Lessons from Indistractable

A significant portion of the tech talent goes into keeping you hooked to your apps, phones and other gadgets. Research into the human psyche on how to drive engagement is one of the most heavily invested areas in consumer tech. The gains to the companies doing this are obvious but we’ve only just begun to realise that there’s large costs to the consumers and the economy. Nir Eyal (who wrote the seminal book on engagement called hooked) in his book Indistractable talks about how understanding the tactics employed by tech companies to keep us hooked, can also be useful in becoming more resilient to distraction.

The book starts with laying down an understanding of what distraction is. It is the opposite of traction or useful work. You can consider yourself distracted only when you have something to be distracted from (traction). Think of this a single scale that has traction on the right hand side and distraction on the left hand side. Everything you consider important like spending time with your family, productive work, reading or hitting the gym is traction and everything that you do unconsciously and which takes time away from traction is distraction which includes like browsing your social media feed, watching videos on loop, etc. This book offers a four part system to manage distraction and get more done. ##### 1. Manage internal triggers Distraction is often caused by our feelings and thoughts and how we react to them. Keeping a tab and root-causing our distraction is the first step towards become more indistractable. Most of our distractions are basically tiny escapes from pain or reality so in essence it can be thought of as a pain management psychological reflex. We have a built in negativity bias inside of us that allows us to have an easier time recalling negative emotions and moments. We evolved to remember bad things as bad things could kill us. This, along with rumination, which is a tendency to think about bad moments and self critical thoughts push us to seek distraction. This is important to understand the gravity of distraction as an evolutionary principle. ***You cannot just will your way of distraction. You need a structure.*** Eyal recommends this simple 4 point structure to manage internal triggers. Step 1 – notice your discomforts Step 2 – write down the triggers that cause you to seek escape Step 3 – explore your sensations when you’re feeling overwhelmed and want to escape Step 4 – take control of key moments when you’re about to seek escape ##### 2. Make time for traction Waking up with no plan of action for the day is one of the the surest ways to finding oneself getting constantly distracted. As I wrote before, distraction takes you away from traction and you need to come up with a clear traction plan for the day to stay away from distraction. One of the more interesting points Eyal makes is ***connecting your traction with your values***. Our actions are often disconnected with what we say are our values. Basically our todo list should reflect what we value. There are three smart techniques that can help you plan for traction. **Timeboxing** – Planning ahead is the most important aspect of traction. You should assign time to whatever you value and it can include mindless doom scrolling too, as long as you allocate time to it and plan it in advance. The implementation intention concept discussed in [Atomic Habits](https://infermuse.com/lessons-from-atomic-habits/) also talks about verbalising a plan to do something at a specific instance of time. **Focus on the input** – The idea of making time for traction is not to get more done, it is about scheduling when and how much you want to show up for a specific thing. This is something we find counter intuitive. By focussing on the right actions that are aligned with our values, we remove the vagaries of other factors that affect the output and just focus on our own self. ##### 3. Hack back external triggers This is actually one of the more easy things to do. It is about taking back control of when other people, gadgets, apps and other things in your life, can grasp your attention. Social media sites exploit a deep vulnerability in human psychology, that of seeking new information. Whenever you receive an external trigger you must ask yourself, ***is this trigger serving me or am I serving it***. This question helps us react to these triggers with more information and clarity. There are several hacks that are discussed in this part but I am going the describe the three that struck a chord with me. **Setting up meeting** **rules** – Meetings can be a distraction if they are overdone. To call a meeting one must do two things first. Send a clear agenda and a brief digest of your own views. Basically, make rules that make it harder for people to call for a meeting. An ideal meeting is where participants first brainstorm individually and then do a discussion. All meetings should have a “no devices” policy so as to avoid “psychological escape” from stress and anxiety.

**Taking control of your phone** – App notifications are a big aspect of hacking back external triggers. Uninstall apps that don’t align with your values. Almost no one benefits from notifications from news apps so either suspend those notifications or uninstall those apps. Time boxing social media can allow one to enjoy scrolling through feeds without feeling guilty and it also ensures it doesn’t get in the way of your schedule. One of the other things you can do is to reduce the number of home screens on your phone to only keep the really important apps on them. The image above, lays down a simple three homescreen framework. I have done this and now I only have the two home screens on my phone now – primary tools (dialer, browser, Slack, Email, Google Keep, Google Authenticator, Camera) and aspirational (Meditation app, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Audible, Google Fit and Pocket). **Never read articles on the browser** – This one has been a life changer for me. The benefits of consuming content, that you’ve just discovered, later, is truly compounding. I have begun using the Pocket app along with its browser extension for saving links and articles that I bumped into, for later reading at a time which I have previously allocated for it. This method also helps save you from keeping 100 browser tabs open that can cause its own anxiety. One can also leverage multi channel multitasking, which simply put, is our ability to do multiple things as long as they involve different senses. For example you can listen to a podcast while working out. ##### 4. Pacts to focus and prevent distraction The final part of the book looks at making pre-commitments to prevent sliding into distraction. If you make pacts that involve costs or losses then you’re very likely to continue doing actions that lead you towards traction and away from distraction. The core idea is to create a pact (either with yourself or someone you know) that makes bad choices effortful. For example [time based locks on boxes](https://www.thekitchensafe.com/) that hold snacks to prevent midnight snacking. An important idea that was common in this book and [Atomic Habits](https://infermuse.com/lessons-from-atomic-habits/) is that ***to adopt good habits you need to become the kind of person who follows through***. Psychologically thinking of yourself differently helps you adopt habits more easily and helps you to continue on that path. - - - - - - I run a startup called [Harmonize](http://www.harmonizehq.com/). We are hiring and if you’re looking for an exciting startup journey, please write to jobs@harmonizehq.com. Apart from this blog, [I tweet ](https://twitter.com/dillisingh)about startup life and practical wisdom in books.