Regarding the urge to “check what’s out there”, one simple rule I follow is: spend around an hour in the morning catching up with HN, a few reddits, a couple newsletters, and Bluesky. I completely avoid Twitter/X and LinkedIn, trusting that anything significant enough bubbles up to those other places.

Most important — do NOT check any of those the rest of the day.

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iammjm 5 hours ago | parent [-]

So you start your day passively scrolling and dopamine front-loading which basically sets the tone for the whole day… I think the “right” way is the exact opposite which is to start the day dopamine-starved and context-free and only scroll at the end of the day

	▲	cpt_sobel 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Agree with this one and can vouch for it, for a while while living closer to nature I would start my day by drinking water and taking a walk in the forest, actively avoiding screens for my first hour awake. I need to find something similar to do now, maybe water the plants...
	▲	d4rkp4ttern 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Interesting take. I should try that !