Indistractable

What’s your superpower

Living the life we require not only doing the right things, but it also requires we stop doing the wrong things that take us off track. We already know what to do: what we don’t know is how to stop getting distracted. Imagine what your life would be like if your superpower was to be indistractable.

Being Indistractable

This chapter starts with an Ancient Greek story to portray the human condition. The story goes that Tantalus was banished to the underworld by his father, Zeus, as a punishment. There he found himself wading in a pool of water, while above his head dangled a branch ripe with fruit ready for the picking.

The curse seems benign, but when Tantalus tried to pluck fruit from the tree, the branch moved away from him, always just out of reach. When he bent down to drink the cool water, it receded so that he could never quench his thirst. Tantalus punishment was to yearn for things he desired but could never grasp.

We are constantly reaching for something: more money, more experiences, more knowledge, more status, more stuff and that’s why the fallible mortals can be compared to Tantalus in the story.

Traction & Distraction

Traction’s are the actions that draw us towards what we want in life. Distraction impede us from making progress towards the life we envisage.

Both works in opposite direction, and both are prompted by triggers, whether internal or external. Internal triggers cue us from within. External triggers, on the other hand, are cues in our environment that tell us what to do next.

Whether internal or external trigger prompt us, the resulting action is either aligned with our broader intention (traction), or misalignment (distraction). Traction helps us accomplish goals; distraction leads us away from them.

What is the cost of distraction? The wealth of information means a dearth of something else … a poverty of attention.

Now let’s think back to the tale of a Tantalus. What is his curse exactly? Was it never ending hunger and thirst? Not Really. What would have happened to Tantalus if he has just stopped reaching? He was already in hell, after all, and dead people don’t need food and water last time I checked. The curse is not that Tantalus spends all eternity reaching for things just out of reach, but rather his obliviousness to the greater folly of his actions. Tantalus’ curse was his blindness to the fact that he didn’t need those things in the first place. That’s the real moral of the story.

Tantalus curse is also our curse. We don’t need to give in to some distractions, no matter how much we feel we must. Distractions are and will always remain, however, this is our responsibility to manage them.

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

PART – 1 MASTER INTERNAL TRIGGERS

What Motivates Us Really?

Distractions, it turns out, isn’t about distraction itself; rather, it’s about how we respond to it. Most people don’t want to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that distractions is always an unhealthy escape from reality. Understand the root cause of distraction and separate proximity causes from the root cause.

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

Anything that stops discomfort is potentially addictive, but that doesn’t make it irresistible. If you know the drives of your behaviour, you can take steps to manage them.

Time Management is Pain Management

Distractions is just another way our brains attempt to deal with pain and the only way to handle distraction is by learning to handle discomfort.

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

Happiness is designed not to last for long. Four psychological factors make satisfaction temporary:

Boredom: The untutored mind does not like to be alone with itself.
Negative Bias: Good things are nice, but bad things can kill you, which is why we pay attention to and remember the bad stuff first.
Rumination: Tendency to keep thinking about bad experiences. By reflecting on what went wrong and how to rectify it, people may be able to discover sources of error or alternative strategies, ultimately leading to not repeating mistakes and possibly doing better in the future; but boy it can make us miserable.
Hedonic Adaptation: This is the cruellest of all. Hedonic adaptation – the tendency to return quickly to a baseline level of satisfaction no matter what happens to us in life – is Mother Nature’s bait-and-switch. All sorts of life events we think would make us happier actually don’t, or at least they don’t for long.

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

Dissatisfaction is responsible for our species’ advances and its faults.

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

Deal with Distraction from Within

Mental abstinence can cause 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 behaviour.

We can manage distractions that originate from within by changing how we think about them. We can reimagine the trigger, the task and our temperament.

Reimagine the internal trigger

While we can’t control the feelings and thoughts that pop into our heads, we can control what we do with them. There are four steps to better cope with you urges instead of keep telling yourself to stop thinking about an urge:

Step1: Look for the discomfort that precedes the distraction, focusing in on the internal trigger. Focus on the Internal Trigger that precedes the unwanted behaviour, like ‘feeling anxious’, having a craving, feeling restless, or thinking you are incompetent’.

Step2: Write down the trigger. Note the time of the day, what you were doing and how you felt when you noticed the internal trigger that led to the distracting behaviour ‘as soon as you are aware of the behaviour’. Try to be an observer and write your thoughts like ‘I’m feeling that tension in my chest right now. And there I go, trying to reach for my iPhone.’ The better we are at noticing the behaviour, the better we’ll be at managing it over time.

Step3: Explore your sensations

Do your fingers get twitch when you’re about to be distracted? Do you get a flurry of butterflies in your stomach when you thing about work when you’re with your family? Or if any other sensation you get before getting distracted, then the idea is to stay with the feeling before acting on the impulse, then imagine there are leaves floating down that stream. Place each thought in your mind on each leaf. It could be a memory, a word, a worry, an image. And let each of those leaves float down that stream, a swirling away, as you sit and just watch.

Step4: Beware of Liminal Moments

Liminal Moments are transitions from one thing to the other throughout the day, like picking up your phone while waiting for traffic light to change, then found still looking at your phone while driving? Or opened a tab in your web browser, got annoyed by how long it’s taking to load and opened up another page while you waited? There is nothing wrong with any of these actions per se. Rather, what’s dangerous is the fact that by doing then for just a second’ we’re likely to do things we later regret, like getting off-track for half an hour instead of 5 secs or getting into a car accident.

A ‘ten-minute rule’ is a technique which can be used to avoid such liminal moments. Like if you found wanting to check my phone as a pacification device when I can’t think of anything better to do, tell yourself it’s fine to give in, but not right now. Just wait for 10 minutes. This technique can help in dealing with all sorts of potential distractions, like googling something rather than writing, eating something unhealthy when you’re bored.

This rule is called ‘surfing the urge’. When an urge takes hold, noticing the sensations and riding them like a wave – neither pushing them away nor acting on them – helps us cope until the feelings subside.

Techniques like ‘surfing the urge’ and ‘thinking of our cravings’ are mental skill-building exercises that can help us stop impulsive giving in to distractions.

Reimagine the Task

Fun and Play don’t have to make us feel good per se; rather, they can be used as tools to keep us focused.
Instead of running away from our pain or using rewards like prizes and treats to help motivate us, the idea is to pay close attention that you find new challenges you didn’t see before. Those new challenges provide the novelty to engage our attention and maintain focus when tempted by distraction. Remember, the cure for boredom is curiosity.
Fun is looking for the variability in something other people don’t notice. It’s breaking through the boredom and monotony to discovery its hidden beauty.
But Remember – finding novelty is only possible when we give ourselves the time to focus intently on a task and look hard for the variability.
The last step in managing the internal triggers that can lead to distracting is to reimagine our capabilities.

Reimagine your Temperament

We have a belief system that says that self-control is limited and we are liable to run out of willpower when we exert ourselves. Psychologists have a name for this phenomenon ‘ego depletion’.
Ego Depletion can be controlled using our belief system. If we see willpower as a finite resource then we will encounter the behaviour of ego-depletion.
Another theory says that willpower acts as an emotion. Just as we don’t ‘run-out’ of joy or anger, willpower ebbs and flows based on what’s happening to us and how we feel.
Mindset mattered as much as physical dependence. Labelling yourself as having poor self-control actually leads to less self-controlled.
Good News: we can change the way we talk to ourselves in order to harness the power of self-compassion. This doesn’t mean we won’t mess up; we all do. Everyone struggles with distraction from one thing or another. The important thing is to take responsibility for our actions.
If you found yourself listening to the little voice in your head that sometimes bullies you around, it’s important to know how to respond.
Practise self-compassion: Talk to yourself the way you talk to a friend. People who are more self-compassionate are more resilient.
You are only powerless if you think you are.

PART – 2 MAKE TIME FOR TRACTION

Turn your values into Time

If we don’t control our impulse to escape uncomfortable feelings, we’ll always look for quick fixes to soothe our pain.
People protect their property in all sorts of ways – locks, security systems and storage units – but most do little to protect their time.
Most of the people don’t plan their day – which means that our most precious asset – our time is unguarded, just waiting for someone to steal it. Note if you won’t plan your day, someone else will.
Three Life Domains: You, Relationships and Work

If we set aside specific time in our schedules for tractions, we can turn our back on distractions.
In order to live our values in each of these domains, we must reserve our time in our schedules to do so.

You can’t call something a distraction unless you know what it’s distracting you from.

Most effective way for making time for tractions is through time-boxing. The goal is to eliminate all white spaces in your calendar, so you’re left with a template for how you intend to spend your time each day.
If you are not spending your time doing what you’d planned; then you are distracted and off-track.
Planning ahead is the only way to know the difference between traction and distraction.
Reflect and refine: Revise your schedule regularly, but you must commit to it once it’s set.

Control your Inputs, Not the Outcomes

Invest in yourself, after all who’s more critical to helping you live the life you want than you yourself? That’s why taking care of yourself is the core of the three domains as shown above.
Exercise, sleep, eating healthy and time spent reading or listing to an audiobook are all ways to invest in yourselves.
The one thing we control is the time we put into a task, and not what you get out of time you spend.

Schedule Important Relationships

Much like we schedule our time for a business meeting or for ourselves, block our time for your loved ones, your family as well.
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.
Lack of close friendships may be hazardous to your health.

Sync with Stakeholders at work

Make sure the time spent at your work is consistent with your values.
Studies have found that workers who spend more than fifty-five hours per week on the job have reduced productivity.
Using a detailed timeboxed schedule helps clarify The Central trust pact between employees and employers.
If your schedule can be synced weekly, then review it and get agreement for that period, but if your schedule changes daily, getting into the routine of a brief, daily check-in with your manager will serve you both well.
There’s no mystery about what’s getting done when there’s transparency in your schedule.
Whether at work or at home, planning ahead and time-boxing our schedules is an essential step to becoming Indistractable.

PART – 3 Hack Back External Triggers

Ask the Critical Question

Our Tech devices are gaining unauthorized access to our brain by prompting us to distraction; isn’t this one way of hacking.
In 2007, Dr. B.J. Fogg, founder of Stanford University’s Persuasive Technology Lab gave a model which states that for a Behavior (B) to occur, three things must be present at the same time: Motivation (M), Ability (A) and a Trigger (T). B=MAT.
‘Motivation’ is the ‘energy for Action’. When we’re highly motivated, we have a strong desire, or energy, to take action, and when we are not Motivated we lack the energy to perform a task. And a Trigger is required to tell us what to do next.
Today, much of our struggle with distraction is a struggle with external triggers.
Researchers have found that when people are interrupted during a task, they tend subsequently to make up for the lost time by working faster, but the cost is higher levels of stress & frustration.
The mere presence of one’s smartphone may impose a “brain drain” as limited-capacity attentional resources are recruited to inhibit automatic attention to one’s phone,
Not all external triggers are harmful to our attention. In many ways, we can leverage them to our advantage. The secret to this lies in the answer to a critical question:

Is this trigger serving me, or am I serving it?

Identify Triggers precisely as Tools. If you use them properly, they can help us to stay on track. If the triggers helps us do the thing we planned to do in our schedule, it’s helping us gain traction. If it leads to distraction, then it isn’t serving us.

Hack Back Work Interruptions

Interruptions lead to mistakes. You can’t do your best if you’re frequently distracted.
Defend your focus. Signal when you do not want to be interrupted. Use a screen sign or some other clear clue to let people know that you are Indistractable.

Hack Back Email

Email is the curse of the modern world. The average professional employee receives one hundred messages per day. At just 2 mins per email, your email checking habit eats up nearly half the day.
Delay Delivery the messages allow time for the matter to be resolved by other means, it also makes it less likely I’ll receive emails when I don’t want them.
Unsubscribe unwanted emails.
Try responding emails in batches.

Hack Back Group Chart

Jason Fried says group is ‘Like bring in an all-day Meeting with random participants and no agenda.
There are 4 basic rules for effectively managing group chat:
Rule 1: Use it like Sauna: Stay a while and then get out… it’s unhealthy to stay too long.
Rule 2: Schedule it: Schedule time in your day to catch up on group chats.
Rule 3: Be Picky: Be selective about who’s invited into the conversation.
Rule 4: Use it selectively: Avoid group chats when sensitive topics are being discussed.

Hack Back Meetings

Meetings should not be used as a distraction from doing the hard work of thinking.
One of the easiest ways to prevent superfluous meetings is to demand Teo things of anyone who calls one:

Meeting Agenda
Solution in the form of a brief, written digest not more than a page or two discussing the problem, their reasoning and recommendation.
Brainstorming can be done before the meetings and is best done individually or in small groups.
Be selective about who attends and making sure to get in and get out quickly.
For conducting effective meetings get rid of nearly all screens and tech use. Make sure that we are present, both in body and mind.

Hack Back Your Smartphone

A smartphone is a major source of potential distraction.
By hacking back our phones, we can short-circuit the external triggers that spark harmful behaviours.
Four steps to hacking back your smartphone and saving yourself countless hours of mindless phone time.

Remove: Remove the apps you no longer need and are not aligning with your values.
Replace: Just because your phone can seemingly do everything, that doesn’t mean it should. Therefore replace when and where you want to use your favourite apps like deleting the apps like Facebook, twitter from your phone and instead use it on your computer.
Rearrange: Now since we are left with critical mobile apps, it’s time to rearrange your home screen so that it includes only your primary Tools and Aspirations. If the app triggers any mindless checking from you, move it to a different screen.
Reclaim: Do you know less than 15% of smartphone users adjust their notification settings. It’s recommended to adjust two types of notification permissions:

Sound: An audible notification is the most intrusive.
Sight: After sound, visual triggers are the most intrusive form

Hack Back Your Desktop

Desktop Clutter costs us time, degrades performance and kills concentration.
Unsurprisingly, our brains have a tougher time finding things when they are positioned in a disorganized manner, which means every errant icon, open tab or unnecessary bookmark serves as a nagging reminder of things left undone or unexplored.
With so many external triggers it is easy to mindlessly click away from the task at hand.
Disable all desktop notifications to ensure your won’t get by external triggers while doing focused work.

Hack Back Online Articles

Online articles are full of potentially distracting external triggers.
Save interesting articles and mark it to read later using pocket or any other medium.
Do multitasking; Listen to articles while working out or taking waking meetings

Hack Back Feeds

Social media and it’s News feed are particularly devilish source of distraction: sites like twitter, Instagram and Reddit are designed to spawn external triggers – news, updates and notifications galore.
A free web browser extension called News Feed Eradicator for Facebook eliminates the countless alluring external triggers.
Similar to Facebook, use an extension for YouTube called DF Tube, which removes suggested videos and ads along the side of the screen.

PART – 4 PREVENT DISTRACTION WITH PACTS

The Power of Precommitments

Focus but only requires keeping distraction out, it also necessitates keeping ourselves in.
Last step in becoming Indistractable involves preventing ourselves from sliding into distraction. To do so we must learn a powerful technique called a ‘PreCommittment’, which involves a future choice in order to overcome our impulsiveness.
Precommitments are powerful because they cement our intentions when we are clearheaded and make us less likely to act against our best interests later.
The most effective time to introduce a precommitment is after we have addressed the first three aspects of the Indistractable Model

Prevent Distraction with Effort Pacts

An effort pact prevents distraction by marking unwanted behaviours more difficult to do.
Some Apps you can yet are like ‘SelfControl’, ‘Freedom’, ‘Forests’.

Prevent Distractions with Price Pacts

A price pact is a type of commitment that involves putting money on the line to encourage us to do what we say we will. Stick to your intended behaviour and keep the cash; get distracted and you forfeit the funds. It sounds harsh, but the results are stunning.
Losing hurts more than winning feels good.
A price pact is effective because it moves the pain of losing to the present moment as opposed to a distant future.
Price Pact only works when you can tune out or turn off the external triggers.
Price pacts should only be used for short tasks.

Prevent Distraction with Identity Pacts

One of the most effective ways to change our behaviour is to change our identity.
Our perception of who we are changes what we do.
Start saying ‘I don’t’ instead of saying ‘I can’t’ if you want to eliminate some bad Habit of yours.
By thinking yourself as indistractable, you empower yourself through your new Identity.
Telling others about your new identity is a great way to solidify your pact.
Another way to reinforce our identity is through rituals. The more we stick to our plans, the more we reinforce our identity.
Though conventional wisdom says our beliefs shape our behaviours, the opposite is also true.

PART – 5 HOW TO MAKE YOUR WORKPLACE INDISTRACTABLE

Distraction is a sign of Dysfunction

Distractions originate from a need to escape psychological discomfort.
Technology is not the root cause of distraction at work. The problem goes much deeper.

Jobs where employees encounter high expectations and low control have been shown to lead to symptoms of depression.
Depression like symptoms are painful. When people feel bad, they use distractions to avoid their pain and regain a sense of control.

Fixing Distraction is a Test of Company Culture

Companies consistently confuse the disease of bad culture with symptoms like tech overuse and high employee turnover.
Knowing that your voice matters, and that you’re not stuck in an uncaring unchangeable machine, positively impacts wellbeing.

The Indistractable workplace

‘It’s okay to be offline’ and give 100% attention to the to the task in hand.
Indistractable Organizations provides a place for open discussions and about concerns, and most importantly, have leaders who exemplify the importance of doing focused work.

PART – 6 How to Raise Indistractable Children (And Why We All Need Psychological Nutrients)

Avoid Convenient Excuses

There are many problems associated with raising a kid in the digital age.
Example of a convenient excuse is that ‘Sugar-High’ is a myth for kids, it does have a real effect on parents. A study found that mothers, when told that their sons were given sugar, rated their child’s behaviour as more hyperactive – despite that child having been given a placebo.
Another common excuse is that teens are rebellious by nature. In an article. ‘ The Myth of the Teen Brain’, Robert Epstein writes, ‘many historians note that through most of recorded human history, the teen years were a relatively peaceful time of transition to adulthood’. Apparently, our teenagers’ brains are fine – it is our brains that are underdeveloped.
Parents don’t need to believe tech is evil to help kids manage distraction.
Learning to become Indistractable is a skill that will serve our children no matter what life path they pursue or what

Understand Their Internal Triggers

Just as human body need three macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fat), the human psyche needs three things to flourish: autonomy, competence and relatedness.
When the psyche is undernourished, it produces anxiety, restlessness and other symptoms that something is missing.
Without sufficient amounts of autonomy, competence and relatedness, kids turn to distractions for psychological nourishment.
FIRST KIDS NEED AUTONOMY – Volition and Freedom
Understand the underlying needs and associated triggers driving your children to distractions.
SECOND, CHILDREN STRIVE FOR COMPETENCE – Mastery, Progression, Achievement and Growth.
Kids are so different and their development rates are so variable.
When children spend their time in school doing something they don’t enjoy, don’t value and don’t see potential for improvement in, ‘it should be on surprise to us that at night-time [they] would rather turn to an activity where they can feel a lot of competence.
THIRD, THEY SEEK RELATEDNESS – Feeling important to others and that others are important to us.
Kids are not getting enough of the three essential psychological nutrients – autonomy, competence and relatedness – in their offline lives; and therefore kids go looking for substitutions online.
We can’t solve all our kids’ troubles, and not should we attempt to, but we can try to understand their struggles better through the lens on their psychological needs.

Make Time for Traction Together

When it comes to helping our kids manage distraction, it’s important to make the conversation about people rather than tech.
We can encourage regular discussions about our values and theirs and teach them how to set aside time to be the people they want to be.
Without a clear plan, many kids are left to make impulsive decisions that often involve digital distraction.
It’s okay to let your kids fail. Failure is how we learn. Show kids to adjust their schedules to make time to live up to their values.

Help Them With External Triggers

As parents we often forget that a kid wanting something ‘really really badly’ is not a good enough reason.
A good measure of a child’s readiness is their ability to manage distractions by using the settings on the device to turn off external triggers.
Make sure no external triggers gets in the way of getting good rest.
Respect their time and don’t interrupt then when they have scheduled time to focus on something, be that work or play.

Teach Them To Make Their Own Pacts

It is important to involve the child in the conversation and help them set their own rules.
It’s only when kids can monitor their own behaviour that they learn the skills they need to be Indistractable – even when their parents aren’t around.
We need to ensure their beliefs in their power to overcome distraction. It’s their responsibility, as well as their right, to use their time wisely,

PART – 7 HOW TO HAVE INDISTRACTABLE RELATIONSHIPS

Spread Social Antibodies Among Friends

Societies tend to develop ‘Social Antibodies’ – Defence against new harmful behaviours.
Social norms are changing, but whether or not they change for the better is up to us.
Block the spread of unhealthy behaviours.
Develop the new social norms. We can tackle distraction among friends the same way we beat social smoking, by making it unacceptable to use devices in social situations. Prepare a new tactful phrases, such as asking ‘ Is everything OK?’ to discourage phone usage among friends.

Be an Indistractable lover

Learn to deal with the discomforts that draws you back to your old habit.
Distractions can take a toll on even out most intimate relationships; the cost of being able to connect with anyone in the world is that we might not be fully present with the person physically next to us.
Indistractable partners reclaim time for togetherness. Following the four steps to become Indistractable can ensure you make time for your partner.