Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life

by Nir Eyal

Telling yourself things like “This is what it’s like to get better at something” and “You’re on your way” are healthier ways to handle self-doubt.

We can cope with uncomfortable internal triggers by reflecting on, rather than reacting to, our discomfort.

We can reimagine the task we’re trying to accomplish by looking for the fun in it and focusing on it more intensely.

Finally, and most important, we can change the way we see ourselves to get rid of self-limiting beliefs. If we believe we’re short on willpower and self-control, then we will be. If we decide we’re powerless to resist temptation, it becomes true. If we ...

Thankfully, you don’t have to believe everything you think; you are only powerle...

REMEMBER THIS • Reimagining our temperament can help us manage our internal triggers. • We don’t run out of willpower. Believing we do makes us less likely to accomplish our goals by providing a rationale to quit when we could otherwise persist. • What we say to ourselves matters. Labeling yourself as having poor self-control is self-defeating. • Practice self-compassion. Talk to yourself the way you’d talk to a friend. People who are more self-compassionate are more resilient.

Part 2 Make Time for Traction

believed he could predict someone’s future based on one simple fact. “If I know how you spend your time,” he wrote, “then I know what might become of you.”

The Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote, “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.”

If we don’t plan our days, someone else will.

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.

author of The Happiness Trap, values are “how we want to be, what we want to stand for, and how we want to relate to the world around us.” They are attributes of the person we want to be. For example, they may include being an honest person, being a loving parent, or being a valued part of a team. We never achieve our values any more than finishing a painting would let us achieve being creative. A value is like a guiding star; it’s the fixed point we use to help us navigate our life choices.

The three life domains: you, relationships, and work.

Only by setting aside specific time in our schedules for traction (the actions that draw us toward what we want in life) can we turn our backs on distraction. Without planning ahead, it’s impossible to tell the difference between traction and distraction.

The most effective way to make time for traction is through “timeboxing.” Timeboxing uses a well-researched technique psychologists call “setting an implementation intention,” which is a fancy way of saying, “deciding what you’re going to do, and when you’re going to

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.

Start by creating a weekly calendar template for your perfect week. You’ll find a blank template in the appendix and a free online tool at NirAndFar.com/Indistractable.

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 wh...

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?”

REMEMBER THIS • You can’t call something a distraction unless you know what it is distracting you from. Planning ahead is the only way to know the difference between traction and distraction. • Does your calendar reflect your values? To be the person you want to be, you have to make time to live your values. • Timebox your day. The three life domains of you, relationships, and work provide a framework for planning how to spend your time. • Reflect and refine. Revise your schedule regularly, but you must commit to it once it’s set.

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.

We can start by prioritizing and timeboxing “you” time. At a basic level, we need time in our schedules for sleep, hygiene, and proper nourishment.

I’d repeat a simple mantra, “The body gets what the body needs.” That subtle mind-set shift took the pressure off by no longer making sleep a requirement. My job was to provide my body with the proper time and place to rest—what happened next was out of my control.

The one thing we control is the time we put into a task.

REMEMBER THIS • Schedule time for yourself first. You are at the center of the three life domains. Without allocating time for yourself, the other two domains suffer. • Show up when you say you will. You can’t always control what you get out of time you spend, but you can control how much time you put into a task. • Input is much more certain than outcome. When it comes to living the life you want, making sure you allocate time to living your values is the only thing you should focus on.

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.

In fact, a lack of close friendships may be hazardous to your health.

“The clearest message that we get from this seventy-five-year study is this: good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.”

satisfying friendships need three things: “somebody to talk to, someone to depend on, and someone to enjoy.”

REMEMBER THIS • The people you love deserve more than getting whatever time is left over. If someone is important to you, make regular time for them on your calendar. • Go beyond scheduling date days with your significant other. Put domestic chores on your calendar to ensure an equitable split. • A lack of close friendships may be hazardous to your health. Ensure you maintain important relationships by scheduling time for regular get-togethers.

Are they required to attend happy hours or other events full of “mandatory fun”?

REMEMBER THIS • Syncing your schedule with stakeholders at work is critical for making time for traction in your day. Without visibility into how you spend your time, colleagues and managers are more likely to distract you with superfluous tasks. • Sync as frequently as your schedule changes. If your schedule template changes from day to day, have a daily check-in. However, most people find a weekly alignment is sufficient.

Part 3 Hack Back External Triggers

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.

Motivation is “the energy for action,” according to Edward Deci, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester. When we’re highly motivated, we have a strong desire, and the requisite energy, to take an action, and when we’re not motivated, we lack the energy to perform a task.

Meanwhile, in Fogg’s formula, ability relates to facility of action. Quite simply, the harder something is to do, the less likely people are to do it. Conversely, the easier som...

However, without the critical third component, the behavior will not occur. A trigger to tell us what to do next is always required.

Today, much of our struggle with distraction is a struggle with external triggers.

“Push notifications proved to be a marketer’s dream: They’re functionally impossible to tell apart from a text or email without looking, so you have to look before you can dismiss.”

Not so fast. 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.

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.

The secret lies in the answer to a critical question: Is this trigger serving me, or am I serving it?

REMEMBER THIS • External triggers often lead to distraction. Cues in our environment like the pings, dings, and rings from devices, as well as interruptions from other people, frequently take us off track. • External triggers aren’t always harmful. If an external trigger leads us to traction, it serves us. • We must ask ourselves: Is this trigger serving me, or am I serving it? Then we can hack back the external triggers that don’t serve us.

The card contains, in large font, a simple request to passersby: I NEED TO FOCUS RIGHT NOW, BUT PLEASE COME BACK SOON. Place the card on your computer monitor to let your colleagues know that you don’t want to be interrupted. It sends an unambiguous message in a way that wearing headphones can’t.

Using the same principles to block unwanted external triggers, my wife bought a hard-to-miss headpiece on Amazon for just a few dollars. She calls it the “concentration crown,” and the built-in LEDs light up her head to send an impossible-to-ignore message. When she wears it, she’s clearly letting our daughter (and me) know not to interrupt her unless it’s an emergency. It works like a charm.

REMEMBER THIS • Interruptions lead to mistakes. You can’t do your best work if you’re frequently distracted. • Open-office floor plans increase distraction. • Defend your focus. Signal when you do not want to be interrupted. Use a screen sign or some other clear cue to let people know you are indistractable.

Similarly, email’s uncertainty keeps us checking and pecking. It provides good news and bad, exciting information as well as frivolity, messages from our closest loved ones and from anonymous strangers. All that uncertainty provides a powerful draw to see what we might find when we next check our inboxes. As a result, we keep clicking or pulling to refresh in a never-ending effort to quell the discomfort of anticipation.

Second, we have a strong tendency for reciprocity—responding in kind to the actions of another.

Finally, and perhaps most materially, email is a tool we have little choice but to use. For most of us, our jobs depend on it, and it is so woven into our daily work and personal lives that giving it up would be a threat to our livelihoods.