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we scapegoat our political and ideological opponents for the world’s troubles, we choose not to seek to understand the deeper systemic reasons behind the problems.
But where does our discomfort come from? Why are we perpetually restless and unsatisfied? We live in the safest, healthiest, most well-educated, most democratic time in human history, and yet some part of the human psyche causes us to constantly look for an escape from things stirring inside us. As
“If satisfaction and pleasure were permanent, there might be little incentive to continue
REMEMBER THIS • Time management is pain management. Distractions cost us time, and like all actions, they are spurred by the desire to escape discomfort. • Evolution favored dissatisfaction over contentment. Our tendencies toward boredom, negativity bias, rumination, and hedonic adaptation conspire to make sure we’re never satisfied for long. • 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. • If we want to master distraction, we must learn to deal with discomfort.
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.
“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.”
ten minutes.
Fun and play don’t have to make us feel good per se; rather, they can be used as tools to keep us focused.
Fun is not a feeling so much as an exhaust produced when an operator can treat something with dignity.”
“fun is the aftermath of deliberately manipulating a familiar situation in a new way.”
pay such close attention that you find new challenges you didn’t see before.
Operating under constraints, Bogost says, is the key to creativity and fun.
“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”
Fun is looking for the variability in something other people don’t notice. It’s breaking through the boredom and monotony to discover its hidden beauty.
Play doesn’t have to be pleasurable. It just has to hold our attention.
People who did not see willpower as a finite resource did not show signs of ego depletion.
For one, if mental energy is more like an emotion than fuel in a tank, it can be managed and utilized as such.
Addicts’ beliefs regarding their powerlessness was just as significant in determining whether they would relapse after treatment as their level of physical dependence.
Self-compassion makes people more resilient to letdowns by breaking the vicious cycle of stress that often accompanies failure.
A good rule of thumb is to talk to yourself the way you might talk to a friend.
“This is what it’s like to get better at something” and “You’re on your way”
Reimagining the internal trigger, the task, and our temperament are powerful and established ways to deal with distractions that start within us.
“People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time, they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.”
values are “how we want to be, what we want to stand for, and how we want to relate to the world around us.”
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.
“Are there changes I can make to my calendar that will give me the time I need to better live out my values?”
we should stop worrying about outcomes we can’t control and instead focus on the inputs we can.
The Fogg Behavior Model states that for a behavior (B) to occur, three things must be present at the same time: motivation (M), ability (A), and a trigger (T). More succinctly, B = MAT.
A study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance found that receiving a cell phone notification but not replying to it was just as distracting as responding to a message or call.
The unit recruited for Richards’s experiment saw a 47 percent reduction in errors, all thanks to nothing more than wearing the vests and learning about the importance of an interruption-free environment.
Open-office floor plans were supposed to foster idea sharing and collaboration. Unfortunately, according to a 2016 metastudy of over three hundred papers, the trend has led to more distraction. Not surprisingly, these interruptions have also been shown to decrease overall employee satisfaction.
You’d be amazed how many things become irrelevant when you give them a little time to breathe.
Checking email isn’t so much the problem; it’s the habitual rechecking that gets us into trouble.
only touch each email twice.
device free, and meetings without screens generated far more engaged discussion and better outcomes.
A study by researchers at Princeton University found people performed poorly on cognitive tasks when objects in their field of vision were in disarray as opposed to neatly arranged.
The evidence is pretty clear that humans are awful at performing two complex tasks at once. Generally speaking, we commit more errors when juggling many tasks at the same time, and we also take longer—sometimes double the time—to complete the tasks. Scientists believe this wasted time and decreased proficiency occurs because the brain has to work hard to refocus attention.
Multichannel multitasking is an underutilized tactic for getting more out of each day.
Indistractable. Welcome to your new moniker!
According to several recent studies, preaching to others can have a great impact on the motivation and adherence of the teacher.
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook,”
Identity greatly influences our behavior. People tend to align their actions with how they see themselves. • An identity pact is a precommitment to a self-image. You can prevent distraction by acting in line with your identity. • Become a noun. By assigning yourself a moniker, you increase the likelihood of following through with behaviors consistent with what you call yourself. Call yourself “indistractable.” • Share with others. Teaching others solidifies your commitment, even if you’re still struggling. A great way to be indistractable is to tell friends about what you
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Distraction Is a Sign of Dysfunction
Who is on a team matters less than how the team members interact, structure their work, and view their contributions.
The researchers found five key dynamics that set successful teams apart. The first four were dependability, structure and clarity, meaning of work, and impact of work. However, the fifth dynamic was without doubt the most important and actually underpinned the other four. It was something called psychological safety. Rozovsky
“overuse [of technology] is a symptom, one indicative of some emptiness in other areas of life, like school and home.”
Phubbing, a portmanteau of phone and snubbing, means “to ignore (a person or one’s surroundings) when in a social situation by busying oneself with a phone or other mobile device.”
“Being indistractable means striving to do what you say you will do.” To strive means “to struggle or fight vigorously.” It does not mean being perfect or never failing.
