Nir Eyal on How to Become Indistractable

Metadata

• Author: curtismchale.ca
• Full Title: Nir Eyal on How to Become Indistractable
• URL: https://curtismchale.ca/2019/10/30/nir-eyal-on-how-to-become-indistractable

Highlights

Traction is the place and life we want to live. When you pull your phone out to scroll an endless feed, the question to ask yourself is if that action is moving you towards the place you want to be, or away? If it’s away, why are you doing it in the first place? (View Highlight)review

Most people don’t want to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that distraction is always on unhealthy escape from reality (View Highlight)review

He also introduces an interesting idea around being distracted as a result of doing things that don’t sync with your values (View Highlight)review

If we chronically neglect our values, we become something we’re not proud of — our lives feel out of balance and diminished. Ironically, this ugly feeling makes us more likely to seek distractions to escape our dissatisfaction without actually solving the problem (View Highlight)review

The solution to all of this is to start timeboxing1213. By starting to control the inputs, you can affect the outputs. Working to control the outputs first is only trying to deal with the problem after it’s a problem. Nyal goes as far as scheduling the time for his important relationships so that you don’t give them the little bits that are left at the end of your day14. (View Highlight)review

The third part of the book is where I really think that Nyal’s work shines as these next short chapters provide useful information to deal with specific types of distraction in your life. In fact the critical question in chapter 13 is one I’ve been asking myself regularly in the weeks since reading the book. > Is the trigger serving me, or am I serving it?16 Is the notification you got serving you or serving something else? Did you really need the information conveyed at this moment? (View Highlight)review