How to Master Focus and Productivity with Nir Eyal

Hi.

I'd like to welcome you to Screw It, Just Do It Sessions, a new weekly feature where I look back into the vault and share a lesson with you from a past guest from the last seven years to help you get from where you are to where you want to be. Welcome to session 13 of Screw It. Just do it. And my guest this week is Nir Eyal. Nir is the author of Hooked, how to build habit forming products and also how to control your attention and choose your life. He's got a background in teaching at Stanford. He's also sold two technology companies, but he now focuses on helping companies create behaviors that benefit their users. He also educates people on building healthy habits in their own lives. He's an active investor and speaker. And I don't think I realized what such a big deal Nia was until I saw him on both Dara Vasito and High Performance podcast and actually heard Stephen Bartlett at a live event say that his interview with Nya Ial a couple of years ago, this was. Was his favorite episode at that time after a good couple of years of his podcast. So without further ado, enjoy this session with Nir Eyal.

What I wanted to dive into, start of all is when you came up with the idea for Indistractible. What I found really interesting is the additional material that you got. So you got like a cutout card at the back, you've got the website that you can send people to, you got a book club discussion guide. Where did all these ideas come from? Were they there at the very beginning of the process or did they kind of permeate throughout the process?

Well, some. Some is a little bit of both, actually. So some of the things that I wanted to put in the book came from, you know, doing research in the field and finding that sometimes these the things I recommended required physical manifestation. So, for example, you mentioned the screen sign. There's. I insisted with my publisher that we insert this piece of cardstock that's in the middle of the book that you pull out of the book in American editions, in the middle, I think in the UK editions, in the back, you pull out this piece of cardstock, you fold it into thirds, and it's this red sign you can put on your computer monitor that tells your colleagues that you're indistractable. Of course, the book was published in 2019, right before we went into lockdown, but now that we're going back into the office, it's very effective. It's also effective if you work from home and you need a sign to tell your spouse or your roommate that you're working on something where you can't be distracted. It's just a little screen sign that proved very, very helpful. And then I write the kind of books I would most like to read, and so I try and make them very, very digestible and practical. So, you know, one thing I find with a lot of nonfiction books is, you know, it's like you read the book and like, this could have been a blog post. Why did someone write 250 pages of this stuff? It could have been a blog post. I hate those kind of books. I really wanted people to money's worth. And so every single chapter, they're relatively short chapters because they're written for people who are struggling with distraction. So I wanted to make them very digestible. And also at the end of every chapter is a section that says, that says, you know, remember this. It literally says, remember this? And it says the bullet points of. Here's what I said, right? Here are the main points I want you to remember so that if you're just in browsing mode, you say, okay, what's this chapter about? You know, a lot of authors don't do this because when you actually digest what a chapter says, you're like, well, that's not a big takeaway. I knew that. Whereas I really wanted some counterintuitive insights for people to glean. Even if you do just read the bullet points that you know, for some chapters, you might just gloss over it. For example, if you don't have kids, well, maybe this section on how to raise indistractable kids, something you can, you can skip or just read the bullet points on. And then as far as the guide, there is an 80 page workbook that's available complimentary at my site near far.com that actually we intended to originally put in the book, but it was 80 pages, so it got too big. And so he said, well, let's just save it and make it something that you can download if you like. And so now it's available for free there.

Yeah, it kind of definitely felt like compared to a lot of other books that I've read, that you felt you really did get your money's worth because there are additional resources. And funny you should mention that like with the card because my wife literally just came in the room five minutes before and had already told her not to come in the studio while, whilst I was recording. So I kind of related to that. And I haven't gone back to the office myself. Here Yet. And a lot of the businesses are taking a kind of similar view. We're kind of waiting to see what happened on Monday here in the uk. But something that I really resonated with was that because I actually got to the stage that I, when we were in. Ted Baker, founder of Ted Baker, Ray Kelvin, he's got an affinity with Bournemouth, where we live, and he built his first like shared co working space here a few years ago. We were the first tenants in the building. And I ended up getting so distracted by my staff, like sitting opposite me, sitting around me on, you know, one of these big work desks that I actually took myself up to the top floor and we used to work there on my own. And I just used to think, well, it's probably isn't really setting a great example to my staff that I can't actually interact with them. But at the same time, you know, when I want to do a deep work, as I guess I would call it, or, you know, anything that requires focus and attention, that probably covers a whole bunch of different work. But people would just start random conversations. You accidentally caught eye contact with somebody across the desk and they thought that was a sign to like start interacting with you. So, you know, really resonated with me, I have to say.

Yeah. So it's interesting you mentioned that. So when we do surveys on what is the most prominent sources of distraction, number one is not email or cell phones or Slack or anything like that, it's other people. The number one source of distraction in the workplace is your boss coming by your desk and saying, hey, where's that TPS report? Or, you know, a colleague say, hey, did you hear that bit of office gossip? And that stuff is great. There's nothing wrong with that stuff as long as it doesn't take up your entire day. Right. If your entire day is chopped up into little fragments, you can't think, you can't be creative, you can't do your best work if you are constantly interrupted. So I think going up into that, that att doing work is great, maybe don't do it all day, but establishing that, that, that, that culture, that, hey, look, all of us, we need some time to work without distraction. We need some focused work time or else we cannot do our best work. There is no way that you can be creative, that you can be, that you can plan, that you can strategize, that you can think, for God's sakes, if you are constantly interrupted.

Yeah, that thing of being, actually being allowed, having the time and space to actually Gather your thoughts and think super important. And I guess with a lot of these workspaces like with ours, you would have these breakout areas where you could go. And I suppose it comes down to a lot of self discipline as well, that you would go there to work, not to go there and have other conversations that you would have around the water cooler and all that kind of stuff. Anyway.

Yeah. And again, like, I'm not against any of this stuff. Right. You'll find many people who are for, you know, digital detoxes and they say that technology is the problem. I don't agree with that at all. I think technology is wonderful. Facebook is great. There's Nothing wrong with YouTube if you want to use these products, they're not melting your brain, they're not addicting you. That is rubbish. It's fine if you use it on your schedule and according to your values, not somebody else's. Certainly not the tech companies. So what most people do is they throw up their hands and say, oh, I'm addicted, I'm hijacked, I'm distracted, and they do nothing about it. How much can we complain about this stuff before we say, hey, you know what? I am going to be responsible for my time and attention.

I am indistractable and I'm sure you've had many conversations with other people about this during the pandemic. But I find it interesting as we're coming out of the UK of lockdown and there are a lot of surveys that literally came out at the start of this week when we're recording this in July, and a lot of the big companies are still saying that they're not moving their workforces back or they're doing it in like 25% and then 50% and all those kinds of things.

What are your thoughts on. And I guess you've had enough time to think about this, the future of companies renting office space and people being able to access the talent pool further away from where they might be living. Instead of just recruiting locally, they're able to recruit globally. Instead of people are able to work from home or they're able to work in the office. Do you see this most talked about hybrid model actually happening? Or do you think people will just revert back to what they've always had done because people are creatures of habit?

Ultimately, I think that the answer is the same. For every difficult question, the answer is always the same. And the answer is it depends. It's not a very satisfying answer, but it depends. It depends on what kind of industry there are Some industries where in person collaboration is very, very important. There's some industries that require no in person collaboration where everybody can be an individual contributor. So it's really about what your job and what your job function and what your company culture is all about. I think for some organizations, distributed teams are perfectly fine. I think what the work from home trend allowed us to do was to step back and shed some of the preconceived notions of what can, can't be done. And now we see, wait a minute. Actually, a lot of jobs that we thought had to be in don't have to be in the office. So what we're going to start finding out is that I think some Companies can go 100% remote, some companies will be 100% in person, and many companies will be somewhere in between.

Yeah, I find it interesting because one of the companies that we were working with and you know, my main business is a podcast agency. We make podcasts for different brands, was like the biggest co working space in Europe. And literally in 30 days they went from, you know, hundred millions of dollars in revenue to zero because every single client handed in that 30 day notice. But what they found now is that without even marketing the business, they're getting lots of inquiries from businesses that are looking for smaller locations, but more locations. So instead of one big block, you know, in London, people are looking for multiple locations of smaller teams. So I found that quite an interesting.

Bit of research that they've come through as well. So maybe.

Yeah, which makes a lot of sense. I mean, I think, you know, before the pandemic, people complained about all the distractions that came from other people. Like as I mentioned, that's the number one source of distraction is your colleagues, your boss. And then of course, you know, so then they said, oh, you know, let's celebrate now we get to work from home. No commute, no distractions from our boss and colleagues. But now the distractions are our kids, our spouses, our roommates. The distractions now have changed and I think the solution is something that's more flexible. Right. It's hot desking, it's co working spaces. I do think that there is something to being around other humans that's really special. Like being able to like turn that off is important, right. Having time that you can work without distraction. That's why it's so important to learn how to become indistractable. Whether it's the distractions that come from our devices or the device, the distractions that come from people in our direct vicinity, it's really important to know how to hack back all those external triggers to become indistractable. But there is something I think really lonely to just working from home, right? I benefit a lot, you know, I work from a co working space some of the time as well. And I think there's something really great to being able to just see the same faces. And in many ways it's actually better than your work colleagues because then you have kind of a more of an arm's length relationship, right, with your work colleagues. There's some things you can and can't say and you probably don't want to get sucked into where it's just, you know, people in a co working space, you know, you can still get a cup of coffee, say, hey, what do you do? What are you up to? Hey, what's going on, Albert? What? You know, you can, you can still be jovial with people and still get that, that sense of camaraderie and hopefully build some friendships as well.

So did you hear that the most prominent source of distraction is not phones, is not email, is not social media, but it's people.

And it's so true. Think about it. He gives many examples. I love, by the way. I love how near explains things so simply. And if you haven't read his book Indistractable, I thoroughly recommend it. Likewise, is the other book hooked? I've been lucky enough to interview him twice for this podcast actually.

And it's the same, just a different type of distraction if you're at home or if you're in the office. And this is something that I really struggled with, which I mentioned in the full interview for this with him of being at a co working shared office space in Bournemouth and getting so distracted by my team.

That I ended up going and working in one of the breakout areas for most of the day, every day. I'd always check in with them in the morning, at lunchtime, at the end of the day. But if I needed to do some creative work, to actually, you know, work on a project, to actually.

Get some headspace and be creative and come up with ideas and work on different projects, I needed to be away from people just leaning over and going, did you see that thing last night? Or listen to this? Or did you hear about so and so. So he was absolutely spot on. But equally, you know, working from home now there's also distractions there, distractions if your other half works slightly different hours to you, if you don't have, you know, that space mapped out. And I'm lucky to have A fantastic studio at the end of my garden. I can kind of escape there and it's like a home away from home. But, you know, somebody just breaking your concentration just to say, like, I don't know, just to interrupt, you know, your train of thought and just to say, oh, by the way, do you mind going to the shops and getting some cat food or whatever, you know, something like that. Or equally, your kids coming home from school at 3, 3:30, breaking your concentration there as well. So I think it's really important, as he says, to recognize what triggers you internally. And I know not everyone's like that. I've gone back to co working shared office space, the foundry, and again I've worked out. I actually work better at home in my studio because I have the social element of, for example, going to London and going and recording with a client with my podcast agency, a bunch of podcast episodes. That's super social, right? Likewise, if I'm recording for this podcast with the guests that you've listened to. But if I'm in, you know, that co working shared office environment and I'm trying to work at like a hot desk or on one of the sofas there, I'm too easily triggered hourly by people making sales calls on their phones from their computer. Literally sat a couple of desks away from you. They're not going into the audio booths, which are completely soundproof to make their calls. And, and as I say, that's not everyone. But you've got to recognize what your triggers are. And for me, 100%, I thought NIA IR was spot on. For me, it's people as well. Yes, I get distracted and I might, you know, grab my phone and look at the BBC sport website or the NFL website, or I might check social media and see how, you know, the podcast is going on YouTube, for example.

But predominantly it's the people thing. I can switch back more easily, I think, from a digital distraction. If you haven't, you know, come across this before, you haven't listened to this, then, you know, take some time out just to recognize, you know, what triggers you and make that time. I've heard more and more people say this recently that they don't spend any time on, you know, doing that deep work, working on projects, working on ideas, working on being creative. They're just, you know, working in the business, they're not working on the business, they're not getting time to think of different strategies to grow things, be that the business, the podcast, etc. And I'm as guilty of that as the next person so I think scoping that time out especially when you're at your most creative. For me it's definitely in the morning then I would encourage you all, encourage you all to do that. And one more plug for Nia. If you haven't read this book I thoroughly recommend going checking out both his books Hooked and the other one Distracted. Thank you for listening to this episode. It's a real reminder of some of the amazing guests and incredible stories that they've shared with us over the last seven years. If you've enjoyed listening, can I encourage you to click the Follow or Subscribe button button? Did you know that only a little over 10% of our listeners follow or subscribe to the show? It really makes more difference than you know and helps in increasing how many people we can reach and help get to where they want to be and also in turn helps me get even better guests who want to appear on this show.