How to Get Yourself Addicted to Learning Apps

Plus, calming the inner critic...

Author

Adam Zulawski
January 25, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Hi,

Welcome to the Procrastilearning Newsletter, where you’re free to procrastinate on something healthy before you get back to work. The current format:

  • 💡 3 ideas worth procrastilearning over

  • 🗣️ 2 quotes to help you refocus

  • 🪄 1 tip to keep you on track

If you have an interesting link worth including in a future issue, just reply to this email.

3 things worth procrastilearning over

via Leonardo.ai

1. Internet "creators" are starting to need unions

After the pandemic hit in 2020, the number of people turning to the Internet to make a living rose massively. The words "influencers" and "creators" have since become everyday terms to describe the millions of 1-person businesses using social media as their front-of-house.

But this world is pretty chaotic compared to more traditional sectors. The lack of transparency and collective support is creating massive disparities and enabling corporations to exploit people. As with so many sectors, a thirst for unionisation has arisen.

What would this kind of collective action even look like? This fascinating Tech Crunch article takes a look.

The creator economy is ready for a workers’ movement | TechCrunch

Erin McGoff has 3 million followers on social media, but with the money she gets from Instagram and TikTok, she wouldn’t be able to pay for the plate of

techcrunch.com/2024/01/13/the-creator-economy-is-ready-for-a-workers-movement

2. The world is becoming more pessimistic

More specifically, "zero-sum thinking" is on the rise again. The last time it was dominant was the 1930s, and we all know how that went...

On his excellent demography Substack, Neil Howe explains recent studies confirming all this and what it might mean. (Hat tip to the Procrastilearning reader who sent me this!)

The Return of Zero-Sum Thinking

Why zero-sum thinking is on the rise—and what it means for markets and democracy.

www.demographyunplugged.com/p/the-return-of-zero-sum-thinking

3. You can replace social media with learning apps

The co-founder of Duolingo recently did a TED Talk about how they use the same strategies as social media apps to get people learning languages. It's basically an ad for Duolingo but it's enlightening.

Since that came out, the Freedom app's blog has used the video as an inspiration to broaden this concept beyond just languages. They’ve made a super useful article adding even more strategies and mindsets (while also plugging their own app - content marketing does make up the bulk of the Internet, after all). It will get you reconsidering your own Internet habits.

Addicted to Learning: Replacing Social Media with Productive Learning Habits

Do you ever feel like when there’s something you need to accomplish, somehow your social media networks become more appealing than ever?

freedom.to/blog/addicted-to-learning-replacing-social-media-with-productive-learning-habits

2 quotes to keep in mind

❝

I try to procrastinate, if I can, productively, like I'll work on something else as procrastination. Or I take a walk. Because often I find, if you get out, more things come to you.

Noah Baumbach, film director
❝

I am still learning.

Michelangelo, Renaissance artist, when he was aged 87

1 tip to calm your inner critic

Sometimes we can all be a bit hard on ourselves.

That inner critic we hear in our mind is part of our standard psychological system and is there to ensure we do and remember certain things.

But it's often on overdrive.

A simple way to keep it in check is to talk in the second person to help distance yourself from it.

  • If you think: "What am I gonna do about this mess I've made?"

  • Try: "Adam, what are you gonna do about this mess you've made?"

I first heard this tip in an interview with psychologist Ethan Kross a few years ago. You can get a free PDF with more strategies on his website:

Chatter Toolbox - Ethan Kross

Chatter is a common problem that many people experience: We try to think through our problems logically but our minds run amok instead. We focus our attention inward, hoping to tap into our inner coach, but find our inner critic. Fortunately, science-based tools exist to help people resolve the tension between […]

www.ethankross.com/chatter-toolbox

That's all for this edition. Many thanks to you all for reading. Elsewhere this week, I’ve been mostly listening to this.

Adam

p.s. If you’re a Notion user, did you know they just brought out a calendar for it? Worth checking out. And if you’ve just read those two sentences with no clue what Notion is, I truly apologise.

Sent this by somebody else?