Like many other entrepreneurs, I suffer from the shiny object syndrome.

That’s a fancy phrase to describe the excitement I feel on a daily basis as I encounter stuff that I’d love to own, places I’d like to visit, and business ideas I’d like to pursue.

When I was younger and reading for my university degrees, this wasn’t so much of a problem. I could read about a lot of stuff and maybe try new things out here and there, but I had a clear objective every year: pass my exams and graduate to the next year of my course.

As I grew older and started my own business, I also achieved the freedom to work on whatever I want, wherever I want, and whenever I want. That sounds great on paper, but it also means that I have to take clear decisions on the what, where and when.

That’s when the shiny object syndrome can prove to be a huge distraction that has the ability to paralyze even the best entrepreneurs and lead to them only achieving modest success in life when they could have achieved much more.

I have to fight this sense of paralysis every single day as I can’t help myself from getting attracted to many subjects out there. It could be a simple email newsletter from an airline announcing some new destinations that leads to me dreaming for an hour or more about said destinations and planning my next trip. With no real barriers to me visiting those destinations, the urge to indulge in this daydreaming is high.

I could mention a thousand other examples. For example, in business, having a WordPress plugin development business leads to me coming across many small niches that could be catered for by a new business plugin. Perhaps there is already a plugin that I use for some purpose and it sucks, and I can easily see how I can improve on it. It doesn’t take much for me to start planning out a way to conquer that niche, leading to a few more wasted hours.

The shiny object syndrome as you can see can lead to a monumental waste of time as well as a depressed state of mind at the end of the day/month/year when I realise how much time I spent investigating different directions I could take but not having gone down any of those paths.

As I said, I still fight this syndrome on a daily basis, and this is just me sharing one of the things in life that I find most challenging, so I’d love to know from others who feel the same way as I do and how they handle it. On my part, I like to think that I’ve become a bit better at handling shiny objects.

Shiny Object Syndrome Antidotes

The most important change in my behavior has been my use of a virtual buffer zone. Let me explain by giving you a few examples.

Books

I come across many interesting books that simply scream out to me and beg to be read, be it at the local bookstore, library, or recommendations from friends and peers. Rather than order them all and then get depressed due to owning a large number of unread books, I now use Goodreads to create a to-read list that I can then get back to when I’m finished with the current book or two that I have on my shelf.

Articles

Articles are another potential shiny object for me, so whenever I come across a good article I’ll simply Pocket it. I will then get back to these articles during a commute or breakfast. That was I avoid getting distracted in my productive work hours. I also never end up reading all the articles, as things that looked amazing and irresistible have a funny way of becoming the plainest and most uninteresting things just a few hours later. Funny how our minds work.

Business Ideas

Being born with an entrepreneurial spirit and mind, I am quick to spot business opportunities. However it is impossible to act on every possible opportunity, although I’d love to do so. A good technique I’ve found is to keep a list for each month containing a number of items  I want to do for that month. The first two items are the two epics (the most important achievements) for that month.

They usually are the more meaty tasks that will take some time and concentration to complete. Every feasible business idea that I get first gets listed in a list of business ideas, and at the end of each month I will evaluate the current state of things and if I want to proceed with any of the ideas in the list I’ll see where I can fit them in on the monthly calendar. You can use Trello, Workflowy, or even have a manual whiteboard process for this.

That’s about it, some insights on how I deal with the shiny object syndrome. Would love to know your experiences and thoughts on this subject.

Update January 2023 – I’ve also stopped actively using Twitter (removed app on my phone) and Instagram. I was never very active on Instagram, but whenever I did happen to open the app I found it extremely addictive and invariably brought me down, as it highlighted all the amazing lifestyles everyone seems to be having and gave me major FOMO. So I created a new Instagram account just for my own art, where I only follow artists that exclusively post art, which I in turn use as inspiration. I also love to connect with artists and this is a good tool to connect.

I am also very active in my own community (The Good Life Collective) as well as other select communities I’m in.

Update January 2021 – I highly recommend reading this and this. I also found the documentary movie The Social Dilemma to be an excellent portrayal of the dangers and damage of social media.

Update March 2017 – I have now stopped using Facebook in any meaningful way. I still have my profile active, so I haven’t technically closed the account, however, I no longer use the platform and indeed have it blocked on all my devices using Freedom.to. If you want to block it without using Freedom, you can have a look at this post. I also stopped using LinkedIn.

After one month of taking this decision, I feel great and I don’t plan on going back. First of all, I’ve gained 30 minutes to 1 hour daily. This does not only take into account direct time checking out stuff on Facebook, but also the switching cost of going from productive work to checking Facebook and back. That’s up to 7 hours per week gained, which is absolutely awesome.

Secondly, I don’t compare my life to others as much. I’m not one who typically does that, but looking at all the photos and videos of other people is directly aimed at provoking such feelings, and it does take its toll in the end.

Thirdly, I have stopped oversharing and going into petty arguments with people online. There is no point really in sharing small random thoughts or photos on Facebook, at least not to me. I found that it promotes a culture of fast consumption, where the urge to post is almost a reflex action as soon as I get served a great plate at a restaurant, hear a nice quote, or visit some place with incredible views. Now I can just enjoy the moment and focus on sharing it with whoever is present with me, because that is what really matters. This slow living style has also helped me think about things in a deeper way, and consequently post in long form on my blog rather than post shallow statuses on Facebook.

Every once in a while I hear of someone who has decided to exile himself from Facebook by closing off his account. I also know a few others who have never joined.

Myself? I’ve been a Facebook user since the very early days, having joined in 2006. That makes it 10 years of Facebook usage, yay!

When I hear that someone has left Facebook I almost always stop to think about it. A little rebel spirit inside me urges me to consider doing the same. We all know that Facebook is the biggest enemy of productivity don’t we?

Well, is it really?

I’ll be the first to admit that yes, at times I have spent way more time on Facebook than I should have. The problem wasn’t Facebook itself though, it was something deeper than that. As I have grown to be more organised and productive in general, the “spending too much time on Facebook” problem seemed to slowly fade away. I therefore came to understand that the real problem had been a lack of time management and also a lack of motivation to do the task at hand.

This year I am making a concerted effort to outsource those parts of my job which tend to bore me or slow me down, hence increasing the chances of me procrastinating and finding outlets like Facebook to entertain myself instead of doing that dreaded piece of work.

If we discount the typical problem of Facebook being a huge time sucker, the next thing to consider is whether this social network is of any value at all. Am I just part of the people watching herd? Do I use it for learning random useless tidbits on other people’s lives?

Turns out that no, I actually use Facebook for some very useful purposes.

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