to try something like this please do read the book by Pennebaker.

It includes a tonne of very helpful context and set up, for example ‘the flip-out rule’ (which I hope is named after this hilarious scene) which basically states ‘if you think you’ll flip-out by writing about that topic, don’t write about that topic’.

Simple and straightforward.

Don’t Share Your Writing

He has a lot to say about the risks of having other people read your writing.

Mostly boiling down to the chance of having people react in the wrong way potentially making emotions worse. I imagine this comes down to validation and depth of perception. Sometimes the feeling of being misunderstood hurts worse than the feeling of being invisible.

Having shared my own story via podcast I can attest to an enormous amount of struggle I faced after the episode aired. Found it very surprising very irrational and emotional my thoughts became for pretty much the entire day.

Of course that was only triggered by the introduction of a ‘faceless audience’ concept, before that day the expression of pain and history only happened between the interviewer / podcast team and myself.

Very interesting implications around experiment design and security of journal entries as it relates to the kinds of people around you (for example if you’re interested in trauma healing because you have complex trauma it’s probably because you have or had people in your life who have zero regard for your boundaries, invalidate your experience and use your vulnerabilities against you, all important to consider if thinking about journaling things that might be used against you).

Ritual

Writing context is important enough to have a chapter of its own.

I’m not surprised given my experience with psychedelics. Set and setting are the western, fast food version of what ancient civilizations have practiced for thousands of years. Ritual matters. It’s why we bury our dead, have wakes, celebrate birthdays. It’s why tribes chant before certain practices. It’s why we have rites of passage. It taps into something deep inside us.

I’m a bit of an over-engineer so while I’m tempted to go all in on designing ritualistic writing practices I will resist and just go with something simple like lighting a candle and extinguishing it to begin with. In the future though if this practice works for character design and I continue with it I’d like to layer new aspects in (such as invocation or prayer).

Design Flaw

Reading the book has shown me a pretty big flaw in the experiment design.

The ties between my (little t) traumatic events and the impacts they have in my life are weak. It’s hard to trace back the reason I have avoidant or dopaminergic tendencies because it’s not like a big T trauma with a huge inciting incident like a car accident to target etc.

The links are weak at best for what I’m planning to target. But the risk is relatively low compared to the potential upside - so long as I abide by the basic guidelines (like the flip-out rule) in the book, so I’ll just keep it in mind as I go ahead.

Correlation / Causation

It could also be that successful experiment is correlative not causative, meaning higher self observation and awareness combined with decisions to pursue slow dopamine sources (such as exercise and mindful breathing) are the real heroes, even though I happen to be doing an experiment on trauma healing through writing. Or even that it’s something I haven’t really got my eyes on, in any case I’m keen to collect whatever observations I do.

Journaling yesterday I think I discovered the first topics I’d like to devote to writing about, I’ll continue to grow the list as I go, reading the book and preparing for Change Attempt One.

Overview
Preparation (:point_left:t4: you are here)
Targeting / Selection
Change Attempt One
Review / Reflection
Change Attempt Two
Review / Reflection
etc. ad infinitum.
Experiment Wrap-Up (?)

I originally expected Preparation would last a week or so, but I actually begun drafting the write up of the original post on the 26th of February 2024 (over a month ago as of right now). It took me multiple passes to write the first post (up above) and is now taking me more passes to clean and clarify exactly what I’m planning to do, while refining the how, why and desired outcomes.

I don’t mind taking something like this slow because tracking and logging the experiment is just as important as completing it.

When I’m dead I hope there’s a long list of experiments like a kind of breadcrumb trail for anyone who finds themselves facing the same struggles I have.

Picking Writing Topics

Given the now obvious design flaw (that I’m using a big T trauma-healing technique for a behaviour change experiment, which may be a scalpel when I need a hammer - or vice versa…) I want to add a bit more weight to the odds of designing character change.

Here’s a loose draft outline of how I plan to select / target a memory including a bit more around intentionality before and after.

Targeting / Selection

  1. List the specific behaviours I’m either avoiding or that I want to replace.
  2. Pick the one most significant for this week.
  3. Write about it in unfiltered journaling looking for memories to trace. Ask questions like: what emotions are present around this behaviour today and when did I first feel this way?
  4. Find a memory to target, related to the emotion, feeling and behaviour.
  5. Write about the target outcome for transformation including natural reactions to specific triggers attached to the behaviour (in other words, write from future-state Said’s perspective about precisely which behaviours happen based on identified triggers, how he experiences life, the world and decision making - this will act as a bar by which I can compare future journal entries to).

Change Attempt One
6. Do the four of days of writing.
7. Reflect / review.

I imagine over time I will build some of these processes into somewhat of a templated shape with questions etc. Pennebaker includes a simple questionnaire in the guided journal for each day of writing, including some basic quantitative questions with a space for qualitative reflection. I can clone this for ease of both input and number crunching in Notion.

FYI I have negligible academic experience so when I use the words quantitative and qualitative I’m probably bastardising them.

Being part of this community has given me the confidence to do big tracking experiments in the past, and to start using graphs and charts. I very much intend to improve my tracking, statistical analysis and data presentation skills, by doing stuff and making mistakes and learning.

NLP

It seems rather obvious now, having written all that out - what I’m really attempting to do is in the domain of NLP.

I think I’ll focus on doing Change Attempt One as soon as I finish this book (quickly as possible) and after that I will finally start looking into NLP - been meaning to for over a decade.

Timeline

I suspect to begin Change Attempt One mid-way through April.

See you soon!

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Targeting / Selection Phase

Baseline - Tuesday 23/04/2024

Twenty eight days of baseline habit and behaviour tracking.

Gathering the Baseline.

Upon writing this update I found a hiccup in my design.

The original plan was to decide ‘yes or no’ for every single day, counting the day as a +1 or -1. I haven’t done that! I’ve been tracking hours, habits and behaviours diligently, building a solid database of what my hours roughly tend to look like from day to day and week to week. But I haven’t yet got a simple daily yes or no.

I thought I’d bake it into my standard daily tracking system, forgetting that I’ve not really been using this properly for some time, not having the momentum to touch base with it each night before bed like I used to.

To remedy this here’s the plan, go back through the data and:

  1. ‘Gut check’ its value. Does it look accurate or like I’ve missed too much? Is there a realistic capture of social media? (I can compare metrics against phone screen data to see how inaccurate it is).
  • Apply the simple ‘yes / no’ in retrospect to all previous days.
  • Rebuild a momentum plan for daily accountability including inclusion of new ‘yes / no’ judgement.

Notes on Tracking

It has been pretty easy to maintain regular tracking.

I decided to use the ‘two or more event’ feature which allows tracking of more than one event at once, meaning the data will be a little messy to make sense of in the future if I do want to view hours and slice and dice.

I chose to turn this feature on because sometimes, for example I’ll want to track two things at once such as ‘public transport’ and ‘reading for growth’ both of which occur simultaneously. I have thought about adding tags for ‘active’ versus ‘passive’ to some events in order to potentially make future Said’s job a little easier, but in the end this messiness is fine as the real valuable numbers will come from the ‘yes / no’ count.

If hours are messy in the future (for example with 28 hours of data recorded over a 24 hour day) so be it.

This wasn’t a problem for me in the past because I used to update my google calendar to reflect my actions through the day, often this meant skipping the nuances of having multiple things to track which was fine.

Finished the Book

It was a very easy read and I’ve recommended it to a few people straight away.

The book talks about finishing the activities at the time of reading, so you’re not going ahead and ruining some aspects of the experiment with future thinking knowledge and expectations. I disregarded this, electing to read the entire thing before running this experiment. I chose a few reasons for this, mostly being that I’ve made a mountain out of a molehill by choosing this big way of tracking and recording behaviour change rather than the simple 1, 2, 3 of literally just write for fifteen minutes a day and see what happens after four days.

The book has many SUPER INTERESTING journal prompts and I’ll be referring to it probably for years to come.

Overview

Preparation

Targeting / Selection (:point_left:t4: you are here)

Change Attempt One

Review / Reflection

Change Attempt Two

Review / Reflection

etc. ad infinitum.

Experiment Wrap-Up (?)

Timeline was off once again, I expected to be completing Change Attempt One by this point already, had a few people close to me pass away so elected to maintain my standard habits for a while longer before introducing this journaling into the fray.

Here’s how the ‘picking writing topics’ checklist originally looked:

Targeting / Selection

  1. List the specific behaviours I’m either avoiding or that I want to replace.
  • Pick the one most significant for this week.
  • Write about it in unfiltered journaling looking for memories to trace. Ask questions like: what emotions are present around this behaviour today and when did I first feel this way?
  • Find a memory to target, related to the emotion, feeling and behaviour.
  • Write about the target outcome for transformation including natural reactions to specific triggers attached to the behaviour (in other words, write from future-state Said’s perspective about precisely which behaviours happen based on identified triggers, how he experiences life, the world and decision making - this will act as a bar by which I can compare future journal entries to).

Change Attempt One

  1. Do the four of days of writing.
  • Reflect / review.

Seems like a solid plan so today I’ve gone ahead and completed all of this, writing it into my experiment log in Notion, tagged for ‘private’ meaning not to be published.

I’ll be writing about my results in broad sweeps of course, but Pennebaker’s advice was basically to 100% keep your actual writing as private as possible and that makes perfect sense to me.

Writing about the target memories without going to deep was actually a bit tough! Felt myself choking up a little despite my best efforts to keep it light.

I’m looking forward to having a bunch of journal entries here for the experiment itself which I’ll be able to run different kinds of statistical analyses on. Even at a simple / shallow level of for example highlighting all negative vs positive emotion words. Let alone going deeper and running proper analyses such as on past present future tense word counts, or on first second or third person use, or on which names or people show up, all that kind of thing.

I’d love a journal analysis software or website so if you know of something like that please let me know!

Or if you’d like to collab and build one, let’s talk!

Change Attempt One

The dates, target topics and memories are selected and ready to go.

Locked and loaded!

Baseline data including a more clear sense of ‘yes / no’ information will be coming shortly, with a date and time set aside to really review and trawl through existing data.

Then after that the times and days are set for when I’ll be able to lean in and really write some stuff out.

I’m planning to do the writing after night time gym sessions so that’ll be interesting to see how my energy levels go through the week.

Wish me luck, see ya soon!

Good luck and thank you for this report. I added a “project logs” tag, hope that’s ok, it’s good for admin purposes to be able to sort out the core self-tracking projects from the topic based discussions.

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Thanks!

Yeah no sweat I’m finding the self tracking stuff has been very insightful actually. I’ll be back this month for an update probably.

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Overview Review Reflection One

Over a month ago I completed Change Attempt One.

Outcome

I think it worked? Time will tell.

Two weeks ago I had 5 minutes recorded of doomscrolling, this past week 2 minutes.

Key actions I believe helped, to expand later;

  1. I gave myself full permission to doomscroll.
  2. I married the process and divorced the results.
  3. I told people in my life.
  4. I remained flexible in my expectations.

Hypothesis

The main target of behaviour change was doomscrolling. I hypothesised that tracing core emotions, finding the root memories of those emotions and then writing about them using the Pennebaker journaling method would yield a reduction in doomscrolling behaviour recorded.

The number of recorded hours will now just be referred to as the number of hours. This is important to distinguish if you’re going to try this experiment as my behaviour was manually tracked therefore does rely on honesty, intrinsic motivation and experience with tracking. The android app I used is incredible I cannot recommend Simple Time Tracking enough, but I must warn you to start small or even with a pen and paper. Consciously observing your time does funny things to you, I started many years ago so I’m really familiar with this territory now, but when I first started it basically sent me on a manic rollercoaster for a few weeks. If I had to guess, the mania came from the combination of a) the most extreme period of creative productivity of my life followed by b) a massive chemical crash that typically comes after intense periods of focus for me. I’d never experienced anything so extreme, this post includes a rambling account of the experience plus some lessons learned on the way.

Method

I ended up writing for four days in a row at roughly 20 minutes each at the same time before bed.

I sat before the mirror in the warm glow of the candle and cold glow from my laptop.

The writing went into a digital logbook on Notion.

I am looking forward to seeing this database in say a year or two from now as I expect the qualitative data will be extremely powerful for gaining insight into my character, strengths and limitations.

Here’s a photo of the entries, including this one.

(I’d love to use or design some kind of self-analysis dashboard that can read the text, surface insight and analysis to help me make sense of my experiences of life, if anyone has any data driven journal assistant type programs please let me know. I have a rough outline to design one when I’ve got more time flexibility. Ideally it would have settings and sliders to basically shift the lens it’s applying to what it reads. ie: help me see common themes where I; write with gratitude, include first person or third person, discuss painful memories, ask empowering or disempowering questions, give myself cudos or congratulations, discuss my old man, dream about the future, etc.)

The experience of doing the writing really surprised me, I uncovered memories and events I didn’t know were so important to me. It was an emotional exercise, sometimes stirring deep anger and frustration.

In retrospect I could have prioritised self care over this period to a higher degree, I think at least partially that’s possibly what led to the results being so poor so quickly.

Results

Here’s how many hours I recorded doomscrolling.

I define doomscrolling as using social media without the purpose of a) connecting with people directly and b) creating or uploading signals for connection.

Minutes doomscrolling per week

Interesting to note, week 19 is where the writing actually occurred.

Coincidence?

Doubt it.

It was an intense level of doomscrolling perhaps due to stirring the dust on those memories, maybe increasing my reliance on dopamine to cope in general?

Doomscrolling is certainly functional, the same way fast food is functional. It serves a purpose, meeting a need for those with more money than time. But the cost benefit skews badly very quickly, from short to long term if you count other costs (like health and wellbeing).

Contemplations

1) I gave myself full permission to doomscroll.

I think with behaviour change we often push too hard on ourselves, squashing not just the behaviour but also the underlying emotions or needs driving that behaviour. As a result the action shows up even more aggressively later.

What helps in the short term (suppression) we pay for in the long term.

In Systems Thinking this shows up as Policy Resistance, a common trap (or opportunity) when making system change. You can see it in horrendous detail in attempts to control population growth across the world. A policy is enacted wanting a certain outcome, but that policy runs against the needs and desires of people within that system. The overall impact can often be the exact opposite of the desired outcome.

If the needs of people are being squashed by a policy there are two typical endings, a) the policy is defended with an iron fist, breeding resentment and planting the seeds of longterm discord as outcomes are more aggressively forced or b) the people defeat the policy through subversion or other means (probably causing worse outcomes than they had in the first place).

Maybe in the realm of behaviour change it’s helpful to think of myself as a small city, or at least a small village. I do have a bunch of different - often conflicting - parts who have different needs and desires, who are limited by different constraints, who observe different threats and opportunities and do not always share perspective on things (eg. doomscrolling makes depresso Said ‘feel better’ while it makes espresso Said ‘feel worse’).

Making sustainable behaviour change means having compassion for those different parts, even though they may look irrational or ridiculous at first glance.

2) I marry the process and divorce the results by staying patient.

I’ve wanted to get on here and write up a report for weeks but it didn’t feel right til now.

I’m not attached. I’ve been quietly tracking away the hours, focusing on other projects and moving other things forward in my life, I suspect this non-attachment did add a protective layer to the experiment.

Similar to the actual week of writing itself, I suspect declaring my intent to change behaviour stirs up resistance in me. It’s kinda scary if I think about it too long, knowing that this is public, but so far I’ve kept this scariness productive through, for example, taking time between experiment stages.

Patience feels critical to the success of this.

A part of this has to do with excitement. I’m growing weary of my own excitement as I mature. As a young adult excitement drove me, it led me where it wanted. Now I’m much more interested in discipline, in harnessing excitement or putting it on rails so it can drive me forward in directions of my choosing .

3) I told others.

I have other people in my life I remain accountable to, my mentors and my partner.

I told them directly what I was doing, what outcome I expected, how I expected to be affected and potentially show up differently in our relationships if things went wrong (healing trauma is not to be taken lightly, obviously - especially as I have severe mental illness very close in my family tree).

Telling other people didn’t include giving them responsibility or passing on unspoken expectations, it meant I was giving them a heads up and asked them to receive me as I process and make sense of the experiment.

4) I remained flexible in my expectations.

The original plan contained a daily tracking question.

Great in theory, but impractical in reality for reasons that cost more mental energy than I could afford.

Daily accountability hasn’t returned yet, it’s a system I have enjoyed deploying previously. I intended to fully embrace the question method of ‘was this day aligned to my greater purpose?’ and I haven’t.

Perhaps there’s more resistance there to overcome, I decided this wasn’t a hill I wanted to die on, instead opting to continue to track the hours of doomscrolling.

Even though I didn’t follow through with the original metric for quantifying this experiment, I discovered a lot. I have in the past struggled to give permission for imperfection and adapt the experiment to the reality, instead forcing reality to fit my thinking leading me into hot water emotionally or relationally.

One of my mentors fav quotes springs to mind, blessed are the flexible for they don’t get bent out of shape!

Next Up

Targeting / Selection for Change Attempt Two

I will pick another target, plan and write about it.

After reading a book on energy and consciousness I’m going to add meditation into this round.

I will practice a tantric breathing exercise while meditating because I’ve recently uncovered trauma that’s lived rent free in my life. It’s hidden between the walls of my relationships, eating up resources and energy, though I’m yet to fully articulate what the bahaviour change is that I want to focus on.

Tracking hours of doomscrolling was an easy way to quantify the validity of Change Attempt One’s hypothesis but this one will take more finessing.

Now that I’ve got the entire experiment log in my database, including both the journal entries and the different sections, I can see how this process will be templatable for ease in the future.

A simple measurement could be ‘number of minutes spent in deep breathing’ compared with ‘number of minutes spent fighting with my partner’.

Yes, I track our fights. The amount of time and sometimes the key tension, lesson or take-away.

Thank you for reading! If you have any questions or feedback please share.

I’m a novice with data and the scientific method, I’d love to hear how to improve the odds of success or even make the write ups easier or more valuable to read. Probably I’ll make a vlog series about this experiment after it’s been going for a few more cycles.

I am interested not just in the science of N=1 but also the communication. If a tree falls in the woods and I write down my observation, what good is it unless I share it with you?

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