Intention before action - my 2025 resolution and my attention stack 🌱
Intention before action – this is my primary resolution for 2025.
What does this actually mean? I want every action of mine to be preceded by a moment of conscious decision. A moment where I pause and ask myself: What do I want to do, and why? Then, I carry out exactly what stems from that intention—nothing more, nothing less.
In practice, it might look like this:
Before reaching for my phone, I ask myself: Why am I doing this? What am I looking for? Similarly, before opening Slack or email late at night or over the weekend: Why am I doing this? What is there to gain? What might I lose if I do?
Before spending money, I check: Do I really need this? Why do I need it? How does this expense align with my financial goals?
When I feel the urge to stop working on a task, I pause and analyze: Why do I want to switch activities? Can I finish the current task after all? And if I truly need a break—what kind of break, and how can I best support my body and mind?
Why is this so important to me?
I’ve noticed that all too often, I surrender control of my actions to my environment, especially the virtual one. I allow a chaotic stream of thoughts to pull me toward random activities. This robs me of my sense of agency and, in the long run, negatively impacts my well-being and mental health.
My goal is to rebuild self-trust and regain the confidence that it is I—not my external environment—who controls my behavior. I believe that the sense of agency developed this way will translate into other areas of my life (which I might write about here in the future).
To help me pursue greater mindfulness, I use a set of tools I’d like to share—perhaps someone else will find this “attention stack” useful. A significant portion of these tools focuses on conscious social media use. I’ve been working on this relationship for several years, and experience has taught me that simply using tools isn’t enough. For me, journaling and gaining a deeper understanding of the emotions accompanying my scrolling were key. The tools described here are now an essential part of my daily life, helping me maintain a hard-won, healthier relationship with social media.
I believe that using tools without working on your internal approach is like building a castle on sand—it’s a structure that can easily collapse. Nevertheless, I see them as valuable support, even at the beginning of the journey toward a more conscious life.
My “Attention Stack”
Social Media
- Unfollowing everyone on Facebook and Instagram – this isn’t the same as unfriending; on both platforms, you can simply “mute” or “unfollow” posts without breaking the connection.
- Removing all social media apps from my phone and using them exclusively through a web browser.
- #Blockit – an iOS and Mac app that “strips away” the most problematic elements of sites like YouTube or Instagram on your phone. It only works in the browser and doesn’t remove, for example, Shorts if you’re using the YouTube app (which is why point #2 is so important). It’s a paid app but very affordable (~$1/month).
- News Feed Eradicator – a free Chrome extension that serves a similar purpose to #Blockit by removing “toxic” elements from social media feeds.
- DF Tube – since News Feed Eradicator doesn’t always work perfectly for me on YouTube, I use this additional free extension for a distraction-free experience.
- Freedom – an app that blocks selected sites and apps across your computer and phone. I mainly use it to block Slack after work hours (it can be disabled in case of emergencies). Cost: $40/year.
Finance
- Pan Paragon – a free mobile app for recording and tracking expenses (useful for scanning receipts).
Others
- Toggl – for tracking time spent on specific tasks. Plus, when I get distracted, it makes it easier to remember what I was actually supposed to be doing. The free version is more than enough for me.
- Todoist – for logging and planning tasks. I also use the free version here.
- Whenever a task pops into my head, I write it down immediately. I often tackle these small tasks when I need a break from my main work—during time I would have previously spent scrolling social media.
Food for Thought
- What does the Prevention Paradox look like in the context of advice on social media use? What would happen if everyone actually followed this advice?