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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Nir Eyal
Read between
May 16 - June 21, 2025
Luddite (Derogatory) : Being opposed to increased industrialisation or technology
Tantalus’ curse – forever reaching for something.2
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.
Solely blaming a smartphone for causing distraction is just as flawed as blaming a pedometer for making someone climb too many stairs.
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.
Four psychological factors make satisfaction temporary.
1. Boredom
2. Negativity Bias
3. Rumination
4. Hedonic Adaptation
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.
It turns out mental abstinence can backfire.
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
Discomfort precedes distraction
A common problem I have while writing is the urge to google something. It’s easy to justify this bad habit as ‘doing research’ but deep down I know it’s often just a diversion from difficult work.
Step 2: Write down the trigger
Talk to yourself
Step 3: Explore your sensations
Leaves on a stream
Step 4: Beware of liminal moments
Liminal : Initial, beginnings of a process
10-minute-rule : Wait for 10 mins before giving into an urge.
Surf the urge : Rather than acting on it
Ian Bogost studies fun for a living.
Who is this guy!?
Propensity : Tendency
Fun and play don’t have to make us feel good per se; rather, they can be used as tools to keep us focused.
Drudgery : Hard or dull work
Operating under constraints, Bogost says, is the key to creativity and fun. Finding the optimal path for the mower or beating a record time are other ways to create an imaginary playground.
For me, I learned to stay focused on the tedious work of writing books by finding the mystery in my work. I write to answer interesting questions and discover novel solutions to old problems.
‘The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.’2
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.
Temperament : One's innate nature
Ego-depletion : A pervasive belief in psychology that self control and will power is limited in humans
People who did not see willpower as a finite resource did not show signs of ego depletion.
Addicts’ belief 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.
Frugal : Sparing, Economical, Stingy
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.
Though some values carry over into all facets of life, most are specific to one area. For example, being a contributing member of a team is something people generally do at work. Being a loving spouse or parent occurs within the context of a family. Being the kind of person who seeks wisdom or physical fitness is something we do for ourselves.
The trouble is, we don’t make time for our values. We unintentionally spend too much time in one area of our life at the expense of others.
Ragged : Rough or irregular
You can’t call something a distraction unless you know what it’s distracting you from.
The goal is to eliminate all white space in your calendar, so you’re left with a template for how you intend to spend your time each day.
Approaching the exercise of making a schedule as a curious scientist, rather than a drill sergeant, gives us the freedom to get better with each iteration.
We tend to think we can solve our distraction problems by trying to get more done each minute, but the real problem is more often not giving ourselves time to do what we say we will. By timeboxing ‘You’ time and faithfully following through, we keep the promises we make to ourselves.
The people we love most should not be content with 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.
Dearth : Scarcity or Lack of
satisfying friendships need three things: ‘Somebody to talk to, someone to depend on, and someone to enjoy.’5
This is how friendships die – they starve to death.
Surfeit : An excessive amount of something
Given that work probably takes up more of your waking hours than any of the other domains, it’s even more important to ensure the time spent there is consistent with your values.
Frazzle : completely exhausted or burnt out
Falter : Loose focus
Ubiquitous : Present, found everywhere
The Fogg Behaviour Model states that for a behaviour (B) to occur, three things must be present at the same time: motivation (M), ability (A) and a trigger (T). More simply, B=MAT.
Is this trigger serving me, or am I serving it?
The critical question to ask
