Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Nir Eyal on Becoming “Indistractable” in a World of Distractions

Episode Date: May 20, 2020

“My Life-Changing 30-Day Digital Detox” “10 Signs You’re a Smartphone Zombie” These are headlines you might see if you search the interwebz for digital “addiction.” It’s no secret that people use their smartphones, social media, and various apps more than ever before. The benefits of this technology are obvious, but there’s also a downside. We end up distracted, spending too much time on things that don’t matter, with less time for things that are important to us, like our health, families, and life goals. But are these modern technologies really a new, unique problem? How can we navigate a world filled with limitless distractions? To help shed some light on the topic, I invited Nir Eyal onto the podcast. Nir knows both sides of this coin intimately. His first book, Hooked, is all about how to build habit-forming products. He's helped numerous companies (including the New York Times) build “addictive” products that can do good in your life and he’s even taught a course on the subject at Stanford Graduate School of Business. But by being so intertwined with the inner workings of habit-formation, Nir also knows how to break habits and make these apps and services serve us rather than the other way around. That’s why Nir wrote his latest book, Indistractable, which is what this podcast is all about. In this interview, Nir helps us understand ... - The root causes of distraction and how productive tasks can still be distractions - Why you shouldn't try to be satisfied or happy all of the time - How to "surf the urge" and supercharge your willpower - Why you should timebox your day - How to discover your values and find what resonates with you - And more ... So if you want to take back your life and not feel so addicted to apps and services, listen to this podcast. 8:13 - You went from writing a book about getting people hooked on products, to a book that is intended to help people avoid that. How did that happen? 16:38 - What is the difference between external and internal triggers? 22:20 - How do we get better at embracing discomfort? 49:33 - How does time boxing work and how do you use it? 53:04 - What are your thoughts on finding your personal values? --- Mentioned on The Show: Indistractable by Nir Eyal: NirAndFar.com/Indistractable Schedule Maker Tool: nirandfar.com/schedule-maker/ Summary Article: www.nirandfar.com/skill-of-the-future/ Distraction Guide here: www.nirandfar.com/distractions/ Habits vs routines article here: www.nirandfar.com/habits/ Nir's Instagram: www.instagram.com/neyal99/ Books by Mike Matthews: 

Hello, fellow Earthlings. I'm Mike Matthews. This is Moss for Life. Welcome to another episode. And what are we going to talk about today? So many things we could talk about. We're going to talk about distraction, why it is harmful, and what we can do to become less distracted. And this is becoming a hotter and hotter topic these days for good reason. You have a lot of news and media outlets talking about digital detoxes and how people are becoming smartphone zombies. And there's some truth to that, of course. It's no secret that we use our smartphones a lot, that most people use them more than they probably should, and especially for things that are not helping them much, like social media and games and other doodads and trinkets, other apps

that you can play around with and fritter away your time with. And of course, the benefits of this technology are tremendous and are obvious, but there are downsides. And one of the major downsides is distraction. If we don't take special measures or at least deliberate measures to stay out of the distraction traps that are all around us, then we can wind up generally distracted and just spending too much time on things that really don't matter and find that we don't have enough time to do things that are important to us, like improving our health or spending more time with loved ones or friends or pursuing career goals or other life goals. you know, the things that give you real long-term satisfaction. And so being able to avoid distraction

and being able to focus our attention and our energies for extended periods of time, both in the day-to-day and in the bigger picture, right, are crucial skills to being able to make it in the modern world, to not just survive, but to thrive and to flourish. And that's why I invited Nir Eyal onto the show. And he is uniquely qualified to talk about this. And he has a lot of great insights because he really knows both sides of the coin intimately. You may have heard of his book, Hooked. This was a very popular book

published years ago. It's still popular, still sells well. I've read it and I've recommended it. And it was all about how to build habit forming products. It's mostly geared towards software products, but the principles he talks about in the book can be used with other types of products and services as well. And so that was Neer's first book, New York Times bestselling book. And he has worked with many companies like the New York Times, for example, to help them make their products and their services stickier or more quote unquote addictive, right? And in the book, Neer talks about that there are ethical implications, of course, and this is information that can be used for good or bad. And he himself tries to use it for good. And he hopes that

the people reading the book mostly use it for good, but that is not always the case. And of course you have social media as a good example. These apps, there has been a tremendous amount of resources spent to make these apps more addictive, to make you more hooked to them, to make you spend more time in them. And you could argue that some time spent in these apps more addictive, to make you more hooked to them, to make you spend more time in them. And you could argue that some time spent in these apps can be positive because of the connections that you make. And especially right now, I guess, I mean, states are opening, so the quarantine is starting to end, but it's not over for a lot of us. And we haven't probably had much social interaction face-to-face in the last lot of us. And we haven't probably had much social interaction

face-to-face in the last couple of months. And social media is probably a better alternative than just not interacting with people at all. However, if you spend too much time on Instagram, for example, nobody argues that there's a point where, all right, you are way beyond diminishing returns and now you're just wasting time. And it's reflected in how it makes us feel. If we sit on social media for hours and hours and just consume content, how do you feel? Do you feel energized and optimistic and enthusiastic? Do you feel like you want to get into action and go do something that matters? No, of course not. We feel like vegetables often if we vegetate for too long, right? And so, Near then wanted to create a book to address that because he saw that the information in his first

book was contributing to a problem. It was also doing good things as well, but it was contributing to a problem and he wanted to try to address that problem. And so that's why he wrote a book called Indistractable. And that's what this podcast is going to be all about, the information in that book. And in the interview, Nir is going to help us understand things like the root causes of distractions and how productive tasks can actually still be distractions. He talks about why we actually shouldn't try to be satisfied or happy all the time. He talks about how we can learn to quote unquote surf the urge as it's called and how this is a great way to strengthen and boost our willpower. He talks about time boxing, and that's something I do

personally, and it helps a lot with my work. Nir talks about discovering your values and discovering what really resonates with you and more. Also, if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my health and fitness books, including the number one bestselling weightlifting books for men and women in the world, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, and Thinner, Leaner, Stronger, as well as the leading flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef. Now, these books have sold well over 1 million copies and have helped thousands of people build their best body ever. And you can find them on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as in select Barnes & Noble stores. And I should also

mention that you can get any of the audio books 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account. And this is a great way to make those pockets of downtime, like commuting, meal prepping, and cleaning more interesting, entertaining, and productive. And so if you want to take Audible up on this offer, and if you want to get one of my audio books for free, just go to www.buylegion.com and sign up for your account. So again, if you appreciate my work, and if you want to see more of it, and if you want to learn time-proven and evidence-based strategies for losing fat, building muscle and getting healthy and strategies that work for anyone and everyone, regardless of age or circumstances, please do consider picking up one of my best-selling books, Bigger Leaner Stronger for Men, Thinner Leaner Stronger for Women, and The Shredded Chef for my favorite fitness-friendly recipes.

Hey, Nir, thanks for taking the time to do this. My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, yeah. Quickly, just for people listening, this is kind of funny. I was just telling Nir this offline. So I was putting together a list of people I wanted to have on the podcast this year, and he was on that list because I read his book some time ago, a couple of years ago called

Hooked and I liked it. And then he has a new book that we're going to be talking about. And maybe seven or 10 days later, I don't remember if it was you, Nir, or somebody who works with you, but I got an email from Nir or someone on his team saying, Hey, he would like to come on your podcast. What do you think? And I was like, well, that's easy. That's convenient. Exactly. The universe is telling you something. Yeah. Synchronicity. So we're here to talk about your newest book, Indistractable, and just the topic of distraction and where do distractions come from? And not just the obvious, like, oh yeah, your phone buzzes every two seconds, but you talk about in the book, internal triggers, as opposed to just the external

triggers that people might associate with distraction. And why should we care about this? What can we do about it? And my first question for you is, it's interesting that you went from writing a book on how to get people hooked on products, which was really good. And as someone who has a workout app, one of my little side shows, I found it enlightening and, you know, I had good ideas to implement, but it's interesting that you went from that to a book that is intended to help people get away from that type of stuff among other things. But how did that happen? Yeah. So, you know, the beauty of what I do is that I understand both sides of the equation. So I help companies build habit forming products to get hooked to all sorts of healthy things. I've worked with healthcare

companies for patient adherence, you know, making sure that people take their medications or adhere to some kind of healthcare regimen. I've worked with media companies, the New York Times is a client of mine who I helped get people hooked to reading the news every day. I've worked with education companies like Kahoot, the world's largest educational software to get kids hooked onto in-classroom learning. Fitbod uses the Hooked model, talk about exercise apps. They use the Hooked model to get people hooked to the gym. So there are many ways that we can use what I've taught in my book Hooked and in the class that I taught at Stanford around this topic to build healthy habits. That was always the goal. But of course, I also understand the flip side, right? Because I am in the belly of the beast and I understand how products are designed to

hook you. I also understand the Achilles heel of how to break bad habits. So if hooked is all about how to build good habits through the products and services we use, then indistractable is about how do we make sure that those technologies don't get the best of us, that we can still use them in such a way that serves us as opposed to us feeling like we are serving them. And so it's really about understanding the deeper psychology of distraction, not just when it comes to our digital devices. I think a lot of people think, oh, you know, that distraction started with the iPhone, it started with Facebook. And of course,

nothing could be further from the truth that, in fact, distraction is an age old problem that Plato talked about akrasia in the Greek, the tendency that we have to do things against our better interest. He talked about this 2500 years ago, right? 2500 years before the iPhone, people were complaining, man, isn't the world so distracting these days, new new togas coming out every week. And exactly. There's this new thing called the written word that is distracting everyone. Like, literally, we joke about it, but that is exactly the problem. You know, had it not been for Plato recording this stuff, you know, Aristotle, I mean, no, sorry, Socrates hated the written word. He

said that it would enfeeble men's minds, this new technology, the written word. And so whether it's the written word, the novel was supposed to make women very lascivious and, you know, also melt their brains. The radio was going to turn everybody's mind into mush because they were going to listen to radio all day. The television, of course, rock and roll music, comic books, and now social media and our cell phones. Now that's the latest devil that's apparently hijacking our brains. that's apparently hijacking our brains. And it turns out, I hate to tell you this, it's an excuse. It's not true. It's never true that our human beings are very good at adapting and the smart ones figure out ways

to put these things in their place while still getting the best of these tools. And so I'm here to tell people that it's not technology's fault that you can use these tech tools in a way that really does benefit your life. And here's the thing, the advice that we hear these days

about go on a digital detox, do a 30- day plan, right? That stuff doesn't work. It doesn't work for the same reason that fad diets don't work. So my backstory, I actually used to be clinically obese. And I would always go on these 30 day diets. And this is very similar to what we hear today in the digital distraction realm, right? Like, you know, just stop using your cell phone so much, right? And it turns out when you do that, when you go on some kind of 30 day plan, whether it's a diet regimen or a digital detox, we all know what happens on day 31, right? You eat like crazy, you're making up for lost time. And so that was certainly my experience when I went on, you know, 30 day, no sugar, 30 day, no fast food, 30 day, whatever. I never got to the root cause

of the problem of why I was overeating. I wasn't overeating because I was hungry. I was overeating because there was some complex things going on in my head, not in my stomach that were causing me to overeat. Yeah. That reminds me of something you mentioned in the book of, so I have a buddy who he's doing the digital detox thing right now, getting rid of a bunch of apps that are distracting for, I guess, 30 days. I know that he has situations, he's just not very happy. He's not happy with his work. And in some ways he's happy.

He's happy with his family life. And he definitely has a lot of things going for him. But what is weighing heavily on him right now is work. And he's not sure exactly what he wants to do and what he should do. And so that then drives him. And this is kind of a segue into these internal and external triggers that you can talk to. And it drives him to search for distractions because it's either focus more time on this drudgery. And I don't really even know why I'm doing this. And I guess it's money,

but I don't even really need the money. So why am I here? Or dive into my phone and get lost in 42 different apps. Yeah, no, this is a great lead into, I think what I discovered, I wish I had discovered this earlier in terms of the root cause of distraction. So maybe actually to back up for a minute, let me kind of describe this model

that I use as the framework. Actually, this is what took me the longest in this five-year process of writing Indistractable was understanding this mental model, this framework that now I use to understand why I get distracted and to make sure I can stay on track. So here's what I want you to do first. I want folks to understand what is distraction. Let's go ahead and define what this really means. So the best way to understand what distraction is, is to understand what distraction is not.

That if you ask most people, what is the opposite of distraction? They'll tell you the opposite of distraction is focus. But that's actually not true. The opposite of distraction is not focus. If you look at the origin of the word, the opposite of distraction is traction. That both words come from the same Latin root, trahare, which means to pull. And if you notice, both words end in the same six letters. They both end in A-C-T-I-O-N. That spells action. So traction is any action

that pulls you towards what you want to do, things that you do with intent. The opposite of traction is distraction, anything that pulls you away from what you plan to do, things that you are not doing with intent. Now, this is really important for two reasons. Number one, anything can be a distraction. So if you sit down at your desk, like I used to do before I embarked on this line of research and changed my life with these techniques, you know, I would sit down at my desk and I'd say, okay, I've got this big long to-do list. Let me sit down at my desk and do the hardest thing first, I'm going to do that thing that I've been procrastinating on, the thing that I know I should be doing. I'm finally going

to sit down. I'm going to do that hard project. Here I go. I'm going to get to work, but first, let me check email, right? How many times does that happen to us? Let me do that easy thing on the to-do list real quick because that'll give me momentum, right? I would argue that is just as much of a distraction and maybe even worse so than playing a video game or going on Facebook. You know, if you're putzing around on Facebook at work, that's clearly a distraction. That's clearly something that you're not supposed to be doing at work. So it's pretty obvious. But that's not the kind of distraction I worry about. That's not what gets us. What gets us is when we think we are being productive, when we say, oh, let me just

check email, because that's a productive thing to do. I got to do that anyway, right? That turns out to be a much more pernicious form of distraction because in that case, we've allowed distraction to trick us into prioritizing the urgent at the expense of the important. So anything can be a distraction if it's not what you plan to do with your time. And conversely, anything can be traction. So I don't buy this ridiculous narrative that, oh, candy crush or video games. That's evil. Facebook, that's a waste of time. But me watching football on TV, that's okay. No.

There's this one study that showed that it gets your heart rate up. And so it's kind of like exercise, actually. Well, I don't know. Playing football, sure. Watching football on TV. There was somebody had sent me, there actually was a study that was arguing that because it does raise average heart rate that it's, well, you know, it's actually maybe kind of good for you. Like we're talking about five hours to get maybe what you would get in 10 minutes of actual

exercise, but you know. Yeah, exactly. Actually get enough off your butt. But I would argue that there's no difference, that anything you plan to do with your time, there's no reason to vilify this technology. It's wonderful. These tools are fantastic as long as you use them according to your values and your schedule. So anything can be traction. Anything can be distraction. Now, what drives us towards these actions? Two things. We have what's called external triggers and internal triggers. External triggers is what we tend to blame. It's the pings, the dings, the rings, all of these things in our outside environment

that leads us to either traction or distraction. Now we'll get back to how, what do we do about those external triggers? They can clearly take us off course, but it turns out that we look at the average person's day, the number one source of distraction, the things that tend to lead us off track are not the external triggers. It's not the things outside of us, but more so what is

going on inside of us. It's the internal triggers more than the external triggers. What are internal triggers? Internal triggers are uncomfortable emotional states that we seek to escape from. So if we are going to answer Plato's 2,500-year-old question of why do we do things against our better interest, why do we get distracted, we have to actually start a layer deeper. We have to start from first principles and ask ourselves, why do we do anything and everything? What's the nature of human motivation? And most people will tell you, well, motivation is all about carrots and sticks right we've all heard this before this is called Freud's pleasure principle he said that everything we do is about the pursuit of

pleasure and the avoidance of pain turns out neurologically that is not true that it is not the case that everything we do is about the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain but rather everything we do everything do, you do for one reason, and that is to avoid discomfort. It's pain all the way down. Even, even the pursuit of pleasurable sensations. If you think about it, even the pursuit of pleasure is psychologically destabilizing. The hunt, the pursuit, lusting. There's a reason we say love hurts because neurologically that is exactly what's going on. So everything that we do is about the desire to escape discomfort. If you think about it physiologically, this is pretty obvious. If you go outside, and it's too cold, your brain sends you a signal that says, Hey, buddy, this is uncomfortable, put on a coat. And so you do. If you walk back inside, now it's too hot, The brain says, this is uncomfortable. You're overheating.

Take your coat off. And so everything we do physiologically is about the desire to escape discomfort. Even if you say, well, why do I go to the gym and sweat it out? That's not comfortable. It's because the discomfort of the guilt of not doing it is more uncomfortable than the pain of doing that exercise. So everything is about the desire to escape discomfort. Physiologically, we know this to be true. Psychologically, it's also true.

If you think about when we're feeling lonely, we check Facebook. When we're uncertain, we Google. When we're bored, we check sports scores. We check Reddit, Pinterest, the news. Oh my goodness, why do we check the news? Is it because we want to be informed citizens? No, it's because we like to forget about our own problems by watching somebody else halfway across the world's problems. And argue with strangers on Twitter.

Right, exactly. To avoid having to do our work, right? To avoid having to examine our own lives. We'd rather examine the lives of politicians who are in trouble or just, you know, talk about celebrity gossip than to have to look at our own lives and do something about our own troubles. So everything we do is about a desire to escape discomfort, which means, and this is the real takeaway here, if everything we do is about a desire to escape discomfort, what that means, therefore, is that time management is pain management. That it doesn't matter what guru's techniques you're using, what the latest life hack fads might be, none of that stuff works if we don't first and foremost understand

what discomfort we are looking to escape from. If we don't understand how to deal with discomfort, we will always get distracted by one thing or another. So that is the first place to start to become indistractable. It's about understanding how to master those internal triggers. If you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my health and fitness books, including the number one bestselling weightlifting books for men and women in the world, Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger,

as well as the leading flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef. Do you find that as something that you just condition yourself to get used to? If we have this biological programming, obviously we can override it or we wouldn't be able to do much of anything, wouldn't be able to plan much of anything, wouldn't be able to plan much long-term and accomplish much. How do we get better at embracing discomfort? Yeah. So it's really about harnessing that discomfort. One of the things that I really gets my goat about the self-help industry is that there's so many people out there that

tell us that we're supposed to be happy all the time. What a sack of lies. It is so untrue. And if you think about it, just use common sense here for a minute, think about it from an evolutionary perspective, that if there was ever a group of homo sapiens that was happy all the time, that was satisfied with life, that always thought things were great, that group of homo sapiens likely was killed and eaten by our ancestors, right? That would make no sense. From an evolutionary basis, we have this gift of always being uncomfortable, always wanting more, always striving to improve our lot in life. And that disquietude is what gets us to invent, to hunt, to create, to invent. That is the source of all

these great things that our species can do because we are never satisfied. Now, I'm not preaching against happiness. Happiness is wonderful, but it is a fleeting sensation. What we can do, therefore, is utilize that discomfort to help power us towards acts of traction rather than distraction. If every time you feel uncomfortable, your habit is to seek escape by going online too much, by drinking too much, even working out too much. I mean, hey, we all know that person who works out way too much because they go to the gym to avoid what's happening in the rest of their life. That is a known phenomenon. We all know that person. So anything can be a distraction if we are using it as a pacification device to not have to deal with our feelings. And that is just as much of a problem. So what I do in the book is teach you a set of skills that this is really the skill

of the century, the power to harness that discomfort to lead you towards traction rather than distraction. There's all kinds of tools that you can use that I describe in the book. All of it is research-backed. I hate these self-help books that are all about, well, this is my pet project. This is the technique that works for me.

Sample size of one, it's totally gonna work for you. No, no, no, I hate that stuff. Everything is backed by peer-reviewed studies. There's 30 pages of citations in the book. And so that was very, very important to me. And they also really do work. Let's talk about some of those tools and those skills. Yeah. So there's a few things you can do. And by the way, just to set the stage here, we are only talking about step one. So I'm happy to give you some tactics, but I want everyone to know that this is step one of four, that the first step to becoming indistractable is mastering the internal triggers. Step two is to make time for traction, which we can talk about in a minute.

Then we have to hack back the external triggers. And I show you exactly how to do that. And then fourth, the final step is about preventing distraction with packs. But let's dive in just because you asked this question. What can we do about mastering these internal triggers? So there's three big tactics. Because I guess if you don't do this, the rest doesn't really matter, right? That's absolutely right. This has to be the first step. So none of the other stuff works unless you first and foremost understand how to master internal triggers. So let me just give you kind of the tip of the iceberg. I'll give you one of my favorite

techniques. There are three big techniques that I talk about. You reimagine the trigger, reimagine the task, and reimagine your temperament. But let me just give you one sample. There's a bunch of other techniques, but this is just one technique that I use almost every single day. And this has to do with how do we more healthfully deal with these internal triggers in a way that leads us towards traction rather than distraction. Part of the common knowledge is that if you don't want to get distracted by something, if you want to avoid doing something, then just say no, right? Just like Nancy Reagan told us in the 1980s about drugs, just say no. We see how that worked out.

If only it were that easy. Yeah, exactly. If only that were easy. So why doesn't abstinence work? Well, abstinence typically doesn't work. There are some instances where it does work, but for the most of us, it doesn't work because when we tell ourselves a strict, no, okay, strict abstinence, here's what tends to happen, particularly when it comes to these triggers that we can't escape, right? So if you're recovering from a methamphetamine addiction, well, you can actually change your circumstances, change your environment so that you won't be triggered with these temptations. But how do we get rid of technology in our life? How do we get rid of food in our life? You can't, you can't escape these

things. So strict abstinence doesn't work. And here's why it's called rumination. So if I told you, I am going to ask you for the next few seconds to not do something that you have not done all day long. Okay. Not, you haven't done this all day long. So how hard can it be to not do what I'm about to ask you not to do? Okay, you ready for the next three seconds with all your might? I want you to not think about a white bear. Don't think about a white bear. Don't do it. Of course, what are you doing? You're thinking about nothing but a white bear. And so when we tell ourselves, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. This actually leads to what's called rumination. And it's almost like pulling on a rubber band. So when you pull on a rubber band, you pull it, pull it, pull it, pull it, pull it, it gets tighter, tighter, tighter until you can't pull it anymore.

And then when you finally let go of that rubber band, it doesn't just go to where you started to pull it from. No, it ricochets across the room. And that's exactly what happens to us when we tell ourselves to adhere to strict abstinence. So when you say, don't have that piece of chocolate cake, don't eat those carbs, don't smoke that cigarette, don't check email.

The 30-day diet, the 30-day detox. Exactly, exactly. You're pulling that rubber band more, more, more, more, more, more, more. And then when you finally can't do it anymore and you let yourself go, that relief of the tension of telling yourself not to do something is registered in the brain. That relief

of the pain of saying no is registered, in fact, as pleasure. It's almost like if you really, really have to go pee and then you finally go pee, oh, it feels good to just relieve that tension of holding it in. That's exactly what happens when we tell ourselves a hard no and use this technique of abstinence, which so oftentimes backfires. So what do we do instead of strict abstinence? Well, there's a technique that comes from acceptance and commitment therapy, well-studied technique in the psychology community, which is called the 10-minute rule. And the 10-minute rule says that you can give in to any temptation, whether it's that piece of chocolate cake, whether it's that urge to not go to the gym, whether it's that urge to check email when you should be working on that big

project or check Facebook when you really want to be with your family, you can give in to that temptation in just 10 minutes of doing what we call surfing the urge. Surfing the urge acknowledges that these internal triggers are like waves. They come and then they subside. And so your job for those 10 minutes is to simply surf that urge, to be with it, to acknowledge it, to understand what's going on inside of you that prompts that urge with curiosity, not contempt, but curiosity for just 10 minutes or get back to the task at hand. So many times, this is how it works. You take out your phone, you say, set the timer for 10 minutes,

you put the phone down and I'll just sit there and contemplate this sensation, really feel what is going on. Is it stress, anxiety, uncertainty, fatigue, loneliness? What is going on in my head? I explore that sensation with curiosity instead of contempt until that time runs out in which case i can give into the distraction or nine times out of ten you'll find that by the time the clock runs out you will have actually gotten back to work because the sensation will have subsided it will have gone away in time for you to get back to work yeah i, I've written about that. And it can go the other way too, where if you are really dreading doing something that you should be doing, working out, working on a big project, tell yourself, okay, I'm going to do it for 10 minutes.

And if I still want to quit, I can quit. And more often than not, you'll get into the groove of it. You'll start getting into that flow state. And after 10 minutes has passed, you'll want to keep going. Right. So it can work the opposite way as well. Another wonderful technique has to do with re-imagining our temperament. This really takes, I know the book is full of me overturning a lot of apple carts, that there's a lot of folk psychology out there that really does hurt people. One of the most common myths that we still encounter that people haven't heard isn't true is this idea of ego depletion. And even if you don't know the term, you probably know what it means, which is this idea that willpower is a

limited resource, that we run out of willpower, that it's like a muscle that when it gets tired, there's none left. It's like a gas tank. When you run out of gas, there's no more gas left that you just can't anymore. And before I even knew this term, I would definitely exemplify how what this looks like in my life, you know, I'd come home from work and say, Oh, boy, I've had such a tough day at work today. I deserve a break. I am quote unquote, spent. Give me that Ben and Jerry's. I'm going to sit on the couch and I'm going to watch Netflix, right? So we use that kind of language every single day. Well, it turns out that it's not true, that studies have found that this idea is just not so.

It's a myth, except in one group of people, that in fact, there is one group of people who really do exemplify this property, this phenomenon of ego depletion. They really do run out of willpower, like gas in a gas tank. And I know everybody listening is like, oh, that's totally me. He's going to say it's me. It's me. It turns out it's not any racial group or gender specific or socioeconomic class. It turns out that people who really do run out of willpower like gas in a gas tank are only people

who believe that willpower is a limited resource. That's it. So if you believe that you're spent, you are. And so why this is so relevant in so many circumstances in life is that we have these ideas of our temperament. I am this kind of person. This is who I am. I'm lazy. I have a short attention span. I am a morning person. I'm this, I'm that. And it turns out that many times these beliefs are really self-limiting. One of the most pernicious beliefs that I hear, unfortunately, the media loves is telling us that we're all addicted to technology, that it's hijacking our brains, that we're all being remote controlled by technology. What this is doing is making people

believe that that is the case. And this is called learned helplessness. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. That's exactly right. And so that's a big reason why I run to write this book is to let people know that they are much more powerful than these tech companies. There's much more that we can do than most people realize. We are much more powerful than any distraction. If we believe we are, if you don't, then you're not. That goes back to something you had mentioned earlier, which is the underlying why are people who are highly distracted, if they're spending a lot of their time in distraction, why what's going on?

It's not that their brains are just being completely hijacked by the Facebook app on their phone or like there's some direct interface here that's brainwashing them. What's going on that is driving them to want to spend time there as opposed to elsewhere. And that connects to what you're saying about happiness, right? That's, I think, particularly among younger people, it's pretty common for them to just have this idea that, you know, I just need to find, I just need to find happiness as if that just comes to you one day, as opposed to maybe I need a goal that matters. I need something worth dying for.

Take the other extreme, but that'd probably be a more productive. I can empathize if you put yourself in that situation where your first principles for living are all scrambled and your operating system, so to speak, is just kind of mixed up in terms of like, what am I supposed to do and why? Why does any of this matter? And that makes it very easy then to turn to now you have so many options, you've listed so many of them. It's so easy instead of maybe sitting down and trying to really think this through. And maybe that's going to require learning some new ideas that the person hasn't come across and

really actually figure out like, all right, I need to build a functional system to put my time and energy into so you can confront that whole mess or you can just dirtle around on Instagram all day, you know? Yeah. So this is actually a really great lead into the second step to becoming indistractable, which is all about making time for traction. So we talked about traction is the opposite of distraction. It's about the things, the actions that pull us towards what we really want. But of course the question there is, well, what do I really want? Right. To your point. And where I see a lot of people going down the wrong track, I think is by trying to create these goals or values that are, you know, these long-term plans. I'm going to create a vision board. What's my five-year plan? What's my regrets of the dying?

And it turns out that stuff is really hard for people to do. And in fact, there's a lot of studies that actually find that visualizations can really backfire. You know, many people believe, well, if I just visualize how good it's going to feel when I lose 30 pounds, how great it's going to feel when I'm buff, how amazing it's going to feel when I finish that book I've been writing, or when I make a million dollars, if I just visualize how great that's going to feel, it's going to come to me, right? It's the law of attraction, which is a bunch of bullshit. And it turns out that people don't realize how it can backfire because it turns out when you visualize those kinds of attraction, which is a bunch of bullshit. And it turns out that people don't realize how it can backfire because it turns out when you visualize those kinds of things, you're actually giving

yourself a dose of pleasure. It's pleasurable to think about how great life is going to be, to go into la la land and dream about that stuff can be pleasurable. And it turns out that that actually can reduce our motivation to actually do something to get that stuff. So we don't want to visualize the end results. What we want to do is to visualize the actions that will get us those results. So for example, if you're trying to lose weight, don't spend your time dreaming about how great it's going to feel when you lose the weight. What you need to visualize is what's called the decision point. So that what are you going to do the next time you're at a dinner party and someone

offers you that piece of chocolate cake, visualize what you will say, what you will do. That's the kind of visualization that works. Concurrently, there's a technique I talk about in the book, which is incredibly effective. It's one of the best things you can do if you want to be the kind of person that becomes indistractable. This is called making an implementation intention. You know, I interviewed hundreds of people in the past five years for this book. And one of the things that across the board, every single person I interviewed, who was not able to do what they said they're going to do every day, the kind of person like me, who had a to do list, and yet never finished everything on the to do list, which is most people, by the way, I call this the tyranny of the to do list. This is

why I'm not a big fan of to dodo lists. Most people do not use them correctly. They do nothing but reinforce your identity that you are incapable of doing what you said you're going to do, right? Like you finished your day, you still got a bunch of things on your to-do list, you didn't do them, loser. Yet another day, you weren't able to live with personal integrity and do what you said you're going to do. So instead, what we want to do is to understand that if we don't plan our time, somebody else is going to plan it for us. I'd say if we don't plan that extends to our lives too. That's something I've spoken about. If you're not living deliberately, you are living according to some sort of plan.

And our society has many ways of shaping that for you. If you're not going to think about it much yourself. Absolutely. Whether it's your boss, whether it's the news, whether it's social media, whether it's your kids, even somebody is going to tell you what to do with your time unless you decide in advance what is traction and what is distraction for you in your life. Because remember, you have no right to complain that you got distracted if you didn't decide what you got distracted from. If your calendar is blank, then everything is a distraction. Don't cry to me about how distracting Facebook is if you didn't

plan what you wanted to do with that time. And so that's why we have to plan out every minute of our day. And I'm going to give you a link for the show notes. I built this tool. It's totally free. Anybody can use it. You don't have to sign up. You don't have to give me any email addresses. It's totally free. It's on my website. It's a tool to help you time box your day. And the reason this is so important is that for the first time, it will help you turn your values into time. And so I coach people through these three steps in the book, these three life domains, as I call them, that you have to turn into time. So the first life domain is you. You are at the center of these three life domains. as I call them, that you have to turn into time. So the first life domain is you. You are at the center of these three life domains. If you don't take care of yourself,

you can't take care of other people. So the first step is to ask yourself, what are my values for me? What do I have? Values are defined as attributes of the person I want to become. So what's important to you when it comes to your self? If your health is important to you, if that's one of your values, do you have time in your calendar where you will invest in proper nutrition, proper sleep, proper exercise, meditation, education, whatever it is that's important to you? I'm not telling you what your value should be. Only you can decide that. But if those are your values, is there time regularly scheduled on your calendar to invest

in those things? And if there isn't, what does that say then? That's right. It means you're talking a good game, but you're not living out those values. I mean, if you think about it, right, how much do we spend in terms of protecting our stuff? We have our security systems on our homes. We have our alarms on our cars.

We put our money in vaults inside a bank. But when it comes to our time, the one thing that everybody every day gets the same amount of, the one depletable resource you can't create more of, yeah, sure, come on over, take as much of it as you want, right? Yeah, there's a quote, I think, from Seneca on this, how basically how quickly people are, how miserly they are with their things, but how generous they are with their time. Right. The one thing that they should be stingy with. Yeah. Right. That's exactly right. And so we have to make that time for ourselves. We have to make our time for our relationships. You know, part of what we see happening today is we know that this

country is suffering through a loneliness epidemic, that people today are more lonely than ever. And it turns out, you know, a lot of people like to blame social media for this. That's not true. This problem actually started in the 1990s. Robert Putnam wrote about this in the early 90s in his book, Bowling Alone, where he talked about the source of this loneliness is that civic institutions, the bowling league, the Kiwanis club, the church group, the things that used to hold time in our calendars are disappearing from American life. And so what we have to do is to bring these things back. It's okay if you don't want to join Kiwanis club or

your church club, but make sure you have, I don't even know what the Kiwanis club is, but it sounds cool. You know, like the, you know, whatever, like, you know, the Shriners, many people don't know these anymore, but this used to be like, everybody used to belong to some kind of club, some kind of league, and that doesn't happen anymore. And so we have to bring that back. If your friends are important to you, do you have time on your calendar to invest in those friendships? How many times have we heard, oh, we should totally get a drink sometime. Let's get coffee. Come on. BS. It doesn't happen. You have to have that time scheduled or it's not going to happen in your life. And then finally, with your work, I give many talks to audiences and I'll always ask people, how many people in the room need time to think to do their job well, right? Need time to concentrate, need time to focus on their work. Every hand goes up. And then I say, well, how many of you have that time scheduled and protected on your calendar? Maybe one person's hand goes up. And that person is usually the rock star of the room.

person's hand goes up. And that person is usually the rock star of the room. Because it turns out, if you want a competitive advantage in the modern workplace, make time to think in your day. Nobody does it. And everybody's running around like crazy reacting to stuff. And only the winners are the ones that have the time to reflect on where they're going in life. So that is a very important thing to make sure you have protected in your day. And I totally agree. And also just reflect on the work that you're doing. It is very easy to just get lost in the machine and never step back and ask, could this machine be made any better? Could it be made more efficient, more productive? Because all we have is our time and the effort that we can put into our machine. And it's mostly probably, well, maybe it's partly quantitative, partly qualitative because to the topic that we're discussing, if you're focused and you are in a,

let's say a state of traction, that effort is going to be more effective than if you were kind of distracted, don't really know why you're doing it, but still take work. And this is something that I've spoken with the guys who work with me a number of times and made this point that I want them because it feels kind of unproductive, right? If you're sitting there, because what if you have a little thinking session and you don't really come out with any good ideas? You think, yeah, well, maybe I should have just gone and done some email or something. At least that would have felt more productive, but it's to that point you brought up earlier where that can just be busy work. And okay, so you put some time into reflecting on your job and reflecting on,

again, what's the system here and how can I make this system better? And you might not have a good idea every time, but if you do it consistently, you will have good ideas. And if you implement those ideas, eventually you will find some winners. Similarly, you're a writer, I'm a writer. It's like when you're doing research and you're looking around for things, time can go by where you're like, I didn't do anything because you just didn't find it yet. But then when you do, it all is worth it, right? Right, exactly. And so having that time to actually reflect is just a huge competitive advantage. We all need that in our day. A huge waste of time is running really, really fast, being really, really efficient about doing the wrong things.

And we find many, many people do exactly that. So you had mentioned time boxing. How does this work exactly? How do you do it? Yeah. So time boxing is when we look at our calendar. So for most people, it's a week's time and they look at how do I make sure that I make time for my values throughout my day. So we talked about these three domains of you, your relationships, your work, you need to time box all of these tasks that are important to you so that the week ahead is a reflection of your values. So don't do the five year plan. Don't worry about the vision board right now. Just give me what your ideal week looks like in the week ahead. Realistically, not when you retire, but what is your week next week look like for you in order to live according

to your values in these three life domains? So I find that instead of, you know, asking, hey, what are your values? Ask. It's much more beneficial, much more productive to say, how can you spend your time to live according to your values? If you have kids, how much time per week do you think you want to spend with your kids to live out the value of being a devoted parent? If physical health is important to you, if that's one of your values, how much time should you invest in that in your week? That's a much easier way to understand what your values are, is how much time are you willing to invest in them? So you want to take this weekly template, again,

I'll give you the link for the show notes, where you basically fill in an entire week's calendar with what you want that week to look like. And the reason this is so important is that for the first time, you'll be able to look at that week and understand for every minute of your day what is traction and what is distraction. Again, you can't call something a distraction

unless you know what it distracted you from. So it's only when you decide in advance how you wanna spend your time. By the way, it's totally fine if that time includes time for fun things. You want to watch Netflix? Great. Put it on your calendar. You want to watch the football game? Put it on your calendar. You want time to meditate, to pray, to go on a walk, to be bored and do nothing? No problem. But have that time carved out. Remember, the time you plan to waste is not wasted time. Anything could be traction

as long as you plan for it. Then where this gets really amazing is that when you have that time box calendar, not only do you understand what is traction and distraction for you in your own life, you can also share that calendar with important people in your life. So where this really, it will improve your sense of well-being, productivity, sense of accomplishment is when you can take that time box calendar and show it to the various stakeholders in your life, the people you owe time to. My wife and I would constantly get into fights about household responsibilities. We never do anymore because I know exactly what needs to get done. And when I promise to do it and we synchronize our schedules every week, it takes 15 minutes. We never have those kinds of disagreements anymore. We've been married for 18 years.

We've never been happier. I went through the same experience with my wife where I'd be like, just tell me specifically what you want me to do and when, and then I'll know to do it. I'm not perfect, but it definitely helped to get very specific. Get okay, good on this day at this time, this is what I'm going to be doing. And this is why. It's so much better as opposed to what I used to do, which was, hey, honey, if I forgot to do something, just tell me, right? What's the problem? Just what I didn't realize is that I was giving her yet another job, which is to be my babysitter. Yeah. To be your calendar. Exactly. Whereas now we sit down 15 minutes a week. I know exactly where are my responsibilities. What I owe her as a partner, part of my values is to be in an

equitable marriage. I owe it to her to pull my weight in the relationship. In the workplace, this is a game changer. If you sit down with your boss for 15 minutes and show your boss, hey, here is my week ahead. Here's how I plan to spend my time. Here's where I will accomplish the things that you've asked me to do this week. Now you see this other piece of paper over here. Here is where I've written all the things I couldn't fit into my week. Help me reprioritize. One of the worst pieces of advice that you hear said all the time these days, there's an article written about it every single day. If you want to have more productive time in your day, learn how to say no. Give me a break. What a platitude, right? Who's going to look at their boss, the person who cuts their checks and

say, nope, I'm not going to do that for you, boss. Yeah, give me a break. You're going to get fired. Instead, what you want to do is don't be the one that says no to your boss. Have your boss be the one who tells you what not to do in your day by showing them, here's how I spend my time. Here's the things I won't have time for. Please, boss, help me reprioritize what's important. They will worship the ground you walk on. Very true. Very true. Especially also if you include,

like you were saying, include some time or say, hey, this is the time where I'm gonna step back, take a look at all the stuff that I'm doing and see if I can gain some efficiencies or cut out some waste, or maybe some of these things can be done completely differently. Because that's also rare.

It's just rare to find people who want to do that. It's odd. I don't know. And very few managers have any idea how their employees are spending their time. If you work for somebody, I promise you, they're probably wondering what the heck you do with your time all day, right? You know, you're busy, you know, you're working hard, but you, because we don't do this practice. Many people don't do this practice of schedule syncing. There's no transparency. So managers keep lobbing over task after task after task because they don't know how you're spending your time. And employees are thinking, man, why do I keep getting so much work? Doesn't my boss realize how busy I am? No, because they have no transparency into your calendar. Totally. And oftentimes work groups aren't working off of clear plans that can be broken

down into individual tasks. And so it can get pretty messy. Which is where time boxing is so effective because, you know, the reason I want people to stop believing in this Messiah of the to-do list, you know, everybody's been told that the secret to productivity is keep a to-do list. This is how we get things done. Malarkey. It doesn't work. And you know, it doesn't work because everybody out there who keeps a to-do list, if you're anything like I was half of that to-do list gets recycled from one day to the next, to the next, to the next, because we're all obsessed with output. That's all a to-do list is. It's a wish list of output.

But it doesn't take a genius to realize you can't get output without input. What's the input? Time. So your goal should never be to finish anything. What? What does that mean? Your goal should not be to finish a task. A to-do list is a wish list of things you want to finish anything. What? What does that mean? Your goal should not be to finish a task. A to-do list is a wish list of things you want to finish.

But that doesn't work. We know that we're terrible at estimating how long things take us. Instead, when you use this technique of time boxing that I talk about in the book Indistractable, your only goal, your only goal, should be not to finish the task, but to work on what you said you would work on without distraction for as long as you said you would.

That's it. And it turns out that people who do that, that simply work on a task for as long as they said they would without distraction, they are way more productive at completing the output than the people who just put it on this magical wishlist to-do list. That's a great tip and funny something I was talking about with the guys who work with me, that we're talking about deadlines more in that context, but it's the same point of exactly this, where I have, so I'm working on two books right now, one that I wanted to have done. And then another that I'm on like a May deadline for, and that's a true deadline because that one's

going to be traditionally published. So, I mean, obviously it'd give me more time if I need it, but I want to meet it. But in general, I try not to set hard deadlines exactly for that reason. Cause I've learned that even if I estimate the amount of time and money, I think it's going to take to bring something to fruition. I then double it. That's my standard. And I work off of that and it often takes even more. And it's not because I'm lazy or because I'm too distracted or I just don't put in the work. It's just anybody who, you know exactly what I'm talking about with writing a book, the scope just creeps and creeps and creeps until eventually you have to decide like, okay, I need to actually stop. But yeah. And everybody has this problem, by the way, we know that study after study finds

that people are really bad at estimating how long tasks will take. That's why the best thing you can do is to not, you know, most people they put under their to-do list, you know, finish chapter one. Well, they have no idea how long that takes. So day after day after day, they can't, you know, check. And then they start feeling worse about themselves. Oh, no, I was supposed to be through chapter seven by now. Exactly. And what do you do when you feel crappy about yourself? When you feel guilty and shameful, you look for distraction to take your mind off of how crappy you feel. It's back to those internal triggers. And so it's very counterproductive.

Instead, you can reinforce that identity that you are indistractable by simply saying, I am going to write this book for one hour today. I am going to be in the gym for one hour today. I'm going to spend time with my kid for one hour today and do nothing else. That is all I'm going to do with that time. Because then at the end of that time block, by the way, it can be 15 minutes. It can be 30 minutes. It can be an hour. It can be three hours. It doesn't matter. What you want to do is at the end of that time block to say, yep, I did it. I reinforced my identity that I am indistractable. I do what I say I'm going to do. Yep. And then

that becomes a positive feedback loop where then it just encourages more of the right action. And sometimes that means that it takes as long as it takes. That's how long it takes to get the book done. And that's okay. But if you have faith in that process, that the real goal is to not finish a task in any particular block of time, but rather to work on it without distraction. If you have faith in that process, you actually will be much more productive than the person who just keeps stuff on a to-do list

and somehow believes that magically that time is going to appear in the day. It doesn't appear. We know what we do with that extra time. We putz around, we do busy work, we prioritize the urgent and we don't do the important. I totally agree. And you're going to also get along with lower blood pressure too. That's right. I know you only have a few more minutes, but I have one last question for you. Just curious as your thoughts. So for people who are wondering, like they don't know what their, what are their values? What exactly does that mean? What are your thoughts on maybe finding some things that really resonate with, because

what resonates with you may not resonate with me or, you know, other people. Yeah. So that's why I think time is the right filter for your values, as opposed to, you know, sit down and write down all your values. That's very hard for people to do. Instead, it's how much time do you need in your day to live out your values? Again, values being the attributes

of the person you want to become. So what are the attributes of the person you want to become? You know, how much does the person you want to become spend their time on the various aspects of your life, right? When it comes to these three domains of you, your relationships, your work, how would the person you want to become spend their time? So the constraint of looking at seven days of the week, looking at that calendar and

fitting in the activities that help you fulfill your values, that help you live out your values is where you should start. Interesting. That's an interesting way of looking at it. I like it. Well, hey, Nir, this was a great interview, very informative. So I really appreciate you taking the time. Again, the book is indistractable. And is there anything else you want to wrap up with here in terms of where people can find you, your work, anything new and exciting you want them to know about? Sure. Yeah, I appreciate it. So if you go to my website, nearandfar.com, near is spelt like my first name. So that's N-I-R-andfar.com, nearandfar.com. There's actually an 80 page workbook. We couldn't fit it into the final edition of the book,

but you can download it for free. It's complimentary at nearandfar.com. It's an 80 page workbook to help you become indistractable. If you do end up buying the book, this is a special tip. Make sure if you buy the book on Amazon, your local bookseller, doesn't matter. Keep your order number. If you enter in that order number at indistractable.com, you will get access to a video course that's also complimentary as well as a list of resources, tools, all kinds of goodies you want to make sure you get a hold of. All of that is at indistractable.com. I love it. Bonus goodies. Always fun. Thanks again, Nir. This was great. My pleasure. Thank you so much. All right. Well, that's it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting

and helpful. And if you did, and you don't mind doing me a favor, please do leave a quick review on iTunes or wherever you're listening to me from in whichever app you're listening to me in, because that not only convinces people that they should check out the show, it also increases search visibility. And thus it helps more people find their way to me and learn how to get fitter, leaner, stronger, healthier, and happier as well. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any new stuff. And if you didn't like something about the show, please do shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com, just muscle, F-O-R, life.com, and share your thoughts on how I can do

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