I’m making an important change this month after noticing concerning patterns with how I was consuming content and how it was impacting me. Today I’m sharing the five red flags I could no longer ignore, what I’m doing instead, and what that means for me as a content creator. Plus, I’m sharing a challenge you can try if you’ve noticed some of these patterns in your own life.

Links

Nee-Doh Squishy Cube

Joe Casabona's Substack

Subscribe to Cat's Momentum YouTube channel.

Want to join Cat live? Subscribe to get a reminder email and a link to the live stream so you can watch the episode live and join the Q&A session.

View and add The Momentum Experiment calendar so you never miss a live recording and Q&A.

Find Cat on Instagram (@catmulvihill)

Submit a question for the podcast.

Join Cat's Email List

Cat's Website

When I first started this podcast, I was sharing my own

experiments with momentum. Usually in the last few minutes of an episode,

I would share something personally or professionally that I was trying to

change. And over the past couple of months, I've really just

left those out and just focused each episode on a single concept

or idea. But today's episode is coming

directly from a current experiment that

started a few days ago. And it's something I wanted to share

because I think that it's not just important to me. I think it could be

important to some other people. So maybe you'll recognize

yourself, but essentially this month I have chosen to

actively reset how I am consuming

content. And this comes from noticing 5

red flags that I just, I couldn't ignore. I kind of, they've been creeping up.

I've been noticing some patterns, but it did hit a point. Where I

realized, oh, this is a problem and I need to make a change. So I'm

gonna share the 5 red flags, what I'm doing

this month, and then also offering a challenge. If you

experience some of these red flags, I'll, I'll make a couple of suggestions,

not necessarily what I am doing fully, but maybe

one or two, one or two things you could try. And then also, what does

this mean for me as someone who creates content

for other people. So that's all the stuff that we are going to cover

in today's episode. And I just want to start off just getting into these

red flags and they all have to do with content

consumption and how I was consuming content, not creating. Now, the

first red flag, I call this balloon popping. For each red flag, I kind of

came up with a title or just a nickname, mostly for me

to be able to classify it. When I say balloon popping, I

am referring to The impact when I have

enjoyed something, whether that is a book that I read,

a movie that I watched, a TV show, usually it's

something that I got immersed into that world. And then what

happens is sometimes I'll search for information about it online.

So if I've read a book or watched a movie or a show,

often I will wanna learn a little bit more behind the scenes, and that is

coming from a place of excitement. Then I get online and the algorithm

realizes I'm looking for this and it starts to feed me with

people's hot takes, provocative opinions,

maybe negative, negative opinions about the thing. And

then I'll see back and forth conversation. I'll see people fighting online

about it. I get into the comments section, which you know you're not supposed to

do, but because it's something that I've been immersed in, I can't help

myself because We know negative, provocative,

those things that gets people's attention, especially if it gets you

emotional. And I am just as susceptible to those

posts as well. So then what happens is by the time I

sign off, I feel deflated. Like somebody just came and they

just popped my balloon. This excitement I had, it just drains out

of me. And even if I still like the thing, I

am left with this bad taste in my mouth. I kind of wish that I

hadn't seen everybody's hot takes and provocative opinions, and

my mood is lowered. And sometimes I actually start to question my

judgment. And I know not everyone agrees on artistic

choices. You could love something, someone else could hate it, and I get

that. But when you go online excited about something and then all these

people are just crapping on it, it just, it feels really

bad. And so I would have this kind of just lowered mood and I

didn't feel good by the time I left. So that was the first one. The

second of the red flags that I noticed

is I am nicknaming it, do you even know me?

And this is when I would get into a pattern. This

is primarily on YouTube. And so what would happen

is I would be watching quite a bit of YouTube and then

I'd hit this wall where no matter what it showed me,

nothing seemed interesting. I didn't wanna click on any of the videos. I was kind

of tired of their suggestions. And I would find myself actually saying

out loud, like, do you even know me? And this

is a sign. This is a, why is this a red

flag? It's because the YouTube

algorithm does know me and it is

serving up things that would normally be of interest to me,

but it is a sign I have way overdone it. I have

been probably watching too much. And when you

start to learn about any kind of addictive pattern, addictive

behaviors, you know that there becomes these

diminishing rewards where the same thing that was exciting before just

doesn't really do it for you anymore. And you sort of, you end up seeking

more and more. You want something that's more interesting or more outrageous or

something that's gonna really pull you in. And this was

a big sign that if there's nothing that interests me,

it's actually, this is, this is a red flag that you've overdone it

and that your brain is actually starting, the brain chemistry's changing and

you're just not interested in the things that normally interest you. And that is a

real neurobiological shift. And so that to me is another

red flag. Now the third one, which seems like it's

in opposition, and it can be, this is, I call it lured

into the rabbit hole. Now, full disclosure, I am a

person who loves hyperfixate, or I hyperfixate.

I love deep diving into a topic. I have always been that way. That is

actually very quintessentially me. And it's how I've been wired my whole life.

If I am into it, I'm really into it. And it

might be these short bursts, but I will often deep dive something. I'll

learn all about it. And that does mean that

I tend to be susceptible to, once I start

learning about something or I'm really into something, then I will watch more and more.

Now, the reason I bring this up, it's not that I have anything against

my hyperfixations. It's that there are certain occasions, the

red flag is when I am learning about something

I genuinely wanna make a change in my own life with,

but I am, instead of doing the thing,

I am watching other people do the thing. And there

are some times in my life where it's true procrastination. It's just me

avoiding doing the thing by learning about it, just saying, oh, I'll just

watch one more thing, one more thing. But in this specific

example, I noticed, and I'll share a recent one. So

every, I don't know, 6 months or so, I start to get really into the

idea of decluttering. And I think it's just usually cyclical where I just

don't start to notice until a tipping point in my house where I say, oh,

I really gotta do something about this. And I have a few people that I

really admire. I like their approaches. And so sometimes

I will maybe put on a podcast or watch a video just to

inspire me and get me into action. And recently that was happening.

I went back to some of my favorite people. Dana K. White is,

uh, A Slob Comes Clean. Love her content, love her podcast,

and usually just listening to an episode or watching a video will be enough

to get me going. And I actually did recently start

decluttering, donating things, selling things, and

that's great, except on a recent Saturday morning. While

drinking a coffee, was watching a video with the full intention that when I'm done

my coffee, done the video, I'm just gonna go keep at it.

Instead, I ended up spending 90 minutes, maybe 2

hours consuming more and more and more because the algorithm

kept serving up things it knew I wanted to watch.

And my, basically my brain, my attention got hijacked. And so I

spent more time just wanting to see the next video. Oh, well, of

course I wanna watch a live example of how you clear out a room without

actually making a big mess that you're left with later. And

my morning's gone and I'm not doing the thing. Now, in this case, it

wasn't procrastination. It was just that I was letting the algorithm pull

me in and go down this rabbit hole and pull me

away from what I actually wanna be doing. I'll admit sometimes

it's procrastination, but in this case it was just this stuff just seemed too

good and it was just hooking me. And then I just, I was spending time

watching other people do the thing I actually wanted to be doing.

Now the next one, I call this restless consumption, and I

know I'm not alone with this because it is

increasingly common for someone to not be able

to get through watching a thing without doing

something else or without a second screen. We know

movies, people can barely get through movies anymore. Now

companies, especially the streamers, when they're working with producers, they

will say, have something, have action in the first few minutes,

otherwise they won't pay attention. Make sure that you are repeating the plot

over and over again throughout the movie because people aren't paying attention.

We know people don't have sustained attention anymore and it's

changing how people make content, but also

even half-hour shows. I,

I can't really just sit still during it. I will find maybe I'm pulling

up my phone, maybe I start doing the New York Times puzzles or

something while that's on, and I really do struggle to just sit still and

consume something. And I, I know that that

is a sign that my attention is

just like many of us. Suffering. And I

don't— that was a red flag. I don't like this. And I know a lot

of people have it, but I definitely was starting to notice that this was an

issue as well. I just could not sit through one thing

at a time. Now, reading a great fiction novel, I'm still

pretty good at that. The last one, this is what

I'm calling irrational impatience. And this one is actually, I

think, what tipped me over the edge of saying,

Okay, something's really got to change here. I was getting

angry at the inability to speed up

videos. Now let me backtrack. For a very long time,

I would listen to podcasts probably a little bit like

1.2, 1.25, just a little bit

faster. And I thought to myself, okay, that's not an issue.

Although anytime I heard it at 1x, if I heard, let's say they

have a little intro song for the podcast, I'd say, oh, is this the actual

speed to the podcast or hearing people talk and think, oh, is this how slow

they actually talk? So I did recognize that yes, listening to

things a little bit faster when I actually do listen at

1x, it definitely felt slower. However,

progressively over the last, I'd say

5 months, 6 months, it's gotten, I've gotten less

patient. I've started watching things at 1.5,

1.75. And because of the

2x, um, on Instagram. So on a reel,

you can tap the side of the screen and you can watch a

reel on 2x speed. So if somebody is a

bit of a slower talker naturally, I would just hold it down and watch it.

But even sometimes if someone was a quick talker, I would watch it 2x and

it's very aggressive, but I would get through more and I'd get through them faster.

And I specifically recall before

Instagram released this, I had a friend who told me,

you know, TikTok, you can 2x it. And so I can barely get through

Instagram because I can't speed it up. And I remember thinking, oh,

that's kind of a sad statement. And then it happened to me

where the exact same thing was going on because now

suddenly I could 2x these reels. I could get through them

really quickly. Now, anytime I couldn't

speed up something. I was getting really upset by it and feeling

also that really, really restless feeling. So watching a story on

Instagram, which presumably I'm following this person, if I,

why can't I just listen to them tell a story? When I would see how

long it was taking, I was like, oh, I don't know if I can, I

don't know if I have patience for this. And then the

kicker and the thing that really got me was YouTube Shorts.

So I actually not a huge YouTube Shorts person.

But more and more I would notice that they would, one,

they're serving up more shorts than ever, but on my phone

I would try to speed up the short and I couldn't. And I am embarrassed

to say how many times I would, this, this whole definition of

insanity, I would try just, maybe there's a secret

place on the screen that you can tap and it'll actually make it go faster

because I had tried tapping every single icon, every menu item,

and I could not get these things to speed up., and I was

getting irrationally angry. It's just unwarranted how mad

I was getting that I couldn't speed up a short. By the way, it's a

short, but because I had now gotten used to speeding up everything, this

was becoming the norm for me, and I could not

tolerate 1x, and I was getting mad, and I think

I was actually getting mad, like audibly, but the other thing is

that I was starting to missed the whole

point. I was so fixated on how do I get through this

faster that I wasn't hearing anything they were

actually saying. And then if I did wanna consume it,

I would have to go back and watch it over. And then I was watching

it at 1x and then I was feeling angry about it. It's

not rational, but my brain had changed and

all of these together said,

Whoa, you need to do something about this. And so that's what

I did. I, I just, I realized, especially towards the end of

last month, I need to do something different. So my

experiment for the month of March is resetting consumption,

consuming other people's content. I have removed social media

apps from my phone. I am going to stay off of

the feeds. So no Instagram, no LinkedIn feeds. I can

still DM. In LinkedIn. I also am

going to greatly reduce YouTube viewing,

like greatly, dramatically. No more just opening it to browse to see what's

up. If I want to learn something, or maybe I wanna watch the trailer of

an upcoming movie or something, I can go and search out a specific

video, watch that, and then get off. But even then,

it's risky because I will start to see

things that it's recommending for me. And what I should probably do is just sign

out of all the YouTube accounts that I have. And then that way, when

it pops up, it won't, the algorithm won't be luring me in.

The other thing I am going to do is to take a 2-week break

from this recording this podcast. Now that's partly, it

just coincides nicely with scaling everything back, slowing way, way down,

but also my birthday's coming up and I want to take a little break for

my birthday. So it's not totally about this experiment. The

other thing is that I want to spend

more time with sort of slower consumption. So more time

reading nonfiction books and more time doing

things like piano lessons, which I had, I was

on a bit of a roll and then I kind of paused again. So I'm

picking that back up again. I'm also, I've been learning Japanese

for over a year and I want to spend a little bit more time being

mindful. And also not just using kind of app-based learning, but also sit down with,

I have a Japanese textbook from when I took a class at the local college.

So just kind of a slower way to learn

things, to be creative, more writing. And I'm also carrying

around a little notebook that I got. So it's just thin. It's

just a little bit bigger than my phone. And I carry this with me throughout

the day so that if I get an idea, maybe I want to look something

up. I will just write it down there instead of my default, which is as

soon as I think of something, I need to take action on it. I'm trying

to just really, really, really slow and reset, I guess, kind of my

nervous system, but also my patience. And I do wanna give a

quick shout out to my friend Joe Casabona, who has

been this year especially really scaling

back his digital world and doing more

hands-on, more analog things. And he has been a source

of inspiration for doing these kinds of things.

He's completely off a number of the social media apps,

just gone. I think he's still on LinkedIn, but

he has also been sharing on, he's got a Substack where he's sharing his,

what he's doing, what he's learning about trying to embrace more

hands-on, more analog, less reliance on the phone, and just some of the

changes he's making. One of the things I wanna share is

just some early, early observations. I'm on day

4 of this experiment, and I noticed a couple

days ago during my piano

lessons, I really wanted to speed it up. I felt

bored during the lesson. I was like, this is going slow. And my

brain was saying, oh, this feels so tedious. This feels so slow. And I wrote

it down in my little notebook of that's an observation. That I

was struggling to get through it and I just pushed myself,

just get through this. Sometimes you're not going to

necessarily enjoy a lesson or something like that. Sometimes you might feel

frustration. Just go with it and sit there. The other thing is

that I was, I watched, uh, the show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. It's

a show I like, and I was originally watching it while I was eating

a meal, but when the meal was done, I could not

just sit and only watch. I noticed I ended up, I did

grab for my phone and then I was distracted and I did not fully capture

it. So yesterday when I decided

to watch a show, one of the things I did is

I made sure I could not see my phone, but I also have around the

house these little things. They are, this is my mini one that I keep at

my desk if I'm on a Zoom call, because then I can just squeeze

it so that I'm just listening to a person, but I'm doing something with my

hand. I have one of these near my TV and I was using

that and I actually was able to get through the entire show by just kind

of having something to do with my hand. But I

am noticing how uncomfortable it is to just sit

and consume something. And those are just some

initial reactions that I have had. And the

other piece So I mentioned a, a challenge. So

if anything I have said to you feels familiar,

especially speeding everything up, consuming multiple things

at a time, I'm gonna encourage you to try, it's

like a 1, just a 1x challenge, meaning

try, if you always speed things up, just try consuming at

the regular speed, whether that's a podcast, an audiobook, or a

video. And only one thing at a time. And if you need

to, maybe grab one of these guys. They're, they're pretty great. Something

that, something you could have in your hand if you feel the need to reach

for something else. And then also the other thing I'll

say is if you tend to rabbit hole, then

it's one video for a topic. So if you are going to learn

about something, maybe do a little research and just find, is there a

credible video or is there one person I trust and I'm just gonna watch I'm

going to watch one video on this today.

If tomorrow I realize I still want to learn more, I can go back. But

instead of just watching, you know, one

video, I often will just watch 10. And if I watch 2, why wouldn't I

watch 3? So just saying one video for a topic and then just stopping

there for the day. It's, it's really for me, I think I'm trying to reconnect

with my patience because that is the biggest thing that has

been impacted. And now I can't seem to put this thing down, so I'm just

going to put this away.

And it's about recognizing diminishing returns and

that watching 10 videos, that they, I'm just not

getting that much. By the time you've watched a few on a certain topic, you're

probably starting to hear a lot of the same things. It's rare to get

a lot of different things. Now, finally, I want

to share what this means for me as a person who creates

content, because clearly this is. A departure. I said that I

have, you know, separated from, or separated from,

I am not on social media feeds, etc. Now, I

have talked about experimenting with Instagram. I've been

very inconsistent with Instagram. And I do think there is a part

of me that has always struggled because I know the

impacts of short-form content on your brain. And that it

can make people less patient. It can ruin people's attention

spans. The fact that we can't get through a movie anymore because

we're so used to these quick hits and quick things and just go, go,

go. And what does that mean if I'm someone who is contributing

to that? So I am going to be over these next few

weeks taking times to reflect on where

does content fit. Now, I think things like podcasts, I still

listen to podcasts, by the way, during this experiment, I am listening to them on

1X and yes. It is just not

easy. Sometimes I just want to speed it up, but I am

noticing that, you know, longer form content, there's more room for nuance. There's more

room to think about things. I am not against that. I actually really like that

as a tool. I like long form content, YouTube,

podcasts, et cetera. But when it comes to short

form, I really, really want to think hard about

that and where does this fit for me? For me and what are the

considerations, knowing what it does to people's brains. It's really hard for me

to connect that, that, or disconnect that. It'd be a lot of cognitive

dissonance. It's a lot of making concessions of saying, well, I

know that it's not good for the consumer, but it might be good for me

and my business. Well, well, what's going on there? So I'm not

judging people, by the way, who are using it. I'm, I'm just for myself

personally, what does this mean? And I do

know that from a business standpoint, as a

person who, you know, I consider myself an educator,

content has been a part of my business, but I, I feel

very strongly that I would like to have a sustainable

business that does not rely or is not dependent on

social media to be successful, that I can run

a business the traditional way through

relationships, networking, referrals, speaking

to audiences as a way that I

can get my message out there, I can educate, but

that the performance of content is not

going to determine at the end of the day whether I can pay

my mortgage. And I am keeping the

podcast, um, in case that was a question at all. I really do think that

podcasts are a great avenue for sharing information. But these are all things that

are going on through my mind. I will admit I feel

a little embarrassed when I describe some of the things I've been struggling

with, and especially the irrational

impatience. That is not a side of me I like seeing, and I know

that it also might surprise some people who have trouble

picturing me maybe yelling at a phone. Or

getting mad at an algorithm or getting mad that I can't do

something that might not necessarily jive in your brain with what you

know of me, but it's very, and, and that is not how I want to

be. That is very much a result

of compounding impacts of how technology

is interacting with my brain. And I think it's really important to

take care of yourself, to take care of your mood, To take care of your

wellbeing. All of those things were being impacted with the way

I was consuming content for a while.

And so I'm gonna see how this goes. I will share

more when I, you know, after a few weeks and, and maybe that'll be the

next episode. Maybe it'll be in a couple episodes back, but I will share sort

of what I've learned. In the meantime, I do, I would love to hear from

you, whether that's in the comments or sending me a direct message, but. Have

you noticed this? Have you made any changes? Are there things that you've

really appreciated that have made a positive

impact? And also, if you try your own experiment, I'd love to hear how that

goes, because ultimately I want to spend

more intentional time on the things that really matter to me, the

pursuits that matter to me, and protect

my brain, my attention, and just not let it be

hijacked. By a bunch of companies

that frankly, their success depends on

the deterioration of our attention. That's not

cool. And I wanna make some changes. So that's my

experiment. I will circle back. In the meantime, I wish you good

luck with your momentum.