Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life

by Nir Eyal

Withings Steel HR, which, along with being a much less expensive smartwatch, has the wonderful feature of always displaying the time, no wrist jerk required.

I somehow found reasons to skip my workouts.

I taped a crisp hundred-dollar bill to the calendar on my wall, next to the date of my upcoming workout.

Every day, I had a choice to make: I would either burn the calories by exercising or burn the hundred-dollar

bill. Unless I was certifiably sick, those were the only two opti...

my daughter’s relationship with screens evolved, and not always in a good way. She was drawn to spending too much time playing frivolous apps and watching videos.

Learning to become indistractable is a skill that will serve our children no matter what life path they pursue or what forms distraction takes. If

Stop deflecting blame. When kids don’t act the way parents want, it’s natural to look for answers that help parents divert responsibility.

Tech isn’t evil. Used in the right way and in the right amounts, kids’ tech use can be beneficial, while too much (or too little) can have slightly harmful effects.

Teach kids to be indistractable. Teaching children how to manage distraction will benefit them throughout their lives.

the human psyche needs three things to flourish: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

when the psyche is undernourished, it produces anxiety, restlessness, and other symptoms that something is missing.

“Rather than having the mom set the goal—and then having to offer enticements and rewards to reach that goal—the child is setting the goal. Then the parents support that goal however they can,”

“What we’ve found is that parents who address internet use or screen time with kids in an autonomy-supported way have kids who are more self-regulated with respect to it, so less likely to use screen time for excessive hours,”

Competence feels good, and that feeling grows alongside your ability.

kids today are statistically the safest generation in American history.

In many ways, connections in digital environments can be very positive.

The loss of in-person play has real costs according to Gray, given that “learning to get along and cooperate with others as equals may be the most crucial evolutionary function of human social play.”

Ryan believes many kids aren’t getting enough of the three essential psychological nutrients—autonomy, competence, and relatedness—in their offline lives. Not surprisingly, our kids go looking for substitutes online. “

“Part of what you want your kid to get from that is not just less screen time, but an understanding of why,” he says. The more you talk with your kids about the costs of too much tech use and the more you make decisions with them, as opposed to for them, the more willing they will be to listen to your guidance.

parents should model how to be indistractable.

We can’t solve all our kids’ troubles—nor should we attempt to—but we can try to better understand their struggles through the lens of their psychological needs.

Make [the conversation] about how you’re treating and interacting with the people

around you,” she advises, as opposed to blaming the tool.

questions to self-monitor and self-regulate their behavior: “Is my behavior working for me? Am I proud of myself, in the way I’m behaving?” she asks them to ask themselves.

Working with our kids to create a values-based schedule can help them make time for their personal health and wellness domain, ensuring ample time for rest, hygiene, exercise, and proper nourishment.

For example, while my wife and I don’t enforce a strict bedtime for our daughter, we made it a point to expose her to research findings showing the importance of ample sleep during adolescent years.

The goal here is to teach them to spend their time mindfully by reserving a place for important activities on their weekly schedules.

Conscious parents can bring back playtime for kids of all ages by deliberately making time for it in their weekly schedules and seeking out other parents who understand the importance of unstructured play and schedule regular get-togethers to let the kids hang out, just as you would make time for a jog in the park or a jam session in the

In addition to helping kids make time for unstructured play, we also need to carve out time for them to spend time with us, their parents. For example, scheduling family meals is perhaps the single most important thing parents and kids can do together. Studies demonstrate that children who eat regularly with their families show lower rates of drug use, depression, school problems, and eating disorders.

As our kids develop, we can invite them to shape these family meal experiences by suggesting menu themes like “Finger-Food Fridays,” cooking together, or contributing conversation topics.

As a family, play can and should extend beyond mealtimes. In my household, we’ve established a weekly “Sunday Funday,” where we rotate the responsibility to plan a three-hour activity. When it’s my turn, I might take the family to the park for a long conversation while we walk. My daughter typically requests to play a board game when it’s her turn to pick. My wife often proposes a trip to a local farmers’ market to discover and sample new foods. Whatever the choice, the idea is to regularly set aside time together to feed our need for relatedness.