Imagine a future in which you are either too busy, distracted or tired to do what needs to be done. There will only be two types of people: those who let their attention and lives controlled by others; the other is "indistractable" - they have mastered self-control and refuse to be manipulated by time-wasting diversions.
In this book, Nir Eyal explores the question of how and why we are all so easily distracted by the world around us.
He shared a story that he was once he was spending time with his daughter one day and his daughter asked him what would his superpower be? But Nir was busy attending to his phone so he dismissed his daughter and said, “Just a second, I just need to respond to this one thing.” After a while, when he finally looked up from his phone, his daughter was gone.
Later on, when he asked his daughter what her superpower would be, she said she wanted to talk to animals. When asked why she said so that she can have someone to talk to when mummy and daddy are too busy working on the computers.
So Nir decided it’s time to change. This story resonated with me because I am like him as well. I recalled there were many times my kids were calling me and I was distracted by the phone, iPad or laptop.
If you are also facing such situations like me, then I highly recommend you to check out this book.
Ok, so let’s talk about what is distraction. Before that, let’s understanding why is traction. Nir defines Traction as moving you toward what you really want to do or move you towards your goal. The opposite is distraction. distraction moves you away from your goal. Being indistractable means striving to do what you say you will do.
There are 4 main parts in the Indistractable model that help us to be indistractable. They are mastering the internal triggers, make time for traction, hack back external triggers and prevent distraction with pacts. I love these because they are super tactical and applicable to our lives.
Mastering the Internal Triggers
Nir says that motivation is a desire to escape discomfort. We have to find the root causes of distraction. We should learn to deal with discomfort rather than attempting to escape it with distraction.
Stop trying to actively suppress urges—this only makes them stronger. Instead, observe and allow them to dissolve.
Next, reimagine the internal trigger. Look for the negative emotion preceding the distraction, write it down, and pay attention to the negative sensation with curiosity rather than contempt.
We can also reimagine the task. Turn it into play by paying “foolish, even absurd” attention to it. Deliberately look for novelty. For example, how can we reimagine writing task? Research task? Or even mopping the floor? For me, if I’m mopping the floor, I will reimagine it as an agility workout and deliberately have fun with it.
Next, how you talk to yourself matters. Your willpower runs out only if you believe it does. Avoid labeling yourself as “easily distracted” or having an “addictive personality.”
Make Time for Traction
This is super important. We have our own values and things that we deem important. However, we tend not to safeguard our time and let people steal our time and in the end, we could not accomplish what we set out to do.
Nir says that a to-do list has serious flaws. By writing out all the things in the list is not clear. Each task may get pushed out when things crop up.
He suggests that we can plan our time according to the 3 domains in our life. They are you, relationships and work. In order to live our values in each of the domain, we must reserve time in our schedule to do so.
The effective way to make time for traction is through time boxing. Psychologists call this “setting an implementation intention”, which is a fancy way of saying what you are going to do and when you are going to do it.
So remember to time box your day, Schedule time for yourself. Plan the inputs and the outcome will follow. Schedule time for important relationships. Include household responsibilities as well as time for people you love. Put regular time on your schedule for friends etc. And lastly, don't forget to Sync your schedule with stakeholders :)
Hack Back External Triggers
These few chapters contained many tactics we can use to hack external triggers like emails, group chats, meetings etc. Of each external trigger, ask: “Is this trigger serving me, or am I serving it?” Does it lead to traction or distraction?
When it comes to defending your focus, signal when you do not want to be interrupted. For example, putting a “Do not Disturb” sign, wear headphones to tell your colleagues that you are focusing on some deep work.
When it comes to emails, if you want to get fewer emails, send fewer emails. When you check email, tag each message with when it needs a reply and respond at a scheduled time.
When it comes to group chat, get in and out at scheduled times. Only involve who is necessary and don’t use it to think out loud.
Make it harder to call meetings. No agenda, no meeting. Meetings are for consensus building rather than problem solving. Leave devices outside the conference room except for one laptop.
Use distracting apps on your desktop rather than your phone. Organize apps and manage notifications. Turn on “Do Not Disturb.” There are many other useful tactics mentioned in the book so I highly recommend that you check it out.
You got find ways to prevent distractions
Prevent Distraction with Pacts
Nir talks about the idea of pre commitments and they are powerful because they cement our intentions when we are clear headed and make us less likely to act against our best interests later.
He also said that the most effective time to introduce a precommitment is after we have addressed the first three aspects of the indistractable model.
There are 3 kinds of precommitment that we can use to keep ourselves on track. They are effort pact, price pact and identity pact.
The use of effort pacts is to make unwanted behaviours more difficult. For example, I use this app called Forest to keep myself focused for a set amount of time. Each time I press the plant button, I am growing a virtual tree. If I use the phone and interrupt the growth, the virtual tree will die. This thought of killing the virtual tree added an additional effort for me to use my phone and it is a visible reminder of the pact that I made with myself.
Next, we can use a price pact to make getting distracted expensive. For example, you can make a price pact with an accountability partner that if you don’t achieve certain tasks by a certain time, you will have to pay him $100.
Next, we can use identity pacts as a precommitment to a self-image. Identity greatly influences our behaviour. People tend to align their actions with how they see themselves.
For example, if you want to cut back on eating meat, instead of saying I am trying not to eat meat when you are with friends. It may not be effective because they may still persuade you to try the meat dish. But if you say, I’m a vegetarian, it’s much more effective because vegetarians don’t eat meat.
After reading this book, you can also call yourself indistractable. Use this new identity as a rationale to tell others why you meticulously plan your day, refuse to respond to notifications immediately!
Wrapping up, Indistractable made me realize that we can overcome distraction when we know where your triggers come from and work to eliminate them.
For me, the biggest factor in distraction were the notifications on my phone, so I decided to set my phone to airplane mode when I need to do deep work, rearrange the apps that I need to make an extra effort to open my social media apps. All these little tactics help me to create traction and move towards my goals.
Let me know in the comment section below what tactic you are using to prevent yourself from getting distracted? Share your methods with me and others so that we can all learn together.
If you wish to buy the book, you can get it from here.
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