Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life

by Nir Eyal

To receive fewer emails, we must send fewer emails.

Instead, to reduce the number of emails I send and receive, I schedule “office hours.” Readers can book a fifteen-minute time slot with me on my website at NirAndFar.com/schedule-time-with-me.

Next time you receive a nonurgent question over email, try replying with something like, “I’ve held some time on Tuesday and Thursday from 4:00 to 5:00 pm. If this is still a concern then, please stop by and let’s discuss this further.” You can even set up an online scheduling tool like mine to let people book a slot.

You’d be amazed how many things become irrelevant when you give them a l...

But what if the sender still needs to discuss the question and can’t figure out the problem for themselves? All the better! Difficult questions are better handled in person than over email, where there is more risk of misunderstandings. The bottom line is that asking people to discuss complex matters during regular office hours will lead to better communication and fewer emails.

Whenever I reply to an email, I ask myself, “When’s the latest this person needs to see this reply?”

For example, while you might enjoy clearing out your inbox on a Friday afternoon, delaying delivery until Monday prevents you from stressing out your coworkers and helps protect your weekend from relaxation-killing replies.

There’s mounting evidence that processing your email in batches is much more efficient and less stress inducing than checking it throughout the day.

The solution to this mania is simple: only touch each email twice. The first time we open an email, before closing it, answer this question: When does this email require a response? Tagging each email as either “Today” or “This Week” attaches the most important information to each new message, preparing it for the second (and last) time we open it. Of course, for super-urgent, email-me-right-now-type messages, go ahead and respond. Messages that don’t need a response at all should be deleted or archived immediately.

Tagging emails in this way frees your mind from distraction because you know you’ll reply during the time you’ve specifically allocated for this purpose in your timeboxed schedule.

My daily schedule includes dedicated time for replying to emails I’ve tagged “Today.” It’s much quicker to respond to the urgent messages than to have to wade through all my emails to figure out which need a response by the end of the day. In addition, I reserve a three-hour timebox each week to plow through the less urgent messages I’ve tagged “This Week.” Finally, at the end of my week, I review my schedule to assess whether the time on my calendar for emailing was sufficient and adjust my timeboxed schedule for the week ahead.

REMEMBER THIS • Break down the problem. Time spent on email (T) is a function of the number of messages received (n) multiplied by the average time (t) spent per message: T = n × t. • Reduce the number of messages received. Schedule office hours, delay when messages are sent, and reduce time-wasting messages from reaching your inbox. • Spend less time on each message. Label emails by when each message needs a response. Reply to emails during a scheduled time on your calendar.

ason Fried says group chat is “like being in an all-day meeting with random participants and no agenda.”

Here are four basic rules for effectively managing group chat:

RULE 1: USE IT LIKE A SAUNA

Fried recommends we “treat chat like a sauna—stay a while but then get out . . . it’s unhealthy to stay too long.”

Alternatively, we might schedule a team meeting on group chat so that everyone is on at the same time. When used this way, it can be a great way to reduce in-person meetings.

RULE 2: SCHEDULE IT

To hack back, schedule time in your day to catch up on group chats, just as you would for any other task in your timeboxed calendar.

You can put them at ease by assuring them that you will contribute to the conversation during an allocated time later in the day, but until then you shouldn’t feel guilty for turning on the Do Not Disturb feature while doing focused work.

RULE 3: BE PICKY

RULE 4: USE IT SELECTIVELY

As Fried suggests, “Chat should be about quick, ephemeral things,” while “important topics need time, traction, and separation from the rest of the chatter.”

REMEMBER THIS • Real-time communication channels should be used sparingly. Time spent communicating should not come at the sacrifice of time spent concentrating. • Company culture matters. Changing group chat practices may involve questioning company norms. We’ll discuss this topic in part five. • Different communication channels have different uses. Rather than use every technology as an always-on channel, use the best tools for the job. • Get in and get out. Group chat is great for replacing in-person meetings but terrible if it becomes an all-day affair.

The primary objective of most meetings should be to gain consensus around a decision, not to create an echo chamber for the meeting organizer’s own thoughts.

One of the easiest ways to prevent superfluous meetings is to require two things of anyone who calls one. First, meeting organizers must circulate an agenda of what problem will be discussed. No agenda, no meeting. Second, they must give their best shot at a solution in the form of a brief, written digest.

But what about sharing collective wisdom and brainstorming? Those are good things, just not in meetings of more than two people.

To stay indistractable in meetings, we must rid them of nearly all screens. I’ve conducted countless workshops and have observed a stark difference between meetings in which tech use was permitted versus those that were device free, and meetings without screens generated far more engaged discussion and better outcomes.

REMEMBER THIS • Make it harder to call a meeting. To call a meeting, the organizer must circulate an agenda and briefing document. • Meetings are for consensus building. With few exceptions, creative problem-solving should occur before the meeting, individually or in very small groups. • Be fully present. People use devices during meetings to escape monotony and boredom, which subsequently makes meetings even worse. • Have one laptop per meeting. Devices in everyone’s hands makes it more difficult to achieve the purpose of the meeting. With the exception of one laptop in the room for presenting information and taking notes, leave devices outside.

Here are my four steps to hacking back your smartphone and saving yourself countless hours of mindless phone time. The best part is that implementing this plan takes less than an hour from start to finish, leaving no excuse for calling your phone distracting ever again.

The first step to managing distraction on our phones is to remove the apps we no longer need.

I kept apps for learning and staying healthy and removed news apps with blaring alerts and stress-inducing headlines.

STEP 2: REPLACE

Since I’d set aside time for social media in my timeboxed schedule, there was no longer any need to have them on my phone.

The idea here is to find the best time and place to do the things you want to do. Just because your phone can seemingly do everything doesn’t mean it should.

STEP 3: REARRANGE

Stubblebine recommends sorting your apps into three categories: “Primary Tools,” “Aspirations,” and “Slot Machines.” He says Primary Tools “help you accomplish defined tasks that you rely on frequently: getting a ride, finding a location, adding an appointment. There should be no more than five or six.” He calls Aspirations “the things you want to spend time doing: meditation, yoga, exercise, reading books, or listening to podcasts.” Stubblebine describes Slot Machines as “the apps that you open and get lost in: email, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.” He recommends rearranging your phone’s home screen so it only displays your Primary Tools and your Aspirations. He instructs you to “think of your home page as a group of apps that you feel you are in charge of. If the app triggers any mindless checking from you, move it to a different screen.”

STEP 4: RECLAIM

Now that we’ve whittled down the number of apps on our phones, we can adjust our notification settings. This step took me about thirty minutes, but it was the most life changing.

If you use an Apple iPhone, go to Settings and select the Notifications option, or if you’re on an Android device, find the Apps section in Settings. From there, adjust each app’s individual notification permissions to your preferences.

In my experience, it is worth adjusting two kinds of notifi...

Sound—An audible notification is the most intrusive. Ask yourself which apps should be able to interrupt you when you are with your family or in the middle of a meeting. I only grant text messages and phone calls this privilege, though I also use an app that plays a chime every hour to help me stay on track with my schedule for the day.

Sight—After sound, visual triggers are the second most intrusive form of interruption. In my case, I only allow visual notifications in the form of those red circles on the corner of an app’s icon and I grant this permission only to messaging services like my email app, WhatsApp, Slack, and Messenger. These are not apps I use for emergencies, so I always know I can wait to open them when I’m ready.

Thankfully, my iPhone comes with two incredibly helpful Do Not Disturb features

The first is the standard Do Not Disturb, which can be programmed to prevent all notifications from reaching you, including calls and texts. However, when someone calls twice within three minutes or texts the word “urgent,” Apple’s iOS knows to let the call or message go through.

The second feature is the Do Not Disturb While Driving mode, which blocks calls and texts but also sends a message back to the sender that informs them you can’t pick up the phone at the moment. You can even customize the message to let people know you are indistractable.

REMEMBER THIS • You can hack back the external triggers on your phone in four steps and in less than one hour. • Remove: Uninstall the apps you no longer need. • Replace: Shift where and when you use potentially distracting apps, like social media and YouTube, to your desktop instead of on your phone. Get a wristwatch so you don’t have to look at your phone for the time. • Rearrange: Move any apps that may trigger mindless checking from your phone’s home screen.

Reclaim: Change the notification settings for each app. Be very selective regarding which apps can send you sound and sight cues. Learn to use your phone’s Do Not Disturb settings.

3 Although I originally bought an Apple Watch for this purpose, I no longer use it. I prefer the 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.