Nir Eyal: evaluation

Transcript context

…Well now, we got to hit them. Okay, so here's the question. I'll just start really broad and let's just see where this goes. My question is just how does one become less distractable, slash how do I become less distractable? Okay, so there's a deeper motivation here. It's like, "I need help," which is great. That's my favorite thing to do, is to actually get concrete with people about what their specific challenges are. But let me back up here. So, this is what I spent five years writing a book about, because why did it take me five years to write a book? Because I was so distracted. So, I wrote this book for me more than anyone else. That's the only reason I write books. It's not because of what I know, but because of what I want to know. And I discovered that there were so many myths and tropes and just flat out harmful things that I was doing to hurt my own productivity. And when I really went down to first principles and looked at the research, I found that there were so many things that I was doing wrong. But since I've changed my ways and adopted what the research literature says about distraction, it's improved my life in inconceivable ways. I'm in the best shape of my life at 45 years old. I have a better relationship with my family than ever. I'm more productive at work than ever before, not because I didn't know what to do. That's what I find is really emblematic of people today is not that we don't know what to do. It used to be maybe, okay, our grandparents, they didn't know what to do because the information was scarce. They had to go to the library and look things up. Well, today, with the internet, we all basically know what to do. And if you don't know what to do, Google it. You can find the answer out there. But we all basically know common-sense stuff like if you want to get in shape, you have to exercise and eat right, okay? You don't need a diet book to tell you that. If you want to have better relationships with your family, you have to be fully present with people. If you want to do better at work, you have to do the hard work that other people don't want to do. We already know these things. What we don't know is how to get out of our own way, how to stop getting distracted. And so, that was certainly my problem. And so, what I wanted to do was really dive into the problem because the conventional solutions didn't work for me. When I have a problem in my life, I'll think about it, I'll write about it, I'll talk to friends, I'll talk to my wife about it. If I still can't figure it out, I'll read books about it. And what the conventional wisdom out there written by a lot of college professors that are all tenured is stop using technology, stop checking email, get off social media. It's melting your brain, but that's not very helpful, right? Maybe if you have tenure, that's okay, but I can't stop using technology. My career will plummet. I have to use these tools. So, I wanted much more practical advice, and what I discovered was that the root cause of distraction is much more interesting and the solution is far more empowering than stop using technology, technology's evil, it's melting your brain. So, where do we begin? d was that the root cause of distraction is much more interesting and the solution is far more empowering than stop using technology, technology's evil, it's melting your brain. So, where do we begin? Maybe the best place to start is by first, before we dive into the tactics around how do we become indistractable, the first place to start is what is distraction? Understanding the term really, really matters. And the best way to understand what distraction is, is to understand what distraction is not. What's the opposite of distraction? So, if you ask most people, what's the opposite of distraction? They'll tell you focus, right? I don't want to be distracted, I want to be focused. That's not exactly right. Then in fact, the opposite of distraction is not focus. The opposite of distraction is traction. Becomes pretty easy when you look at both words, traction, distraction. They're opposites because both words come from the same Latin root, trahare, which means to pull, and they both end in the same six letters, A-C-T-I-O-N that spells action, reminding us that distraction is not something that happens to us. It is an action that we ourselves take. So, traction, by definition, is any action that pulls you towards what you say you were going to do, things you do with intent, things that move you closer to your values, and help you become the kind of person you want to become. Those are acts of traction. Now, the opposite of traction, distraction, is any action that pulls you away from what you plan to do, further away from your goals, further away from becoming the kind of person you want to become. And what separates traction from distraction is one word, and that one word is intent. I love this Dorothy Parker. She said, "The time you plan to waste is not wasted time." So, I think we need to stop medicalizing and moralizing what people do with their time. Why is it that someone going on Reddit or on social media or watching a YouTube video that's somehow morally inferior to watching a football game on TV? It's not. Anything you want to do with your time and attention is fine as long as it's done with intent, as long as you're doing it on your schedule, and not someone else's, certainly not the tech company's schedule. So, anything you do with intent is traction, anything else is distraction. So, what I discovered, for me, was that I was getting tricked by distraction in that the most pernicious form of distraction I discovered was the kind I didn't even realize was distracting me. So, let me know if this sounds familiar to you, Lenny. I would sit down at my desk. I would look at my to-do list. By the way, we can talk about why to-do lists are one of the worst things you can do for your personal productivity. We can get back to that later. But I would sit down at my desk and I'd say, "Okay, I've got that big important project. That's what I'm going to do this morning. I'm not going to get distracted, nothing's going to get in my way. Here I go, I'm going to get started, but first let me check some email."…

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