Help! I’m Addicted To My Medium Stats!

There’s no doubt that I have an addictive personality. I’ve talked about it on this Medium before (I’ve been waiting to make this pun for days, literally days).

And an addiction to Medium statistics is a much safer and responsible addiction than other addictions I’ve had in the past. So far, I haven’t blacked out and spent $500+ on a weekend of Medium.

But if I’m being honest with myself, I am absolutely addicted to looking at my medium stats, opening the app and seeing a notification, or checking my Partnership Program income.

Since I started posting every day—with what started with a post a daily on December 15th, and was a 30 day challenge that I’m not likely to stop on January 15th—I’ve been checking Medium about every 15 seconds, non-stop refreshing, or constantly thinking about Medium.

I’m obsessed. Extremely obsessed.

At the same time, I’m not sure it’s a bad obsession unless it starts interfering with my ability to write fiction, which it hasn’t—so far. I’ve been thinking more introspectively about myself, about writing, about blogging, poetry, and my growth as a writer and author. That’s not bad.

But still, if I’m going to be addicted to Medium, I wanted to have some positive exponential growth while I’m addicted, so I gave myself a rule.

If I go on Medium, for any reason, I have to do something to improve my statistics.

This includes commenting on someone’s post, clapping for someone else’s, following people, reaching out to a publication, or simply reading someone’s story in full and learning something.

It is called anchoring habits and I learned about it in the book Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear.

You anchor a bad habit to a good habit and it’s great at creating exponential growth and self-improvement. I also do this with smaller things like my Facebook and Google ads (I work for a digital marketing company), or clean something when I walk into a room, and other smaller, positive habits.

Anchoring is Working

I haven’t been on the platform long, and I probably don’t know or understood a lot about the platform, but thinking to myself “how do I grow this platform?” every time I’m on it is working.

The stats might not be impressive to someone with thousands of followers, but to me, this growth has been positive and exciting. I’m looking forward to keeping my daily posting streak going, and I’m not going to stop after my 30 day challenge.

In fact, I’m interested in upping it to twice a day, with a poem a day, or posting my first novel to a publication, one chapter at a time.

It’s all very exciting.

P.S.

If you’re addicted to a website, I cannot recommend enough “Self-Control,” a website blocking program. You set the websites, the time, and cannot turn it off, no matter what you do.

If that’s not enough, I also use a lock-box for my phone that I bought from Amazon. Same thing, but more of a physical beast. You set the time, put your phone in, and get whatever you need to get done, done.

When I’m writing fiction or doing anything that needs my focus, both are essential. That’s because, as I also learned in Atomic Habits, changing your environment is a way better solution than relying on self-control.

Are you addicted to Medium? What have you done about it?

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