I’m currently a bit over 100 pages into Louise Erdrich’s The Mighty Red. Why I originally picked up that book currently escapes me. It’s not my typical genre, and I’m not familiar with the oeuvre of Erdrich’s work. But it’s still been a fun read.
When my alarm went off this morning (I’m writing on President’s Day, when I am, gratefully, free from work for the day), I had every intention of picking up The Mighty Red and knocking out another 20 or 30 pages before starting my day. I just had to wait for the coffee to brew, feed the dog, and… oh. I’m on Instagram. Again.
It wasn’t intentional, but after a few minutes of stretching and coming back to life, it felt as natural as breathing to grab my phone and start scrolling. From there– even once the coffee pot let out a delightful chirp to tell me my lifeblood was ready– I failed to reclaim my focus and come back to my book. My mind was already ping-ponging between a million different things. Why hadn’t I used Brick to lock down my phone before bed like I usually do? Oh, right… weed gummies.
As an update on my first edition of the newsletter, my overall system is still working pretty well. To recap, I’ve been trying to reduce opportunities for distraction and maintain a quiet momentum. Here’s how:
Before bed, use Brick to lock down my phone. I can’t scroll Instagram after snoozing my alarm if I can’t access Instagram.
So far, I’d rank this strategy an 8/10. It is super effective, but has the downside of being fairly easy to get around if I just carry my phone to my physical Brick device when I get up to make coffee.
Start my day with journaling. I don’t use specific prompts or criteria to decide what to journal about. It’s just a free flow of capturing reflections as they enter my head, often reflecting on the prior night’s dreams and my plans for the upcoming day.
Journaling is a 10/10. I feel less stressed and more alert when I start my day writing by hand. My adherence is probably a 6/10, though. The narrative that I need coffee before I can do anything that I’ve somehow managed to convince myself of sometimes requires expending willpower to overcome, and sometimes it leads me to snooze my alarm and piss away my journaling time.
No social media before lunch. This one has been tough. My job requires me to spend a lot of time thinking about Reddit. While Reddit lacks the mind-numbing sound of a platform like Instagram or YouTube (at least how I use it), it still lends itself to periods of doomscrolling and distraction.
I’d give this tactic a 9/10, but my implementation of it a 4/10.I still need to figure out how to appropriately balance my work responsibilities with my personal obligations to decrease my dopamine dependence.
Overall, I think these three tactics are effective, but I need to be more strategic in how I implement them. The gamer in me envisions each tactic as a skill that requires willpower (mana, actions and bonus actions, magicka, action points, PP, whatever you prefer, really) to use. That pool of willpower feels finite, so there are times when adherence breaks down because I choose not to expend that bit of willpower to do what I know I should do. What I WANT to do.
The recognition that my actions and values still aren’t aligned– even with better awareness of what those values are– prompted me to start teasing out what turns out ot be a very complicated question: is willpower limited? Why does it feel difficult to choose conscious action over automatic actions in the morning?
Here’s what I’ve found so far.
Get Out Your Goggles and Closed-Toed Shoes. It’s Science Time.
An initial bit of Googling led me to psychologist Roy Baumeister's concept of "ego depletion" — the idea that choice, self-regulation, and willpower all draw from a common inner resource. My mana pool metaphor, basically, but with academic credentials. His research found that people who'd already had to make a bunch of active choices were significantly less likely to persist through a follow-up task. The tank was empty.
Experientially, this makes sense. I don't know how many times 4 PM has rolled around on a high-stress, meeting-intensive day, and my colleagues or I will say things like "I'll follow up on this in the morning — my brain is currently numb."
But Baumeister's paper was published in 1998. 1998 also brought us super-low-rise jeans and Clinton's infidelity scandal (justice for Monica, btw), so can we really trust that it's still super relevant today?
Enter Carol Dweck — if you've ever heard the term "growth mindset" or been bludgeoned by it in a performance review, you have her to thank. Dweck and her colleagues fired back at Baumeister with a counterargument: whether depletion happens depends on whether you believe willpower is limited. The mana pool isn't fixed — it's as big as you think it is.
Here's where I land: I actually think Dweck's research makes Baumeister's stronger, not weaker. Most of us perceive our energy dips as proof that willpower is finite, which reinforces the belief that makes it feel finite. The "I sent an email, I deserve a nap now" memes are in the calculus there somewhere. For a deep dive into Baumeister and Dweck, check out the blog post I published here on the topic. Mmm. Meaty meaty science.
So the fix is — what? Change our beliefs? Adopt a growth mindset and unlock infinite willpower? My dear, if it were that simple, I wouldn't be writing this newsletter. We'd all be manifesting good vibes and Henry Cavill's physique left and right.
Psychological, Meet Physiological
When looking at early mornings, a third phenomenon comes into play: sleep inertia.
Neuroscience isn’t my strong suit, but in reviewing some of the literature on the phenomenon, there are a few key takeaways worth surfacing.
Definition: Sleep inertia is a temporary state of grogginess and impaired logic that acts as a "third process" transitioning the brain from sleep to full wakefulness.
Brain Involvement: The prefrontal cortex—the brain's command center for willpower—is the last part to "re-boot," leaving you physically incapable of high-level focus for up to an hour.
Manifestation: Peak impairment occurs in the first 30 minutes and can be more cognitively draining than being awake for 40 hours straight, making you highly susceptible to low-effort distractions.
Here’s what I find so fascinating about this and why I think it’s an appropriate bit of grounding context for both Baumeister and Dweck’s research studies when it comes to early morning willpower: whether or not we have a growth mindset that would normally allow us to overcome perceived limitations of willpower, that mindset is governed by our prefrontal cortext, meaning that for the first half hour to hour upon waking, we’re at our most likely to think we’re limited.
So, what I want to start testing this week is the theory that shaking off sleep inertia sooner will improve adherence to good habits.
Side note: I hate how self-help gurus harp on the perfect morning routine, yet here I am trying to optimize mine. It sucks when annoying people may be on to something. Let me know if you’re also trying to solve for an “object in motion stays in motion” lifestyle via low-dopamine mornings.
I’ve already mentioned that waiting on coffee is sometimes a dealbreaker for me, so I can’t say “oh, just chug that bitter elixir and go,” and assume I’ll be on the right track. Some research (err… listicles) suggests that movement, washing your face, and light exposure help your body shake off sleep inertia sooner.
I have a sunrise alarm clock with a built-in light, but it’s not quite at therapy levels of brightness. I think before I invest in another gadget (I don’t want to create more plastic waste if I can help it!), I’ll give the other tactics a try first– movement and face washing. This means I’ll amend my tactics slightly. Now, my mornings will look like:
Get out of bed when the alarm goes off (maybe I’ll move my phone and alarm clock further from my bed so I can’t snooze within arm’s reach).
Start the coffee pot.
Wash my face (hmmm… maybe I’ll pass on my full skin care routine since I’ll still need to shower before work and don’t want to just rinse off my lotion? I’m too pale and aged to let my SPF get rinsed off.)
Stretch– probably some gentle movements that won’t require rolling out a yoga mat or anything else that adds steps to the routine, like forward folds, arm windmills, and trunk twists.
Let’s see how that goes. My hope is that after I’ve completed the stretching portion of my morning routine, I’ll feel clear-headed and able to jump into journaling with renewed vigor and focus.
See you next week with “Why I Think Classrooms Should Bring Back Blue Books, Ban Phones, and Require In-Class Writing.”
Till then,
Blake