Christopher asked Nir Eyal:

How long did it take you to clearly figure out your pain causing the distress leading to distraction? Any recommended methods you used as guidance to help illuminate the deep root cause?

Nir Eyal I offer a four-step way of dealing with distractions that draws on this work: 1) Look for the discomfort that precedes the distraction. Are you anxious? Restless? Bored? 2) Write down the trigger. Even if you give in to the distraction, write down what the trigger was. (You can find a distraction tracker in the book that helps with this.) 3) Explore your sensations. Become curious: why did I do that? What makes me crave the Facebook feed right now? 4) Beware of liminal moments--transitions from one activity to the next. I often use the ten-minute rule to deal with this: I tell myself that I can give in to the distraction, but not for another ten minutes. It allows you to do what behavioral psychologists call “surfing the urge”—noticing what’s happening and then avoiding it for just long enough that you can avoid the craving.

By following those four steps, you can begin to avoid the impulsivity that leads you to distraction--and you can figure out why it is you’re getting distracted in the first place.

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