We need to become indistractable, writes Nir Eyal, or we’ll never fulfil our potential.
Our susceptibility to distraction is more than a nuisance; it’s a serious issue that impacts our personal and professional success and quality of life. So argues Nir Eyal, a former lecturer in marketing at Stanford, whose work lies at “the intersection of psychology, technology and business”.
(It's fair to say that Eyal understands the power of modern tech; he’s also written a book called How to Build Habit-Forming Products.)
Nope. If we weren’t being distracted by our phones or apps, we’d be looking in the fridge or gazing out of the window – it's a natural tendency . Rather than feeling powerless in the face of 21st-centrury distractions, Eyal suggests we examine and neutralise our triggers to achieve traction.
He explains that there are two types of trigger:
External: prompted by cues in our environment (such as message notifications).
Internal: promoted by cues with our ourselves (such as a rumbling stomach or regretful thought about an irritable exchange with our partner).
Eyal advises that next time we feel ourselves becoming distracted we:
visualise the trigger (for example, a spikey email from our line manager) being carried away by a force of nature (such as water or wind). Imagine that annoying message disappearing over a waterfall into the rapids.
make our tasks more engaging by finding a creative way to do them . Chunk a task into smaller elements and set a time limit for each.
reassess our potential to resist distraction. Imagine a friend reminding us that we’re overcome bigger things in life than a silly little trigger.
We can’t avoid them altogether, but strategic planning can help us to keep them at bay. For example, Eyal suggests we use the following practical techniques:
1. Timeboxing. Divide your days and weeks into separate slots for deep work, collaboration and admin, letting colleagues know when you can and cannot be disturbed. (Eyal’s wife wears a particular hat to signal when he’s not allowed to distract her.)
2. Categorising emails. Sort emails into ‘today’ and ‘this week’ files, only replying when your timeboxes allow.
3. Limiting meetings. Request that all meetings are preceded by a full agenda. Chances are, many of your colleagues won’t want to do this preparation and will figure things out on their own.
4. Spring-cleaning tech. For example, hide the apps that always distract you or use bookmarks for articles you’d like to read later.
Actually, Eyal argues that the first step to achieving focus is to ringfence quality time for ourselves. This means blocking out time every week to do the things we love, whether that’s watching box sets, spending time with family or going for a run.
If we know we have time for ‘rest and play’, we will be more prepared to settle down to work at the appropriate time without falling prey to distraction.
Make self-pacts – and stick to them, with the help of tech if needs be (it's not all bad!) For example, there are apps that limit how much time we can spend on ‘fun’ activities on our phones or that make us deposit money into then if we fail to keep our self-made pledges. We could also make pacts with like-minded friends to keep ourselves ‘honest’.
If we begin to associate ourselves with positive attributes (such as tenacity), we’ll be more loathe to let ourselves down.
“I've promised myself I'll have this done by 2pm.”
“Sorry, what? I was just scrolling through my phone.”