Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life

by Nir Eyal

I discovered that living the life we want requires not only doing the right things, it also requires that we stop doing the wrong things that take us off-track.

In 1971, the psychologist Herbert A. Simon wrote presciently, ‘the wealth of information means a dearth of something else … a poverty of attention’.6

Being indistractable means striving to do what you say you will do. Indistractable people are as honest with themselves as they are with others.

Even when we think we’re seeking pleasure, we’re actually driven by the desire to free ourselves from the pain of wanting.

Simply put, the drive to relieve discomfort is the root cause of all our behaviour, 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. How we deal with uncomfortable internal triggers determines whether we pursue healthful acts of traction or self-defeating distractions.

Only by understanding our pain can we begin to control it and find better ways to deal with negative urges.

If distraction costs us time, then time management is pain management.

Dissatisfaction and discomfort dominate our brain’s default state, but we can use them to motivate us instead of defeat us.

It’s good to know that feeling bad isn’t actually bad; it’s exactly what survival of the fittest intended.

An endless cycle of resisting, ruminating, and finally giving in to the desire perpetuates the cycle and quite possibly drives many of our unwanted behaviours.

Step 1: Look for the discomfort that precedes the distraction, focusing in on the internal trigger

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.