A short talk/transcript by Nir Eyal explaining distraction as actions that pull attention away from intended goals and contrasting 'distraction' with 'traction' (actions that pull you toward your goals). Eyal distinguishes external triggers (pings, people, devices) from internal triggers (boredom, loneliness, anxiety), cites a study that '90% of the time we check our phones' it's for internal reasons, and argues time management must address "pain management"—the discomfort driving escapes to distraction.
Chapters
So this is what used to happen to me almost every single day. I would sit down and I'd say, okay, I gotta do all this stuff. And I've got that big project I've been procrastinating on. I really gotta work on that today. Let me get started on that right away. Here I go. Nothing's gonna get in my way. Nothing's gonna distract me. Bing, bing, bing. No, even. Even worse. Not even the pings and dings. Oh, you know what? I really should check on that thing, that Slack channel. Probably somebody's waiting for me. Or let me just clear out my email real quick. Or let me just do this one thing that feels worky, right? I call this pseudo work. It feels like I need to do. I gotta check email sometime today, don't I? I better go check on it real quick. And what I didn't realize is that that is actually the most dangerous form of distraction. Distraction is one of these words that we toss around and most of us don't really understand. I certainly didn't understand what that meant. The best way to understand what distraction is is to understand what distraction is. Not okay. If you ask most people what is the opposite of distraction, they'll tell you it's focus, right? Wrong. The opposite of distraction is traction. That both words come from the same Latin root trajare, which means to pull, and they both end in the same six letters. A, C, T, I, O, N. That spells action. So traction, by definition, is any action that pulls you towards what you say you're going to do. Things you do with intent, things that pull you towards your values and help you become the kind of person you want to become. Now we have to ask ourselves, what prompts us attraction and distraction? What prompts these actions, Internal triggers and external triggers. These external triggers, the pings, dings, and rings in our environment. Of course, you know, we have the usual suspects of our phones and our computers. It can be other people, right? The number one source of distraction in the workplace is other people. Now, that is not the leading cause of distraction. There was just a study released about two months ago that found that 90% of the time we check our phones, it's not because of any kind of external trigger. 90% of the time we check our phones, it is because of a bad feeling. Boredom, loneliness, fatigue, uncertainty, fearfulness, stress, anxiety. These are the internal triggers that we seek to escape from. None of the tips, tricks, gurus, all those books, the seminars, anything having to do with time management is garbage. Does not work unless. Unless you start with the understanding that time management is pain management. If you don't understand how to deal with that discomfort that drives you to escape, you're gonna find it. You're always gonna find it. Whether it's too much news, too much booze, too much football, too much Facebook, it doesn't matter. You will find distraction unless you first start with understanding and dealing with the internal triggers.
