Episode 23: Indistractible
Written by the author who first wrote the cookbook that has guided Product Design and Strategy at every successful Tech company today.
Nir Eyal the author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products is an expert at the intersection of psychology, technology and business.
As an active investor he has backed some prolific habit building companies such as Eventbrite, Kahoot, Anchor and Canva.
His book Indistractible, published in 2019, helps explain the common struggle in an age of constant distraction, a modern problem that has plagued everyone’s attention span. It offers exactly what most need in order to focus on what is important. Through hidden psychological factors, it helps us understand why we get distracted and offers a framework to control our attention and focus. The book is nicely compressed with strategies that are easy to read and remember.
“When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck”
In the case of products and services that we use today, that shipwreck is ‘distraction’. Technology has made our lives so much easier, however, if you’re not equipped to manage distraction, your brain will be manipulated by time-wasting diversions.
Today we seem to be living through a crisis of ‘reduced attention spans’ where plans get sidetracked and work remains unfinished.
This problem isn’t a modern one. Even Plato talked about distraction some 2500 years ago. ‘The body is a source of countless distractions’
In the book it is further humanised through the story of Tantalus, a figure from Greek mythology.
“He was banished to the underworld by Zeus, as a punishment. His eternal torment was to yearn for things he could never attain constantly. He stood in a pool of water, but whenever he tried to drink, the water receded. Above his head hung a branch with ripe fruit, but the branch moved away whenever he tried to reach for it.”
(His turmoil used as a metaphor for our modern experience with distraction helps explain the futility of our actions. His curse wasn’t that he would spend all eternity reaching for things just out of reach, but rather his obliviousness to the greater folly of his actions. He was already in hell, after all…)
Like him, we are compelled to reach for things we supposedly need but really don’t. We are constantly reaching for something more- money, experiences, status or material possessions. This perpetual cycle of desire and distraction prevents us from focusing on what truly matters.
Though it is not our fault distractions exist (as they always have), the author states that managing them is our responsibility. In order to manage them, we need to understand why we get distracted in the first place.
My first key takeaway from the book is along the lines of a study published in the Review of General Psychology: “If satisfaction and pleasure were permanent, there might be little incentive to continue seeking further benefits or advances.”
Distraction is typically rooted in psychological factors such as:
Boredom: People prefer doing to thinking, even if what they are doing is so unpleasant that they would normally pay to avoid it.
Negativity Bias: Negative events are more salient and demand attention more powerfully than neutral or positive events.
Rumination: Our tendency to keep thinking about bad experiences. Chewing it over and over again, unable to stop thinking about the experience.
Hedonic Adaptation: Return to baseline level of satisfaction no matter what happens to us in life. Every desirable experience is transitory.
My second takeaway is to not rely on willpower and understand the importance of systems to make time for Traction:
“Willpower ebbs and flows in response to what’s happening to us and how we feel”
In life it inevitably wanes. To succeed we need systems in place so we succeed despite lapses. Timeboxing as a solution allows you to schedule time for yourself with intention. Planning the inputs for the outcome to follow allows you to turn your values into time.
Hacking back the external triggers on your devices which are not serving their purpose is another.
1) Uninstall the apps you don’t need.
2) Shift where and when you use distracting apps like social media and YouTube, to your desk instead of on your phone.
3) Rearrange your phone’s home screen.
4) Change the notification settings for each app. Be selective regarding which apps send you sound and sight cues.
My third takeaway is to reimagine the Triggers that let you get distracted.
The first step is to look for the discomfort that precedes the distraction, focusing in on the internal trigger as well as becoming aware of liminal moments, the transitions from one thing to the other throughout the day. Making note of how you feel when that happens is essential.
To tackle any potential distraction from your work something like the ten-minute rule is particularly helpful. If you find yourself wanting to check the phone as a pacification device and you can’t think of anything better to do, just tell yourself it’s fine to give in, but not right now. Watch as the ten minutes pass by, in most cases you won’t feel the need to check the phone.
Also called as surfing the urge, when an urge takes hold notice the sensations and ride them like a wave, neither pushing them nor acting on them will help us cope until the feelings subside.
Reimagining can help us manage triggers, what we say to ourselves matters. Labelling yourself as having poor self control is self-defeating, instead practising compassion makes you more resilient.
Overall, the author makes sure that this message is well communicated and presented across the book. ‘The antidote to impulsiveness is forethought. Planning ahead for when you’re likely to get distracted and when you need to gain traction is increasingly important.’
Like always, drawing this episode to a close with a few words to live by:
"The drive to relieve discomfort is the root cause of all our behaviour, while everything else is a proximate cause."
As the eighteenth-century poet Samuel Johnson said, “My life is one long escape from myself.”
