Want to accomplish something hard? Avoid the trap of dopamine stacking.

I once read a note that resonated with me, in a book by Tim Ferriss ^[1], called "The 4-hour work week":

If you prioritize properly, there is no need to multitask. It is a symptom of “task creep”—doing more to feel productive while actually accomplishing less.

You should have, at most, two primary goals or tasks per day.

Do them separately from start to finish without distraction. Divided attention will result in more frequent interruptions, lapses in concentration, poorer net results, and less gratification.

In Hacker News, I then read a comment under advice to combine "hard" activities with pleasant ones:

This motivational advice is deeply misguided. These are very clear examples of "dopamine stacking".

The idea is that by combining a stimulating activity (eg watching show/music) with a motivation-requiring activity (eg working out/cleaning) you can get an initial boost in motivation to accomplish the hard task.

It works (initially) because the stimulating task (show/music) is giving you a dopamine increase which feels like motivation to complete the hard task.

The problem is that if you repeat this behavior with any consistency, your dopamine system quickly adjusts the high activity-combo level of dopamine as a new baseline. Soon not even the dopamine you get from the combination is sufficient to motivate you to accomplish the task.

– https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45276987

Hmm, "dopamine stacking". Is that a widely used expression?

When exercising becomes a bit dull, people start bringing an energy drink, put on a song playlist or get a gym buddy to join for the work out. If the excitement from watching a sports game starts to fade, people combine it with some pizza, drinks, invite people over to watch together, bet on the match… In order to maintain the pleasure from an activity, people start to layer multiple rewards onto a single routine.

Those multiple rewards combined in one, synergize to squeeze greater dopamine release than it would otherwise, providing a more profound sense of pleasure.

Although that might sound harmless at first, combining multiple rewards is detrimental for our capacity to produce dopamine in the long run. That’s because by layering multiple rewards you essentially add new conditions to a single activity that will have to be met from now on in order to get the sense of pleasure.

– https://www.altiusmindinstitute.com/blog/sustaining-motivation-via-dopamine-regulation/

The number of search results looks like everyone else has long been familiar with this phenomenon. Oops.

How do we then motivate ourselves to accomplish the hard thing?

Let us just start. Let's say to ourselves:

I'll just write one true sentence.

Just like we say at other times: "I'll just take a look at this news site, and leave if there's nothing interesting to read today", and the next thing we notice is: it's late in the afternoon, and we've read a dozen of stories, each only seemingly relevant to what we want to accomplish.

Even in the cover picture of this post you'll notice a cup of coffee next to the writer. My impression has been that beside every writer there must be a cup of fresh coffee.

And the reality is: I'm either writing, or drinking my coffee. If there is a cup of coffee beside me, I'll drink it first, and only then write – because I would consider it unjust to leave the coffee to become cold while I do other things.

This way there is never a cup of fresh coffee beside me while I'm writing. And there need not be one beside you either.

I've long been falling into the trap of combining activities to make the main activity bearable.

What is the thing I need to just make a next step in today?