# Indistractable - Nir Eyal Synced: [[2023_11_30]] 6:03 AM Last Highlighted: [[2020_01_31]]  ## Highlights [[2019_11_17]] (Location 299) > •    Distraction stops you from achieving your goals. It is any action that moves you away from what you really want. [[2019_11_17]] (Location 300) > •    Traction leads you closer to your goals. It is any action that moves you toward what you really want. [[2019_11_17]] (Location 301) > •    Triggers prompt both traction and distraction. External triggers prompt you to action with cues in your environment. Internal triggers prompt you to action with cues within you. [[2019_11_17]] (Location 347) > Jeremy Bentham, the English philosopher and founder of utilitarianism, put it, “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.” [[2019_11_17]] (Location 349) > Even when we think we’re seeking pleasure, we’re actually driven by the desire to free ourselves from the pain of wanting. [[2019_11_17]] (Location 351) > Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher, said it best: “By pleasure, we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul.” [[2019_11_17]] (Location 352) > Simply put, the drive to relieve discomfort is the root cause of all our behavior, while everything else is a proximate cause. [[2019_11_17]] (Location 366) > Solely blaming a smartphone for causing distraction is just as flawed as blaming a pedometer for making someone climb too many stairs. [[2019_11_17]] (Location 389) > Only by understanding our pain can we begin to control it and find better ways to deal with negative urges. [[2019_11_17]] (Location 398) > •    Understand the root cause of distraction. Distraction is about more than your devices. Separate proximate causes from the root cause. [[2019_11_17]] (Location 399) > •    All motivation is a desire to escape discomfort. If a behavior was previously effective at providing relief, we’re likely to continue using it as a tool to escape discomfort. [[2019_11_17]] (Location 401) > •    Anything that stops discomfort is potentially addictive, but that doesn’t make it irresistible. If you know the drivers of your behavior, you can take steps to manage them. [[2019_11_17]] (Location 408) > If distraction costs us time, then time management is pain management. [[2019_11_18]] (Location 450) > As David Myers writes in The Pursuit of Happiness, “Every desirable experience—passionate love, a spiritual high, the pleasure of a new possession, the exhilaration of success—is transitory.” [[2019_11_18]] (Location 456) > Dissatisfaction and discomfort dominate our brain’s default state, but we can use them to motivate us instead of defeat us. [[2019_11_18]] (Location 469) > •    Evolution favored dissatisfaction over contentment. Our tendencies toward boredom, negativity bias, rumination, and hedonic adaptation conspire to make sure we’re never satisfied for long. [[2019_11_18]] (Location 473) > we want to master distraction, we must learn to deal with discomfort. Chapter 5 Deal with Distraction from Within Jonathan Bricker, a psychologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, has spent his career helping people manage the kind of discomfort that not only leads to distraction but also to disease. [[2019_11_18]] (Location 487) > Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in 1863, “Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute.” [[2019_11_18]] (Location 496) > An endless cycle of resisting, ruminating, and finally giving in to the desire perpetuates the cycle and quite possibly drives many of our unwanted behaviors. [[2019_11_18]] (Location 521) > •    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. [[2019_11_19]] (Location 529) > STEP 1: LOOK FOR THE DISCOMFORT THAT PRECEDES THE DISTRACTION, FOCUSING IN ON THE INTERNAL TRIGGER [[2019_11_19]] (Location 533) > STEP 2: WRITE DOWN THE TRIGGER [[2019_11_19]] (Location 543) > STEP 3: EXPLORE YOUR SENSATIONS [[2019_11_19]] (Location 552) > STEP 4: BEWARE OF LIMINAL MOMENTS [[2019_11_19]] (Location 613) > “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” [[2019_11_19]] (Location 615) > Fun is looking for the variability in something other people don’t notice. It’s breaking through the boredom and monotony to discover its hidden beauty. [[2019_11_19]] (Location 654) > People who did not see willpower as a finite resource did not show signs of ego depletion. [[2019_11_19]] (Location 693) > Self-compassion makes people more resilient to letdowns by breaking the vicious cycle of stress that often accompanies failure. [[2019_11_19]] (Location 707) > •    Reimagining our temperament can help us manage our internal triggers. •    We don’t run out of willpower. Believing we do makes us less likely to accomplish our goals by providing a rationale to quit when we could otherwise persist. •    What we say to ourselves matters. Labeling yourself as having poor self-control is self-defeating. •    Practice self-compassion. Talk to yourself the way you’d talk to a friend. People who are more self-compassionate are more resilient. [[2019_11_20]] (Location 717) > toward what you want in life, while distraction pulls you [[2019_11_20]] (Location 720) > philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe believed he could predict someone’s future based on one simple fact. “If I know how you spend your time,” he wrote, “then I know what might become of you.” [[2019_11_20]] (Location 723) > philosopher Seneca wrote, “People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time, they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.” [[2019_11_20]] (Location 733) > According to Russ Harris, author of The Happiness Trap, values are “how we want to be, what we want to stand for, and how we want to relate to the world around us.” [[2019_11_20]] (Location 756) > You can’t call something a distraction unless you know what it’s distracting you from. [[2020_01_28]] (Location 797) > •    You can’t call something a distraction unless you know what it is distracting you from. Planning ahead is the only way to know the difference between traction and distraction. [[2020_01_29]] (Location 844) > •    Schedule time for yourself first. You are at the center of the three life domains. Without allocating time for yourself, the other two domains suffer. •    Show up when you say you will. You can’t always control what you get out of time you spend, but you can control how much time you put into a task. •    Input is much more certain than outcome. When it comes to living the life you want, making sure you allocate time to living your values is the only thing you should focus on. [[2020_01_29]] (Location 935) > •    The people you love deserve more than getting whatever time is left over. If someone is important to you, make regular time for them on your calendar. •    Go beyond scheduling date days with your significant other. Put domestic chores on your calendar to ensure an equitable split. •    A lack of close friendships may be hazardous to your health. Ensure you maintain important relationships by scheduling time for regular get-togethers. [[2020_01_29]] (Location 1016) > •    Syncing your schedule with stakeholders at work is critical for making time for traction in your day. Without visibility into how you spend your time, colleagues and managers are more likely to distract you with superfluous tasks. •    Sync as frequently as your schedule changes. If your schedule template changes from day to day, have a daily check-in. However, most people find a weekly alignment is sufficient. [[2020_01_31]] (Location 1046) > In 2007, B. J. Fogg, founder of Stanford University’s Persuasive Technology Lab, taught a class on “mass interpersonal persuasion.” Several of the students in attendance would later pursue careers applying his methods at companies like Facebook and Uber. Mike Krieger, a cofounder of Instagram, created a prototype of the app in Fogg’s class that he eventually sold for $1 billion. As a student at Stanford’s business school at the time, I attended a retreat at Fogg’s home, where he taught his methods of persuasion in more depth. Learning from him firsthand was a turning point in my understanding of human behavior. He taught me a new formula that changed the way I viewed the world. [[2020_01_31]] (Location 1051) [[favorite]] > The Fogg Behavior Model 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). More succinctly, B = MAT. [[2020_01_31]] (Location 1053) > Motivation is “the energy for action,” according to Edward Deci, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester. When we’re highly motivated, we have a strong desire, and the requisite energy, to take an action, and when we’re not motivated, we lack the energy to perform a task. Meanwhile, in Fogg’s formula, ability relates to facility of action. Quite simply, the harder something is to do, the less likely people are to do it. Conversely, the easier something is to do, the more likely we are to do it. When people have sufficient motivation and ability, they’re primed for certain behavior. However, without the critical third component, the behavior will not occur. A trigger to tell us what to do next is always required. [[2020_01_31]] (Location 1060) > Today, much of our struggle with distraction is a struggle with external triggers. [[2020_01_31]] (Location 1096) > •    External triggers often lead to distraction. Cues in our environment like the pings, dings, and rings from devices, as well as interruptions from other people, frequently take us off track. •    External triggers aren’t always harmful. If an external trigger leads us to traction, it serves us. [[2020_01_31]] (Location 1099) > •    We must ask ourselves: Is this trigger serving me, or am I serving it? Then we can hack back the external triggers that don’t serve us. [[2020_01_31]] (Location 1141) > Open-office floor plans were supposed to foster idea sharing and collaboration. Unfortunately, according to a 2016 metastudy of over three hundred papers, the trend has led to more distraction. Not surprisingly, these interruptions have also been shown to decrease overall employee satisfaction. [[2020_01_31]] (Location 1165) > •    Interruptions lead to mistakes. You can’t do your best work if you’re frequently distracted. •    Open-office floor plans increase distraction. •    Defend your focus. Signal when you do not want to be interrupted. Use a screen sign or some other clear cue to let people know you are indistractable.