In the future, there will be two kinds of people in the world: those who let their attention and lives be controlled and coerced by others and those who proudly call themselves “indistractable.” (Page 3)
The antidote to impulsiveness is forethought. Planning ahead ensures you will follow through. (Page 3)
had just blown a magical moment with my daughter because something on my phone had grabbed my attention. On its own, it was no big deal. But if I told you this was an isolated incident, I’d be lying. This same scene had played out countless times before. I wasn’t the only one putting distractions before people. An early reader of this book told me that when he asked his eight-year-old daughter what her superpower would be, she said she wanted to talk to animals. When asked why, the child said, “So that I have someone to talk to when you and mom are too busy working on your computers.” (Page 6)
Somehow, I kept getting distracted, even without the tech that I thought was the source of the problem. Removing online technology didn’t work. I’d just replaced one distraction with another. (Page 6)
We already know what to do. What we don’t know is how to stop getting distracted. (Page 7)
This book is about what I learned as I developed the most important skill for the twenty-first century. It’s about how I became indistractable, and how you can too. (Page 7)
The first step is to recognize that distraction starts from within. (Page 7)
After all, the time you plan to waste is not wasted time. (Page 8)
While removing external triggers is helpful in keeping distractions out, pacts are a proven way of reining ourselves in, ensuring we do what we say we’re going to do. (Page 8)
What would life be like if your superpower was being indistractable? (Page 9)
Imagine a line that represents the value of everything you do throughout your day. To the right, the actions are positive; to the left, they are negative. On the right side of the continuum is traction, which comes from the Latin trahere, meaning “to draw or pull.” We can think of traction as the actions that draw us toward what we want in life. On the left side is distraction, the opposite of traction. Derived from the same Latin root, the word means the “drawing away of the mind.” Distractions impede us from making progress toward the life we envision. (Page 12)
Internal triggers cue us from within. When we feel our belly growl, we look for a snack. When we’re cold, we find a coat to warm up. And when we’re sad, lonely, or stressed, we might call a friend or loved one for support. External triggers, on the other hand, are cues in our environment that tell us what to do next, like the pings, dings, and rings that prompt us to check our emails, open a news alert, or answer a phone call. External triggers can also take the form of other people, such as a coworker who stops by our desk. They can also be objects, like a television set whose mere presence urges us to turn it on. Whether prompted by internal or external triggers, the resulting action is either aligned with our broader intention (traction) or misaligned (distraction). Traction helps us accomplish goals; distraction leads us away from them. (Page 12)
Researchers tell us attention and focus are the raw materials of human creativity and flourishing. In the age of increased automation, the most sought-after jobs are those that require creative problem-solving, novel solutions, and the kind of human ingenuity that comes from focusing deeply on the task at hand. (Page 13)
The curse is not that Tantalus spends all eternity reaching for things just out of reach, but rather his obliviousness to the greater folly of his actions. Tantalus’s curse was his blindness to the fact he didn’t need those things in the first place. That’s the real moral of the story. Tantalus’s curse is also our curse. We are compelled to reach for things we supposedly need but really don’t. We don’t need to check our email right this second or need to see the latest trending news, no matter how much we feel we must. (Page 15)
Even when we think we’re seeking pleasure, we’re actually driven by the desire to free ourselves from the pain of wanting. Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher, said it best: “By pleasure, we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul.” (Page 21)
Simply put, the drive to relieve discomfort is the root cause of all our behavior, while everything else is a proximate cause. (Page 22)
These proximate causes have something in common—they help us deflect responsibility onto something or someone else. (Page 22)
Solely blaming a smartphone for causing distraction is just as flawed as blaming a pedometer for making someone climb too many stairs. Unless we deal with the root causes of our distraction, we’ll continue to find ways to distract ourselves. Distraction, it turns out, isn’t about the distraction itself; rather, it’s about how we respond to it. (Page 23)
Most people don’t want to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that distraction is always an unhealthy escape from reality. How we deal with uncomfortable internal triggers determines whether we pursue healthful acts of traction or self-defeating distractions. (Page 24)
without dealing with the discomfort driving the desire for escape, we’ll continue to resort to one distraction or another. Only by understanding our pain can we begin to control it and find better ways to deal with negative urges. (Page 24)
As is the case with all human behavior, distraction is just another way our brains attempt to deal with pain. If we accept this fact, it makes sense that the only way to handle distraction is by learning to handle discomfort. (Page 27)
If distraction costs us time, then time management is pain management. (Page 27)
The lengths people will go to avoid boredom is shocking, sometimes literally. A 2014 study published in Science asked participants to sit in a room and think for fifteen minutes. The room was empty except for a device that allowed the participants to mildly but painfully electrocute themselves. “Why would anyone want to do that?” you might ask. When asked beforehand, every participant in the study said they would pay to avoid being shocked. However, when left alone in the room with the machine and nothing else to do, 67 percent of men and 25 percent of women shocked themselves, and many did so multiple times. The study’s authors conclude their paper by saying, “People prefer doing to thinking, even if what they are doing is so unpleasant that they would normally pay to avoid it. The untutored mind does not like to be alone with itself.” (Page 28)
Boredom, negativity bias, and rumination can each prompt us to distraction. But a fourth factor may be the cruelest of all. Hedonic adaptation, the tendency to quickly return to a baseline level of satisfaction, no matter what happens to us in life, is Mother Nature’s bait and switch. (Page 30)
Without our species’ perpetual disquietude, we would be much worse off—and possibly extinct. It is our dissatisfaction that propels us to do everything we do, including to hunt, seek, create, and adapt. Even selfless acts, like helping someone, are motivated by our need to escape feelings of guilt and injustice. Our insatiable desire to reach for more is what drives us to overturn despots; it’s what pushes the invention of world-changing and life-saving technologies; and it’s the invisible fuel that drives our ambitions to travel beyond our planet and explore the cosmos. (Page 30)
Dissatisfaction is responsible for our species’ advancements as much as its faults. It is an innate power that can be channeled to help us make things better. (Page 31)
If we want to master distraction, we must learn to deal with discomfort. (Page 31)
Bricker decided to focus his efforts on smoking cessation and developed an app to deliver ACT over the internet. Though he uses ACT specifically to help people quit smoking, the principles of the program have been shown to effectively reduce many types of urges. At the heart of the therapy is learning to notice and accept one’s cravings and to handle them healthfully. Instead of suppressing urges, ACT prescribes a method for stepping back, noticing, observing, and finally letting the desire disappear naturally. But why not simply fight our urges? Why not “just say no”? It turns out mental abstinence can backfire. (Page 33)
An endless cycle of resisting, ruminating, and finally giving in to the desire perpetuates the cycle and quite possibly drives many of our unwanted behaviors. (Page 34)
What affected their desire was not how much time had passed after a smoke, but how much time was left before they could smoke again. If, as this study suggests, a craving for something as addictive as nicotine can be manipulated in this way, why can’t we trick our brains into mastering other unhealthy desires? Thankfully, we can! (Page 35)
Bricker’s work using acceptance and commitment therapy in smoking cessation programs suggests we shouldn’t keep telling ourselves to stop thinking about an urge; instead, we must learn better ways to cope. (Page 37)
A common problem I have while writing is the urge to google something. It’s easy to justify this bad habit as “doing research,” but deep down I know it’s often just a diversion from difficult work. Bricker advises focusing on the internal trigger that precedes the unwanted behavior, like “feeling anxious, having a craving, feeling restless, or thinking you are incompetent.” STEP 2: WRITE DOWN THE TRIGGER Bricker advises writing down the trigger, whether or not you subsequently give in to the distraction. He recommends noting the time of day, what you were doing, and how you felt when you noticed the internal trigger that led to the distracting behavior “as soon as you are aware of the behavior,” because it’s easier at that point to remember how you felt. (Page 37)
The better we are at noticing the behavior, the better we’ll be at managing it over time. “The anxiety goes away, the thought gets weaker or [is] replaced by another thought.” (Page 38)
STEP 3: EXPLORE YOUR SENSATIONS Bricker then recommends getting curious about that sensation. For example, do your fingers twitch when you’re about to be distracted? Do you get a flurry of butterflies in your stomach when you think about work when you’re with your kids? What does it feel like when the feelings crest and then subside? Bricker encourages staying with the feeling before acting on the impulse. (Page 38)
One of Bricker’s favorite techniques is the “leaves on a stream” method. When feeling the uncomfortable internal trigger to do something you’d rather not, “imagine you are seated beside a gently flowing stream,” he says. “Then imagine there are leaves floating down that stream. Place each thought in your mind on each leaf. It could be a memory, a word, a worry, an image. And let each of those leaves float down that stream, swirling away, as you sit and just watch.” (Page 39)
Liminal moments are transitions from one thing to another throughout our days. Have you ever picked up your phone while waiting for a traffic light to change, then found yourself still looking at your phone while driving? Or opened a tab in your web browser, got annoyed by how long it’s taking to load, and opened up another page while you waited? Or looked at a social media app while walking from one meeting to the next, only to keep scrolling when you got back to your desk? There’s nothing wrong with any of these actions per se. Rather, what’s dangerous is that by doing them “for just a second,” we’re likely to do things we later regret, like getting off track for half an hour or getting into a car accident. A technique I’ve found particularly helpful for dealing with this distraction trap is the “ten-minute rule.” If I find myself wanting to check my phone as a pacification device when I can’t think of anything better to do, I tell myself it’s fine to give in, but not right now. I have to wait just ten minutes. (Page 39)
This rule allows time to do what some behavioral psychologists call “surfing the urge.” When an urge takes hold, noticing the sensations and riding them like a wave—neither pushing them away nor acting on them—helps us cope until the feelings subside. Surfing the urge, along with other techniques to bring attention to the craving, has been shown to reduce the number of cigarettes smokers consumed when compared to those in a control group who didn’t use the technique. If we still want to perform the action after ten minutes of urge surfing, we’re free to do it, but that’s rarely still the case. The liminal moment has passed, and we’re able to do the thing we really wanted to do. (Page 40)
As Oliver Burkeman wrote in the Guardian, “It’s a curious truth that when you gently pay attention to negative emotions, they tend to dissipate—but positive ones expand.” (Page 40)
By reimagining an uncomfortable internal trigger, we can disarm it. • Step 1. Look for the emotion preceding distraction. • Step 2. Write down the internal trigger. • Step 3. Explore the negative sensation with curiosity instead of contempt. • Step 4. Be extra cautious during liminal moments. (Page 40)
Ian Bogost studies fun for a living. A professor of interactive computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Bogost has written ten books, including quirky titles like How to Talk About Videogames, The Geek’s Chihuahua, and, most recently, Play Anything. In his latest book, Bogost makes several bold claims that challenge the way we think about fun and play. “Fun,” he writes, “turns out to be fun even if it doesn’t involve much (or any) enjoyment.” Huh? Doesn’t fun have to feel good? Not necessarily, Bogost says. By relinquishing our notions about what fun should feel like, we open ourselves up to seeing tasks in a new way. He advises that play can be part of any difficult task, and though play doesn’t necessarily have to be pleasurable, it can free us from discomfort—which, let’s not forget, is the central ingredient driving distraction. (Page 41)
Note: Reimagining difficult work as fun
Given what we know about our propensity for distraction when we’re uncomfortable, reimagining difficult work as fun could prove incredibly empowering. (Page 41)
Fun and play don’t have to make us feel good per se; rather, they can be used as tools to keep us focused. (Page 42)
Note: Fun is the outcome of focusing on the task itself
“We fail to have fun because we don’t take things seriously enough, not because we take them so seriously that we’d have to cut their bitter taste with sugar. Fun is not a feeling so much as an exhaust produced when an operator can treat something with dignity.” Bogost tells us that “fun is the aftermath of deliberately manipulating a familiar situation in a new way.” The answer, therefore, is to focus on the task itself. Instead of running away from our pain or using rewards like prizes and treats to help motivate us, the idea is to pay such close attention that you find new challenges you didn’t see before. (Page 42)
We can use the same neural hardwiring that keeps us hooked to media to keep us engaged in an otherwise unpleasant task. (Page 42)
Bogost gives the example of mowing his lawn. “It may seem ridiculous to call an activity like this ‘fun,’” he writes, yet he learned to love it. Here’s how: “First, pay close, foolish, even absurd attention to things.” For Bogost, he soaked up as much information as he could about the way grass grows and how to treat it. Then, he created an “imaginary playground” in which the limitations actually helped to produce meaningful experiences. (Page 42)
Note: Imaginary playground
Operating under constraints, Bogost says, is the key to creativity and fun. (Page 43)
Note: Be a great tinkerer
For me, I learned to stay focused on the tedious work of writing books by finding the mystery in my work. I write to answer interesting questions and discover novel solutions to old problems. To use a popular aphorism, “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” (Page 43)
The great thinkers and tinkerers of history made their discoveries because they were obsessed with the intoxicating draw of discovery—the mystery that pulls us in because we want to know more. (Page 43)
But remember: finding novelty is only possible when we give ourselves the time to focus intently on a task and look hard for the variability. (Page 43)
REMEMBER THIS • We can master internal triggers by reimagining an otherwise dreary task. Fun and play can be used as tools to keep us focused. • Play doesn’t have to be pleasurable. It just has to hold our attention. • Deliberateness and novelty can be added to any task to make it fun. (Page 44)
The way we perceive our temperament, which is defined as “a person’s or animal’s nature, especially as it permanently affects their behavior,” has a profound impact on how we behave. (Page 45)
If ego depletion is essentially caused by self-defeating thoughts and not by any biological limitation, then the idea makes us less likely to accomplish our goals by providing a rationale to quit when we could otherwise persist. (Page 47)
Note: Willpower ebbs and flows in response to what’s happening to us and how we feel
Michael Inzlicht, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and the principal investigator at the Toronto Laboratory for Social Neuroscience, offers an alternative view. He believes that willpower is not a finite resource but instead acts like an emotion. Just as we don’t “run out” of joy or anger, willpower ebbs and flows in response to what’s happening to us and how we feel. (Page 47)
A toddler might throw a temper tantrum when refused a toy but will, with age, gain self-control and learn to ride out bad feelings. Similarly, when we need to perform a difficult task, it’s more productive and healthful to believe a lack of motivation is temporary than it is to tell ourselves we’re spent and need a break (and maybe some ice cream). (Page 47)
Addicts’ beliefs regarding their powerlessness was just as significant in determining whether they would relapse after treatment as their level of physical dependence. (Page 48)
Labeling yourself as having poor self-control actually leads to less self-control. (Page 48)
Several studies have found people who are more self-compassionate experience a greater sense of well-being. (Page 48)
An individual’s level of self-compassion had a greater effect on whether they would develop anxiety and depression than all the usual things that tend to screw up people’s lives, like traumatic life events, a family history of mental illness, low social status, or a lack of social support. (Page 48)
A good rule of thumb is to talk to yourself the way you might talk to a friend. Since we know so much about ourselves, we tend to be our own worst critics, but if we talk to ourselves the way we’d help a friend, we can see the situation for what it really is. (Page 49)
Thankfully, you don’t have to believe everything you think; you are only powerless if you think you are. (Page 50)
People who are more self-compassionate are more resilient. (Page 50)
So we need to make a schedule, but where do we begin? The common approach is to make a to-do list. We write down all the things we want to do and hope we’ll find the time throughout the day to do them. Unfortunately, this method has some serious flaws. Anyone who has tried keeping such a list knows many tasks tend to get pushed from one day to the next, and the next. Instead of starting with what we’re going to do, we should begin with why we’re going to do it. And to do that, we must begin with our values. (Page 54)
We never achieve our values any more than finishing a painting would let us achieve being creative. (Page 54)
Whatever our values may be, it’s helpful to categorize them into various life domains, a concept that is thousands of years old. The Stoic philosopher Hierocles demonstrated the interconnected nature of our lives with concentric circles illustrating a hierarchal balance of duties. He placed the human mind and body at the center, followed by close family in the next ring, then extended family, then fellow members of one’s tribe, then inhabitants of one’s town or city, fellow citizens and countrymen next, finishing with all humanity in the outermost ring. (Page 55)
Note: Vertaal door en visualiseer voor area’s in notion
Without planning ahead, it’s impossible to tell the difference between traction and distraction. (Page 56)
You can’t call something a distraction unless you know what it’s distracting you from. (Page 56)
I know many of us bristle at the idea of keeping a schedule because we don’t want to feel hampered, but oddly enough, we actually perform better under constraints. This is because limitations give us a structure, while a blank schedule and a mile-long to-do list torments us with too many choices. (Page 56)
The goal is to eliminate all white space on your calendar so you’re left with a template for how you intend to spend your time each day. It doesn’t so much matter what you do with your time; rather, success is measured by whether you did what you planned to do. (Page 56)
Keeping a timeboxed schedule is the only way to know if you’re distracted. If you’re not spending your time doing what you’d planned, you’re off track. (Page 57)
Start by creating a weekly calendar template for your perfect week. (Page 57)
Next, book fifteen minutes on your schedule every week to reflect and refine your calendar by asking two questions: Question 1 (Reflect): “When in my schedule did I do what I said I would do and when did I get distracted?” (Page 57)
Question 2 (Refine): “Are there changes I can make to my calendar that will give me the time I need to better live out my values?” (Page 57)
Timeboxing enables us to think of each week as a mini-experiment. The goal is to figure out where your schedule didn’t work out in the prior week so you can make it easier to follow the next time around. (Page 57)
Just as you wouldn’t blow off a meeting with your boss, you should never bail on appointments you make with yourself. (Page 62)
Taking care of yourself is at the core of the three domains because the other two depend on your health and wellness. If you’re not taking care of yourself, your relationships suffer. Likewise, your work isn’t its best when you haven’t given yourself the time you need to stay physically and psychologically healthy. (Page 62)
By setting aside time to live out your values in the “you” domain, you will have the time to reflect on your calendar and visualize the qualities of the person you want to be. (Page 62)
You might be thinking, “It’s all well and good to schedule time for ourselves, but what happens when we don’t accomplish what we want to, despite making the time?” (Page 62)
The takeaway is that, when it comes to our time, we should stop worrying about outcomes we can’t control and instead focus on the inputs we can. The positive results of the time we spend doing something is a hope, not a certainty. The one thing we control is the time we put into a task. (Page 63)
Not showing up guarantees failure. (Page 64)
We tend to think we can solve our distraction problems by trying to get more done each minute, but more often the real problem is not giving ourselves time to do what we say we will. By timeboxing “you” time and faithfully following through, we keep the promises we make to ourselves. (Page 64)
I’ve intentionally scheduled time with my daughter every week. Much like I schedule time for a business meeting or time for myself, I block out time on my schedule to be with her. To make sure we always have something fun to do, we spent one afternoon writing down over a hundred things to do together in town, each one on a separate little strip of paper. Then, we rolled up all the little strips and placed them inside our “fun jar.” Now, every Friday afternoon, we simply pull an activity from the fun jar and do it. Sometimes we’ll visit a museum, while other times we’ll play in the park or visit a highly rated ice cream parlor across town. That time is reserved just for us. (Page 66)
Similarly, my wife, Julie, and I make sure we have time scheduled for each other. Twice a month, we plan a special date. (Page 67)
Working our way toward a more equitable split of the housework restored integrity to my value of equality in my marriage, which also improved the odds of having a long and happy relationship. (Page 68)
The people we love most should not be content getting whatever time is left over. Everyone benefits when we hold time on our schedule to live up to our values and do our share. (Page 68)
No matter what kind of activity fulfills your need for friendship, it’s essential to make time on your calendar for it. The time we spend with our friends isn’t just pleasurable—it’s an investment in our future health and well-being. (Page 70)
Using a detailed, timeboxed schedule helps clarify the central trust pact between employers and employees. (Page 75)
Whether at work, at home, or on our own, planning ahead and timeboxing our schedules is an essential step to becoming indistractable. By defining how we spend our time and syncing with the stakeholders in our lives, we ensure that we do the things that matter and ignore the things that don’t. It frees us from the trivialities of our day and gives us back the time we can’t afford to waste. But once we’ve reclaimed that time, how do we get the most out of it? (Page 78)
When people have sufficient motivation and ability, they’re primed for certain behavior. However, without the critical third component, the behavior will not occur. A trigger to tell us what to do next is always required. (Page 83)
External triggers can rip us away from our planned tasks. Researchers have found that when people are interrupted during a task, they tend to subsequently make up for lost time by working faster, but the cost is higher levels of stress and frustration. (Page 84)
By having your phone in your field of view, your brain must work hard to ignore it, but if your phone isn’t easily accessible or visually present, your brain is able to focus on the task at hand. (Page 84)
Is this trigger serving me, or am I serving it? (Page 85)
To receive fewer emails, we must send fewer emails. (Page 95)
You’d be amazed how many things become irrelevant when you give them a little time to breathe. (Page 96)
Perhaps the most surprisingly beneficial mobile-phone adjustment was changing the way I checked the time. As someone who hates being late, I used to glance at my phone throughout the day, which far too often caused me to get sucked into a notification on my phone’s lock screen. (Page 111)
Removing unnecessary external triggers from our line of sight declutters our workspace and frees the mind to concentrate on what’s really important. (Page 119)
