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I want you to be honest with yourself for a moment.
When was the last time you sat down to work, truly work, and didn’t check your phone for four hours?
When was the last time you read a book without reaching for a dopamine hit in the middle of a chapter?
When was the last time you had a thought that wasn’t interrupted by a notification, a ringtone, or the sudden, anxious urge to see what other people are doing?
If you are like 99% of people, the answer is “I can’t remember.”
We are living in a crisis of attention. We are the most “connected” generation in history, yet we are the most disconnected from our own potential. We are everywhere, so we are nowhere.
We have convinced ourselves that we can build empires in 15-minute bursts. We think we can learn complex skills like Rust or design high-converting websites while simultaneously keeping up with group chats, trending topics, and the 24-hour news cycle.
We are lying to ourselves.
The truth is, you are not multitasking. You are failing. You are bleeding out your most valuable resource—your focus—one notification at a time.
If you feel stuck, if you feel like you are working hard but moving sideways, if you feel “busy” but have nothing to show for it, this post is for you.
It is time to go dark. It is time for Monk Mode.
The Great Attention Heist
Before we talk about the solution, you need to understand the enemy.
You are not “lazy.” Your brain is under attack.
Every app on your phone—Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn—employs teams of the smartest engineers and psychologists in the world. Their entire job is to hack your dopamine receptors. They are not building tools for your connection; they are building slot machines for your attention.
They are mining your focus like it is gold. And right now, you are giving it to them for free.
Every time you scroll, you are making someone else rich. Every time you react to a “trending topic,” you are serving someone else’s agenda. You are a battery powering a machine that doesn’t care about you.
This constant state of distraction has a cost. It destroys your ability to do Deep Work.
Deep Work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It is the only way to master a hard skill. It is the only way to produce elite-level code, art, or writing.
In an economy dominated by AI and automation, “shallow work” (emails, meetings, admin) is worthless. Robots can do that. The only thing that remains valuable is the ability to solve hard problems. And you cannot solve hard problems when your brain is bouncing around like a pinball.
If you want to win in this new world, you have to reclaim your mind.
What is Monk Mode?
Monk Mode is not a productivity hack. It is not a “pomodoro timer.” It is not a “digital detox” where you go camping for a weekend.
Monk Mode is a deployment.
It is a dedicated period of time, usually 90 days, where you commit to a singular mission and eliminate everything else.
It is a decision to disappear.
You cut the social events. You cut the alcohol. You cut the mindless scrolling. You cut the “networking” dinners that never lead to actual work. You erect a wall between you and the world, and you do not let anyone cross it.
This sounds extreme. It is extreme.
But look at the results of “moderation.” Look at the people who try to “balance” building a startup with a heavy social life. They burn out. They produce mediocre work. They stay average.
Greatness requires sacrifice. If you want to be in the 1% of creators, you cannot live like the 99% of consumers.
For 90 days, you treat your life like a monastery. You are there to work, to learn, and to grow. Everything else is noise.
The Three Pillars of the Protocol
In my new guide, “MONK MODE: The 90-Day Deep Work Protocol,“ I break down the specific system I use to ship products like Tasflex. It is built on three non-negotiable pillars.
Pillar 1: Isolation
This is the hardest part for most people. We are social creatures. We crave validation. We have a fear of missing out (FOMO) that is hardwired into our DNA.
But if you want to find your own voice, you have to stop listening to everyone else’s.
Isolation doesn’t mean you become a hermit forever. It means you prioritize your mission over your social standing. It means saying “No” to the Friday night drinks because you have a Chapter to write. It means deleting the apps from your phone so you aren’t carrying a cocktail party in your pocket.
When you isolate yourself, a strange thing happens. The anxiety of “keeping up” vanishes. You stop caring about what people think because you aren’t watching them.
Silence is the loudest sound in the world. In that silence, you will finally hear the ideas that have been drowned out by the noise.
Pillar 2: Deep Work
Isolation is useless if you just use it to play video games. The purpose of the silence is Deep Work.
The protocol demands a minimum of 4 hours of Deep Work every single day.
This is not “checking emails.” This is not “tweaking the logo.” This is the hard, uncomfortable work that moves the needle.
- Writing the code.
- Drafting the book.
- Building the sales funnel.
- Learning the Rust syntax.
During this block, your phone is in another room. Your door is locked. You do not switch tasks. You do not multitask.
You will find that 4 hours of Monk Mode focus produces more output than 40 hours of “distracted” office work. When you compound this over 90 days, you become dangerous. You become undeniable.
Pillar 3: The Reset (Dopamine Fasting)
You cannot do Deep Work if your brain is fried.
If you spend your rest time scrolling TikTok, you are not resting. You are blasting your brain with high-intensity dopamine. This makes “boring” work (like reading a documentation file or writing an essay) feel painful.
In Monk Mode, we reset the baseline.
You cut the junk food. You cut the porn. You cut the algorithmic feeds.
You replace them with “low dopamine” activities: Walking. Lifting weights. Reading physical books. Journaling.
When you stop over-stimulating your brain, your focus returns. You start to find joy in the difficult things. You start to crave the work, because the work becomes the most interesting thing in your life.
The Daily Protocol: How to Structure the Day
So, what does a day in Monk Mode actually look like? It is boring. And that is the point.
Step 1: The Morning Protocol You do not touch your phone for the first 60 minutes of the day. Period. If the first thing you do is check WhatsApp, you have already lost. You have let the world dictate your mood. Instead, you hydrate. You move your body. You read 10 pages of something difficult (philosophy, technical manuals, scripture). You set the intention for the day. You win the morning so you can win the day.
Step 2: The Deep Block This is the main event. You enter the workspace. You put on the noise-canceling headphones. You execute. If you hit a wall, you do not open a new tab. You stare at the screen until the solution comes. You embrace the boredom. Boredom is the threshold to breakthrough.
Step 3: The Shutdown You cannot sprint forever. In the evening, you disconnect completely. No screens after 8 PM. Sleep is not a luxury; it is a biological necessity for neuroplasticity. If you want to learn faster, you need to sleep deeper.
The Pain of the Process
I will not lie to you. The first two weeks of Monk Mode are hell.
You will feel withdrawal symptoms. You will reach for your phone phantom-ly. You will feel lonely. You will feel bored. You will wonder if everyone has forgotten about you.
Your brain will scream at you. It will say, “Just one check. Just one peek. What if there is an emergency?”
(There is never an emergency.)
This pain is weakness leaving the body. It is the addiction breaking.
If you can push past the first 14 days, the fog lifts. You enter a state of flow that feels like a superpower. You start waking up excited. You start seeing progress that used to take years happening in weeks.
You realize that the “social life” you were so afraid of losing was mostly superficial anyway. You realize that the people who matter will still be there when you get back, and the ones who disappear were never really there for you.
The Return
The goal of Monk Mode is not to leave society forever. The goal is to return better.
After 90 days, you re-emerge. But you re-emerge with a finished book. You re-emerge with a launched product. You re-emerge with a body that is 10lbs lighter and a mind that is razor sharp.
You re-emerge as a Sovereign Individual.
You will notice that everyone else is exactly where you left them. They are still complaining about the same things. They are still watching the same shows. They are still waiting for the weekend.
But you? You have leveled up.
You have built the machine. You have the asset. You have the leverage.
This is the path of the creator. It is a lonely path, yes. But the view from the summit is worth the climb.
The Challenge
You have a choice today.
You can close this tab and go back to your feed. You can get a quick hit of dopamine. You can tell yourself, “I’ll start next week.”
Or, you can decide that enough is enough.
You can decide that your potential is worth more than a notification. You can decide to go dark.
I have written the manual. “MONK MODE” contains the exact schedule, the tools, the rules, and the philosophy you need to survive the 90 days. It is the roadmap for the deployment.
But the map is not the territory. You have to be the one to walk it.
The clock is ticking. The world is getting noisier.
Disappear. Do the work. Shock the world when you return.
