I Was Drowning in LinkedIn Scrolls and Toilet News. Here's How I Fought Back.
How I stopped starting every day distracted and behind
Hello Adventurer,
Here’s how my morning routine looked a few weeks ago:
6:30am - Grab phone. Check LinkedIn. Someone built a startup in 3 weeks. Someone else quit their job to go full-time indie. Scroll, scroll, scroll.
6:40am - Still scrolling. Open news app. War. Death. Climate disaster. Great start to the day.
6:50am - Quick Instagram check. Reels. More reels. A funny cat video. Anime dopamine. Keep going.
7:00am - Finally get up. I realized I was starting every day by filling my brain with other people’s success stories, world disasters, and random entertainment. No wonder I felt distracted, and behind before I even sat down at my desk.
Maybe you’ve experienced this too?
When Did This Start?
When I was younger, my content diet was simple: video games and 50 Cent. (I can still listen to 50, but I’m not playing as much anymore and I don’t have the biggest G-Unit poster on my door)
So when did I develop this need to:
- Check LinkedIn every free moment for new success stories
- Read news first thing in the morning
- Watch random reels before bed
These apps are designed for THEIR needs → attention, ad revenue, engagement metrics. Not our needs.
Most of the time, this content doesn’t give me anything useful. Maybe once a week I find something worth discussing with others. But the cost? Mental fragmentation. Distraction. Starting my day in reactive mode instead of push mode.
I was out of flow before flow even had a chance to start.
My New System
Blocked All Morning News
I removed news apps from my phone entirely. When I open my mobile browser now, I have two tabs permanently open:
Tech Crunch (tech industry news, not doom scrolling)
The New Stack (technical depth, not hot takes)
These give me industry context without the useless spiral and it giving me a value.
Curated Newsletter Diet
Instead of random LinkedIn posts, I subscribe to a few chosen newsletters. They arrive once a week (usually weekends), so I have time to actually read and think about them. No algorithmic feed pushing me to consume more.
AI Research Agent for Deep Dives
When I need to research a topic now, I don’t manually search and filter through 50+ tabs anymore. I run a research sub-agent that:
Searches the web faster than I can
Filters for the specific details I need
Gives me a summary to review and verify
It’s not perfect. I still need to double-check things, but it gives me back hours of time that I used to waste on research rabbit holes.
FOMO Management: Embracing JOMO
Here’s the hardest part of this whole system: the fear of missing out.
What if there’s breaking news I need to know? What if someone post on LinkedIn something useful? What if I miss the one viral reel that changes everything?
Then I remembered my girlfriend dropped this wisdom bomb: "You need to have more JOMO” - Joy of Missing Out.
To make this mindset shift stick, I started tracking it in my Level Journey app. Every day I successfully ignore the doom scroll, I gain XP. It gamifies the discipline - turning “missing out” into actual progress I can see.
(Level Journey is a RPG habit tracker I’m building in public - currently on hold. The irony of using an app to track NOT using apps isn’t lost on me, but it works.)
Turns out, I haven’t missed anything important. The truly important stuff always finds its way to you eventually.
Is It Working?
Is this system perfect? No.
Do I still sometimes open LinkedIn and scroll for 10 minutes? Yeah.
Do I sometimes miss important news because I blocked everything? Probably.
This is only week three, so take this with a grain of salt. But so far:
I start my mornings feeling calmer
I’m less distracted during deep work
I actually remember what I read (because there’s less of it)
I feel more in control of my attention
That’s worth the trade-off.
Want to Try This?
If you want to try something similar, here are three experiments you can run:
The Morning Phone Ban - Don’t touch your phone for the first hour after waking up. See how it feels.
The Curated Browser - Replace your default browser homepage with 2-3 specific sources you actually want to read. Remove everything else.
The News Block - Block all general news sites for one week. Notice what you actually miss (probably less than you think).
If nothing works, just throw the mobile and have always book/manga with you :)
Your turn.
What’s the first thing you check when you wake up?
Have you tried any content diet systems?
I’d love to hear what’s working (or not working) for you.
Thank you for sitting by the campfire. 🔥
P.S. - If you want me to share the Claude Code research agent setup, let me know. I’ll send it to you.
P.P.S - I recommend reading The Greatest Eastern Developer if you’re thinking about starting a new manga or manhwa.