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Introduction From Hooked to Indistractable
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.
The antidote to impulsiveness is forethought. Planning ahead ensures you will follow through.
Chapter 1 What’s Your Superpower?
Removing online technology didn’t work. I’d just replaced one distraction with another.
We need to learn how to avoid distraction. Living the lives we want not only requires doing the right things but also necessitates not doing the things we know we’ll regret. • The problem is deeper than tech. Being indistractable isn’t about being a Luddite. It’s about understanding the real reasons why we do things against our best interests. • Here’s what it takes: We can be indistractable by learning and adopting four key strategies.
Chapter 2 Being Indistractable
Tantalus’s curse—forever reaching for something.
We can think of traction as the actions that draw us toward what we want in life.
Distractions impede us from making progress toward the life we envision.
All behaviors, whether they tend toward traction or distraction, are prompted by triggers, internal or external.
Traction helps us accomplish goals; distraction leads us away from them.
Distractions will always exist; managing them is our responsibility.
Distraction stops you from achieving your goals. It is any action that moves you away from what you really want.
Traction leads you closer to your goals. It is any action that moves you toward what you really want.
Triggers prompt both traction and distraction. External triggers prompt you to action with cues in your environment. Internal triggers prompt you to action with cues within you.
Part 1 Master Internal Triggers
Chapter 3 What Motivates Us, Really?
Simply put, the drive to relieve discomfort is the root cause of all our behavior, while everything else is a proximate cause.
Solely blaming a smartphone for causing distraction is just as flawed as blaming a pedometer for making someone climb too many stairs.
Most people don’t want to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that distraction is always an unhealthy escape from reality.
Only by understanding our pain can we begin to control it and find better ways to deal with negative urges.
Understand the root cause of distraction. Distraction is about more than your devices. Separate proximate causes from the root cause.
• All motivation is a desire to escape discomfort. If a behavior was previously effective at providing relief, we’re likely to continue using it as a tool to escape discomfort.
Anything that stops discomfort is potentially addictive, but that doesn’t make it irresistible. If you know the drivers of your behavior, you can take steps to manage them.
Chapter 4 Time Management Is Pain Management
If distraction costs us time, then time management is pain management.
• 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.
Chapter 5 Deal with Distraction from Within
Without techniques for disarming temptation, mental abstinence can backfire. Resisting an urge can trigger rumination and make the desire grow stronger. • We can manage distractions that originate from within by changing how we think about them. We can reimagine the trigger, the task, and our temperament.
Chapter 6 Reimagine the Internal Trigger
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.
Chapter 7 Reimagine the Task
Fun,” he writes, “turns out to be fun even if it doesn’t involve much (or any) enjoyment.
“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”
finding novelty is only possible when we give ourselves the time to focus intently on a task and look hard for the variability. Whether it’s uncertainty about our ability to do a task better or faster than last time or coming back to challenge the unknown day after day, the quest to solve these mysteries is what turns the discomfort we seek to escape with distraction into an activity we embrace.
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.
Chapter 8 Reimagine Your Temperament
People who did not see willpower as a finite resource did not show signs of ego depletion.
Self-compassion makes people more resilient to letdowns by breaking the vicious cycle of stress that often accompanies failure.
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
Chapter 9 Turn Your Values into Time
Traction draws you toward what you want in life, while distraction pulls you away.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 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.”
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.”
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 do it.” It’s a technique that can be used to make time for traction in each of your life domains.
Question 1 (Reflect): “When in my schedule did I do what I said I would do and when did I get distracted?”
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.
