How to avoid attention traps?

I consider it a downside of meds and the ability to lock in, and something to chart out in terms of how they work for you (assuming you take medication for adhd). For example, if you know it’s 90 minutes before they start working, then you need to be sitting in front of whatever needs your attention when the meds kick in, otherwise you’ll wander into an attention trap really quick.

I am trying at the moment to use a pop-up which suggests different acivities. First when opening an app and then every 15 minutes or so. Works somewhat, I read a few pages because of that, but kinda annyoing when I want to use the app and sink my time in. I try to aim it at my resolve, with texts that help me answer the question "do I really want to do that or am I just doing it because it's convenient"

Also sometimes going for 100% blocking everything just has a bad yoyo effect, maybe try more of reducing it/ replacing the time spend and allow yourself at a designated time frame to use these attention traps or something idk.

I put my phone on top of the shoe rack in the hallway so it's not always with me. Sometimes it still gets me but sometimes I'll go half a day without picking it up :)

In my experience, setting frequent alarms can help with time-blindess. Having an alarm or a pop-up go off every 20-30 minutes won't ensure you're focused on the right task, but it will build more awareness to the amount of time that has passed since you've been off-track/distracted/going on random rabbit holes.

Much how I like to make my reminders physically unavoidable where possible (e.g., need to remember to take the thing to the place? Clip my car keys directly to the thing), I like to put some physical separation between myself and my devices.

I stopped wearing a smart watch after years of everyday use, and I like to keep my phone out of reach whenever possible. This is one definite upside to using wireless earbuds -- I will listen to music while working on some project in the yard for hours and sometimes even leave my phone inside.

I'd need someone to set up parental control time limits on my phone so I can't just change the ones I make for myself.

Or I get myself to put on an informative video and that usually gets me to walk around till I'm doing tasks. After that I can switch to a podcast and keep going.

Disabling all push notifications has helped. Also having a watch instead of looking up the time on my phone. Generally doing things in an analogue way sometimes. Its also often more fun but can become an attention trap in itself. Anyone who ever spent 3h making their to do list beautiful knows.

However sometimes it will just happen. It is part of our lives to some extend no matter how good we get at avoiding them.

PieFed has a daily time limit you can set.

Here's what really worked in my 20 year battle against this. Not perfect, but a balance of powers, and still enough got done to stay afloat:

• Replacement ideas, and have them ready and in reach. E. g. I try to have an ever-lasting inflow of new comic books and graphic novels, so there is no excuse to doomscroll in bed or at the desk, even when it is a "deserved break". It's not easy though to compete with something that has been designed for addiction, to milk your dopamine.
• soft and / or hard block. E. g. a browser plugin that makes sites like this black&white after 30 minutes. Then I know that as of now, it's clearly not a "deserved treat", but bad for my health.
• for a start, don't even try to stop it, but observe thought and start an inner dialogue, such as: "what do I gain from this?"
• have clear rules, and log violations in a journal
• when you catch yourself, it's hard to stop immediately. set a 10 minute timer instead, stop when it goes off. The wonderful thing about it: For those 10 minutes, it's completely legal and guilt-free.

Uggh, I hate to say this because I have a love/hate relationship with it - time blocking with an alarm that's not on your phone.

I use alarms on my phone for calendar stuff and med reminders - that sort of thing. But sometimes need a cheap tabletop timer to get me to do something else. Sort of a jarring context-switch.

I have multiple cheap kitchen timers - if I need a reminder for something around the house I'll set a timer there, for example the washing machine because unlike the dryer, they don't have a real alarm (seriously why? Clothes left in a washer get stinky, but not in the dryer. Yet the dryer buzzer will wake the dead).