MBA1348 Guest Teacher: Nir Eyal- How to become Indistractable

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Hi, this is Nir Eyal. Thank you so much for joining me. Today we are going to learn how to become indistractable. Now, what does this word mean, indistractable? And why is it important to gain this new skill that some are calling the skill of the century? Well, as you've seen today, the world is becoming a very distracting place. And if you can't focus on doing your best work, it's really to your own detriment. And what we see that today, the rise of so many of these technologies, which are wonderful, they can really serve us in our lives, can also become the source of various distractions. So when we think about social media and email and YouTube and the news and our kids and our boss and our spouse and all of these potential distractions, all of these things can keep us from doing the work that we want to do, not only in our professional life, but we also know that for our mental well being, we also need to focus. For example, psychologists tell us that loneliness is as detrimental to our health as smoking and obesity are. But if we're not fully present with the people in our lives that we care about, we can't enjoy the benefits of close friendships. We can't enjoy this core human need to be understood by others and have others understand us. So it really is imperative for us to learn how to focus on for our relationships for Our work life, but also for ourselves, right? If you don't know how to focus and do what it is you say you're going to do, how do you make sure you have time to exercise or to learn new skills? All of these things require focus. But to focus, we need to make sure that we do not get distracted. Because what we find is that the real problem these days is not that we don't know what to do. We all basically don't know what to do, right? If you want to have a slender, good looking body, well, then you have to go exercise and eat, right? If you want to have close relationships, you have to be fully present with people you love. If you want to do good work, you have to actually do the work, especially the hard work that no one else wants to do. And so again, distraction is an incredibly important thing to overcome. But the question is, how do we overcome that skill? How do we become indistractable? So let's start with what we mean when we say that we become indistractable. So becoming indistractable doesn't mean you never get distracted. What it means is that you are the kind of person who does what they say they're going to do. You live with personal integrity. Now let's dive into the process for how we become indistractable. So to understand distraction, we have to understand the opposite of distraction. So the opposite of distraction is not actually focus. Focus is what you do with your time. The opposite of, of distraction is in fact, traction. You'll notice that traction and distraction both end in the same word. The five letter word action. A, C, T, I, O, N, action. So traction and distraction end in the word action, reminding us that these are things that we do, not things that happen to us. They both actually come from the same Latin root as well, trajare, which means to pull. So traction is any action that pulls you towards what you want in life. The opposite of traction is distraction. Any action that moves you away from what you want to do. So this is incredibly important one. It helps us stop moralizing that some things are somehow better than others. Right? That video games are somehow morally inferior to watching a football game. No. Anything that you plan to do with your time is wonderful. Anything that you plan to do with intent is traction. The opposite of that is distraction. And we're gonna talk about some strategies to manage traction and distraction. Just a minute. Now, the next thing we have to understand when it comes to managing distraction are the triggers that prompt us to either traction or distraction. And only two things Prompt us to do everything we do every single day. These are triggers. There are two types of triggers. We have external triggers and. And we have internal triggers. External triggers are things in our environment that prompt us to action. The pings, dings, rings, and things that prompt you to either traction or distraction. If an external trigger reminds you to go work out in the morning or to go to that meeting you planned, well, great. It's prompted you towards traction. But if it interrupts you while you're with friends or while you're working on a big project, now it's leading you towards distraction. So those are the external triggers. But it turns out the number one source of distraction is not the external triggers in our life, but in fact, it is the internal triggers. Now, what are internal triggers? Internal triggers are uncomfortable emotional states that prompt us to action. So this can be things like uncertainty, fatigue, stress, anxiety, any of these uncomfortable feelings that we seek to escape. There's one thing I want you to remember. It is that all of our behavior, all of our behavior, everything you do, is in fact prompted by a desire to escape discomfort. Even seeking pleasure is itself, neurologically speaking, an escape from discomfort. Because wanting, craving something, is in fact psychologically destabilizing. So that means. Okay, and this is a big one. Here's the takeaway. This means that if all distraction, if all action is prompted by a desire to escape discomfort, that means that time management is pain management. Let me say that again. Time management is pain management. Everything you do, whether it's something you want to do, traction, or something you don't intend to do, distraction is prompted by one of these two triggers, external triggers or internal triggers. So here we go into the fir the four steps, the four pillars of how to become indistractable. Step one has to be to master the internal triggers that if you are not in control of these uncomfortable emotional states, if you don't understand how to either deal with the source of the discomfort or learn tactics to cope with that feeling, you will always be a slave to discomfort. I don't care if that distraction is your cell phone or your computer or reading too many books or watching too much TV or listening to the news too much, whatever it might be, Any of these things can be a distraction. Distraction did not start with our tech. Facebook didn't invent distraction. It's been around for a very, very, very long time. Socrates and Aristotle, in fact, talked about it 2,500 years ago. So it is not a new problem. But it basically stems first and foremost from our need for emotional pacification so when we're checking email, when we really should be working on that big project, that's because we are looking for emotional relief. That is our. Just like a baby has a pacifier, we use our devices, our distractions, whatever it might be, to satisfy an uncomfortable emotional state. So that means that first and foremost, we have to understand how to master those internal triggers. And there's a few things that we can do. There's a lot more in my book Indistractable, that we don't have time in this very short podcast to go into. But one technique that I want to share with you that's very effective, that I use almost every single day, is this idea of surfing the urge. So the first step, of course, when it comes to our discomfort, is to solve the source of the problem, right? If something is causing you stress, anxiety, loneliness, fatigue, whatever it might be, and you can fix the problem, do that first. But sometimes we can't always fix the source of our problem. Sometimes there are things we just have to grin and bear it. So how do we do that? Well, one technique that we can use is called Surfing the Urge, where every time you feel an uncomfortable sensation, that prompts you to get distracted. So in my case, I sit down to write in the morning. Writing is hard work. I oftentimes feel bored, I feel anxious, I'm nervous. I'm not sure if anybody's gonna like what I'm writing.

So.

So when I feel those sensations, I often want to check email for a minute or Google something. But instead, what I do is I draw awareness to that sensation. I write it down on a piece of paper, and then I allow myself to surf the urge. And then I use what's called the 10 minute rule to simply ride out that sensation, right? Like a surfer on a surfboard on top of a wave, you just let that sensation rise and crest, and then it subsides. And this is called surfing the Urge. And if you do that for just 10 minutes, and I tell myself in 10 minutes, I can give in to that temptation, where the temptation is to check email, eat some ice cream, whatever it is that I'm trying to not get distracted from doing, that process of surfing the urge can be incredibly empowering. So that's just one technique that's associated with the first step in becoming indistractable, which is to master our internal triggers. Again, much more in the book Indistractable as well. But let me move on to the second pillar of becoming indistractable, which is to make time for traction. We Talked about how traction are these actions that we take that pull us towards what we want. So here's the thing. You have no right to call something a distraction unless you know what it distracted you from. Which means we have to plan out every minute of our day. So I'm going to give you a link in the show notes to a free tool, a schedule maker that I have on my website. It's absolutely free that you can use to make your ideal weekly template and this skill of planning out our time down to the minute. Many people think this is a lot of work. It's hard. It's actually not at all. It takes you about 30 minutes the first time, maybe 15 minutes a week to maintain it. It will change your life. It is one of these practices that in my experience, across the board, almost without exception, every C level executive I have ever met already does this. And this is something that all of us have to do to make sure that we do what we say we're going to do in our personal life, in our professional life. We have to start using this technique of time blocking. The third technique, the third pillar of becoming indistractable is to hack back those external triggers. Remember, the external triggers are these pings, dings, rings, all of these things in our environment that prompt us to do either traction or distraction. So we can take some very simple steps to alleviate this problem of all of these external triggers, not only on our phones and our computers, which we certainly should and must, but in group chat channels in the open floor plan office. So I'm gonna give you a link to a screen sign. It's actually in every copy of Indistractable is a screen sign. It's a piece of cardstock you pull out of the book, you put it on your monitor that tells your colleagues that you are indistractable at the moment. Please come back later. And so we have to plan out that time as we talked about in the previous step of making time for traction to make sure we have time for focused work. And then we are hacking back those external triggers that might distract us. Whether it's a ping or ding on your phone or a colleague vying for your attention, we have to hack back all of those external triggers. And then finally, the fourth step is to prevent distraction with pacts. And this is where we can use technology against itself. So this is where we can make a promise, a pre commitment to make sure we don't do something we don't want to do. And so there are some tools out there that are absolutely free that we can use to put technology in its place. One tool I use every day is called Forest. It's a free app on your phone that you open the app, you put in, how much time you want to do focused work for you, push go and a little virtual tree is planted. Now if you do anything other than do the work you want to do, if you pick up that phone and do anything with it to check Google or Facebook or whatever, that little virtual tree dies. Now it's a stupid little virtual tree, but it's enough of a reminder to tell you, hey, you made a promise with yourself to stay on task. So I've given you the four big steps here of how to become indistractable, which are to master your internal triggers to make time for traction, to hack back the external triggers and prevent distraction with packs. Now there's a lot more depth in my book how to control your attention and choose your life, which you can find@indistractible.com I will also give you a free 80 page workbook which I couldn't fit in the book but is yours free. Also@indistractable.com there's a lot more information, tools and techniques and resources all@indistractable.com and now thanks for joining me so much. I'm going to hand it back to.

Omar Thy ticket lady Jennifer of Coolidge.

Well, many thanks good sir. Here is my Discover card. They accept Discover at Renaissance fairs? Yeah, they do here. Discover is accepted at the places I love to shop. Getth with the times, with the tines. You're playing the loot. Yeah, and it sounds pretty good, right? Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide, based on the February 2025 Nielsen report.

USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With usaa, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a'@usaa.com bundle restrictions apply. What a fantastic lesson by Nir Eyal. I absolutely loved how he broke down where these triggers come from, whether they're external or internal, and how distractions essentially are emotional relief. But the biggest thing I want to emphasize is what he said in the lesson. Time management equals pain management. This took me a while to really understand and you really, really need to make sure that you take your time seriously. You covet your if you really believe that time is your greatest asset, then if I look at your calendar, there should be no white space. Everything should be blocked out. You should have a plan for how you're going to be using your precious time every day, every hour. Now, a lot of people think, hey, that's constrictive. I don't like that. It's the exact opposite. It gives you freedom to choose how to spend your time. If you don't do that, then you let everything around you dictate and push you around and steal your time away. But when you allocate your calendar to certain activities and other activities could be things that you enjoy. I'm talking about life and business. If you black book Friday afternoons for going to the beach because you love to surf, then that ensures you're going to go surf every Friday afternoon. But if you leave it open and hope that happens, guess what happens? You work later. You take that meeting when you're not supposed to get caught up in chit chat in the office. Now you might be saying, I'm solo. I want to learn how to do this. Well, near y' all to the rescue. Go to his website. He's got a great planned for you. It's a workbook on how to regain hours of lost productivity. Just go to nearandfar.com that's n I r a n dash dash far dot com. You're going to pop your name and email address and you're going to get the workbook for free. The next thing I highly recommend you do is pick up Near Eyal's books Hooked. I absolutely loved and I can't wait to dig into Indistractable. I'm putting it in my shopping cart at Amazon right now. The best way you could be productive and get the best results is to understand how the human body and brain works. How do we function in this world? How can we take advantage of our tools? We're given these tools, we might as well take advantage to the max and make sure we know how to use them. Thanks for the great, great lesson and the free workbook. If you love today's show and love our podcast, hit subscribe right now. So you get all our episodes automatically, right right to your device. That way, when the next episode's available, it's ready for you to listen to. Also, if you want to show some love, you could do two things. Leave us a review on itunes and share the show with your friends and family, whether it's on Facebook or Twitter or any social media. Or even just telling the next person you see today. Tell them what today's episode is all about and share the show. Thank you so much for listening. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I love when near talked about being intentional about your action. If you have a two hour session where you've scheduled playing video games, awesome. Decompress. Enjoy yourself. That's way better than saying, hey, today I'm gonna get so much work done and you don't plan for it, you don't put it in the schedule and you end up dilly dallying and delaying and neither enjoying your life or playing video games or getting work done. You know what I'm talking about. You've been there. Use that calendar block, book your time, covet your time because it's all you got and it's the ultimate equalizer. People have variant talents, experience, upbringing, maybe even funding. But we all have the same amount of time. How we use it is what differentiates us. All right, thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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