The One You Feed - How to Master Internal Triggers and Regain Control of Your Attention with Nir Eyal

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

In this episode, Nir Eyal dives deep into how we can learn to master internal triggers and regain Control of your attention. Nir explains how the underlying motivation behind every action is the desire to escape discomfort. Learning to distinguish between traction and distraction is a powerful first step in overcoming the universal struggle of staying focused in a world full of distractions. You’ll find many new insights and discover several practical strategies to keep your attention on where it matters in this conversation! In this episode, you will be able to: Master time management and boost productivity with proven strategies Learn to identify and master internal triggers for improved focus and concentration Discover the importance of intentional planning for achieving success in all areas of your life Overcome distractions and cultivate a proactive mindset for enhanced performance Implement effective strategies for staying focused and on track daily, leading to greater accomplishments and satisfaction To learn more, click here!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you ever feel like life is just one problem after another? You finally feel like maybe there's a break and then BAM! Another problem? This is how it is for many of us, but there is a better way to respond. A way of responding that brings greater ease into your life and returns some of the energy that the problems drain from you. We are hosting a free live masterclass on Sunday, March 3rd called Learn the Keystone Habit to Unlock Energy

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and register for this free event. Again, that's oneufeed.net slash live. I hope to see you there. Time management is pain management. Everything we do is about a desire to escape discomfort. comfort. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do.

We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor,

what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really Know Really podcast. We hope you'll enjoy this episode from the Archive. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Nir Eyal, author and previous lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. His writing on technology, psychology, and business appears in the Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic, Psychology Today, and others. His new book is Indistractable, How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life.

Hi, Nir. Welcome to the show. Thanks. Great to be here. I am excited to have you on. Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. Hi Nir, welcome to the show. Thanks, great to be here. I am excited to have you on. We're gonna talk about your book, Indistractable, How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life here in a moment. But let's start the way we always do with a parable. There is a grandfather who's talking with his grandson.

He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. He looks up at his grandfather, he says, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. I think the parable is really about the power of habits, that we are a sum of our behaviors. I don't believe that people have fixed personalities. I don't believe that

there's an identity that we are stuck with from birth, that we able to, in fact, change ourselves any way we wish. And we are a sum product of our behaviors. We can change those behaviors if we are diligent about understanding why we do what we do, and then take the steps to alter our path so that we can be the kind of people we want to be. And that's to me what feeding one wolf or the other is all about. It's about which behaviors do you repeat versus which behaviors do you starve. That is a wonderful way to start off and a good summary for why we do what we do here on the show. So your book is about being indistractable, how to control our attention and choose our lives. And I love this idea that where our attention goes really controls to a large extent the quality of our life.

What we pay attention to really directs our experience. And so I've got a spiritual habits course that I lead. And one of the key principles we talk about in the very beginning is the idea of what's my intention and then what am I doing with my attention? And if you've got those two things, sort of locked in, you can do so much. That's absolutely right. I mean, there's a reason we call it paying attention. There is a value there, there's a cost. And for most of us, we just give it away. Right? And how crazy is that, right? If we think about our, our stuff, our physical possessions, we put our money behind vaults inside banks. We put security systems in our homes, alarms in our cars to protect our stuff. And I don't care if you're Warren Buffett or Bill Gates or anyone, you have the same 24 hours every day.

And yet, so many of us, unfortunately, just give it away. Anybody who wants it. Whatever's in the news, whatever happened on Twitter, whatever our kids, our spouse, our boss, whoever wants it, come on over. Take as much as you want. And I think what's going to happen, especially in this day and age where, you know, distraction is so easy to find because it's so accessible in our pockets at all times with our cell phones and other technologies that if you are looking for a distraction, you will certainly find it. And so I think what's going to happen, it's already happening, is a real bifurcation between people who say to themselves, look, my time, my attention, my life is mine, and I will choose how I allocate my time and attention,

or the people who say, okay, you know, whatever, I'll give it away to whoever wants it. And I think the people who can proudly proclaim that no, they are going to be in control of their time and attention and their life, those are the people who will be able to say I am indistractable. And that's what this, this book and hopefully this movement is really all about. It's about creating this identity of people who say, I am indistractable. I decide how I will spend my time and attention in my life. That is the most important thing I often say with coaching clients. The fundamental life skill is to be able to decide what's important and then give it your attention and your devotion. what's important, and then give it your attention and your devotion. So you start off by saying that one of the things that we really need to realize is that we tend to blame our distractibility

on the things that distract us. And, you know, we live in a world, as you said, it's very easy to be distracted. It's never been easier to be distracted. But you say that, you know, where most people are blaming the devices, the technology But you say that, you know, where most people are blaming the devices, the technology, all of that, that the root cause of this is a lot deeper than that. Absolutely. Yeah, that's absolutely right. So, you know, there's two types of approaches that I think most people take. We have what we call the blamers and the shamers. The blamers say, oh, you see, I got distracted because of my iPhone, because of the email, because of what's happening in the news, because of, oh, I hear this all the time.

This is my favorite. The modern world these days. Well, here's the thing. Blaming those kind of things outside of yourself is futile. You can't change that stuff, right? These technologies aren't going away. And frankly, we don't want them to. These are wonderful technologies, right?

We use, these companies make so much money because we like to use these products and services. So it's not going away. And frankly, there's this myth of, you know, the good old days that somehow there were, it was a day when the world was without trouble and wasn't distracting. And that's ridiculous. I mean, 2,500 years before the iPhone complained about how distracting the world was, in the Greek, he called it akrasia, the tendency that we have to do things against our better interest, 2,500 years ago. So this is clearly not a new problem. So being a blamer isn't very useful. It doesn't accomplish much. Being a shamer is the other extreme. A shamer, they don't blame things outside of themselves. They shame themselves. So a lot of people do this,

right? They have a self image that says, Oh, you see, I'm so lazy. Uh, here I go again, getting distracted. That's so like me. I can't, I have a short attention span. Uh, they, they shame themselves. And ironically, what we find is that shame is a negative emotion. Shame feels bad. that shame is a negative emotion. Shame feels bad. And it turns out that the root cause of distraction is in fact uncomfortable sensations. That when we really look at why people do things against their better interest, to answer Plato's 2,500-year-old question of why we do things we know we shouldn't do or don't do the things we know we should, it's not a character flaw. It's that we just don't know how to regulate our emotions. You see, time management is pain management. That everything we do is about a desire to escape discomfort. That most people have this notion that motivation is about the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

Freud called this the pleasure principle, but in fact, it's not true. Like a lot of things with Freud, it's not true that in fact, everything we do is not about the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Neurologically speaking, it's only about the desire to escape discomfort. Everything you do, whether it's physiologically, if you feel cold, the brain says, ooh, this is uncomfortable, put on a coat. If you feel hunger pangs, the brain says, ooh, this is uncomfortable, put on a coat. If you feel hunger pangs, the brain says, this doesn't feel good, you should eat something. So everything we do physiologically is about the desire to escape discomfort. And the same holds true for our psychological sensations.

So if we are feeling lonely, we check Facebook. If we're uncertain, we Google. If we're bored, we watch the news. We check stock prices, sports scores, Pinterest, Twitter, Reddit. All of these tools cater to these uncomfortable sensations. So we have to address this fact that everything we do is about the desire to escape discomfort. So it's about which wolf you feed, right? Do you feed this wolf by escaping that discomfort? feed this wolf by escaping that discomfort? Do you look for psychological escape from reality so that you don't have to deal with whatever it is around you with too much booze, too much news,

too much Facebook, too much football, too much whatever to take your mind off of those uncomfortable sensations? Or do you build the habit of harnessing those internal triggers to lead you towards traction rather than distraction? And so this is why we don't want to be blamers. We don't want to be shamers. We want to be what's called claimers. Claimers acknowledge that you cannot control your emotions. Okay, your urges are not in your control.

control your emotions. Okay. Your urges are not in your control. Many people don't understand this fact that controlling your emotion is like trying to hold in a sneeze or a cough. You cannot stop that urge. You can only act in response to it. So when you feel the urge to sneeze, do you sneeze all over everyone and get them sick? No, you take out a handkerchief and you sneeze into a tissue as opposed to getting everyone else sick. And so the same thing happens with our emotional sensations. How do we respond to those internal triggers is incredibly important. And so, you know, the word responsibility is about how we respond to these uncomfortable sensations. And so that's really the first step to becoming indistractable.

I don't want to go down this rabbit hole too far, but I read the book and I've heard you talk a couple of times about this idea that everything is a response to pain, right? That it's not seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. It's just a response to pain. And I just wanted to understand a little bit more about where you're pulling that idea and that research from. It's an interesting idea. I'm not sure I agree with it, but before I go disagreeing with something, I'd want to know how to learn more about it. Buddhism's been a big part of my life, and we talk about greed and aversion, right? It's wanting good things and not wanting bad things. So I'm kind of curious the neurological piece of that that you talk about. Yeah, it comes down to the neural wiring of the brain, that in fact, pleasure is an abstraction from what is happening neurologically. You said it yourself, it's wanting, craving, desire, lusting. There's a reason we say love hurts. Because even the desire for good things, There's a reason we say love hurts because even the desire for good things, wanting to do something, even if it's the pursuit of pleasure is what you want. The wanting itself is psychologically destabilizing that the way the brain gets us to act and

do anything, even to pursue pleasure is not about what feels good. It's about what felt good. That's a very important point. How does that work? The way the dopalergic system works in the brain, the way our reward system works, is by having a memory of a past experience that felt good. And then what the brain does is cause us this itch, this desire, this craving to feel that again. And that doesn't mean that the way we should incentivize and motivate people is by punishing them and with pain. That's not what I'm saying at all. Absolutely, we know that the best motivators are these intrinsic motivations, these intrinsic rewards for something that is

pleasurable. But that doesn't mean that the desire to go pursue that pleasurable sensation is itself a desire to escape the discomfort of wanting. That makes sense to me. That piece totally makes sense. That wanting is an unpleasant sensation that we then seek to relieve. Totally makes sense. So I love this idea of time management is pain management, right? And what you're talking about here, essentially, there's lots of different words for it. A term we've used on the show a lot is it's emotional regulation, right? It's this ability, as you said, to be able to, okay, I feel an unpleasant emotion. And instead of letting that spin me off in a variety of directions,

I'm going to allow that to be there. I'm going to cope with it. And then I'm going to act according to what I value or what's important to me. So let's break down from your perspective. How do we do that? Yeah. So becoming indistractable is really about these four key steps. And the first we talked about, which is about mastering these internal triggers. And that's the most important step. Because, you know, whether it's some technology today, you know, it's Facebook today or iPhone today, tomorrow it's going to be something else. 50 years ago, it was the radio or television or comic books. Every generation has these successive technologies that everybody has a moral panic around and says it's melting our brain. It's super distracting. It's the same story every single generation. But the real cause

is always what is going on inside of us. It's always about the desire to escape discomfort. And so there's some tactics I talk about, three big tactics in the book about what you can do to reimagine the trigger, reimagine the task, and reimagine your temperament. So that's the first most important step. The next step involves differentiating between traction and distraction. So this is a really important point to talk about just a bit. Because in order to understand what is distraction, we have to understand what is the opposite of distraction. And so most people will say it's focus. The opposite of distraction is focus. but that's not exactly right. The opposite of distraction is not focused. The opposite of distraction is traction. That in fact, 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. distraction 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 any actions that you are doing without intent so this is really important for two

reasons number one anything can become a distraction okay So this used to happen to me all the time before I wrote this book. You know, I would sit down at my desk and I'd say, okay, now I'm going to focus. I'm going to finally get to work. I'm going to stop procrastinating. I'm going to do what I said I'm going to do. Here I go. I'm going to work on this big project. I'm going to get so much done today.

But first, let me check some email. Right. Let me do that one thing on my to-do list that's kind of an easy thing to do to get some momentum, right? And what I didn't understand is that I was allowing distraction to trick me, to fool me, to pull the wool over my eyes, and that I didn't realize that when I did that other thing, I was getting distracted. And so that's a much more pernicious form of distraction. Because look, if you're playing Candy Crush or watching a YouTube video or, you know,

putzing around at your desk playing Candy Crush at work, you know that that's not what you're supposed to be doing. You know that's a distraction. But if you check email, oh, that feels productive, right? That's kind of worky. But we don't realize that when that happens distraction has tricked you into prioritizing the urgent at the expense of the important and that is toxic for your productivity and for your well-being so anything can become a distraction and conversely anything can be traction so i am not one of these chicken little anti-tech people that say the sky is falling and this tech is so horrible and it's melting our brain. I know too much history to believe that stuff

and too much research that says that that is not true. It's not hijacking your brain. It's not addicting everyone. That's an excuse. That's what the blamers say. Because look, the fact of the matter is, there is nothing wrong with using Facebook or YouTube or watching the news or playing a video game

as long as you do it on your schedule, not on some media company's schedule. That's right. It's that idea of time that you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. Time you plan to waste is not wasted time. It's exactly right. If you plan that time, it's traction. That's such an important point. It's why when I'm doing coaching work with people,

like we don't start with emotional regulation. We start with a plan because until you have the plan, you don't know, as you say so eloquently, you don't know, are you being distracted or not? If you don't know what you plan to be doing, what you want to be doing in this moment, then you don't know if you're procrastinating or not. It's when you go, all right, I should be doing this. And then you don't know if you're procrastinating or not. It's when you go, all right, I should be doing this, and then you don't do it. Now we know, we've got a very clear example. Okay, distraction. Right, exactly. And so this is one of the key mantras of the book, is that you can't call something a distraction unless you know what you are distracted from.

You can't call something a distraction unless you know what you are distracted from. You can't call something a distraction unless you know what you are distracted from. Meaning if you don't plan out your day, you have no right to complain about getting distracted. Because what did you get distracted from? You're, you know, if you have a bunch of white space in your day, everything is a distraction. So what are you complaining about? And it's amazing to me, you know, two thirds of Americans don't keep any sort of a calendar. And I've always kept a calendar, but I was actually the one third of people who do keep a calendar, but I didn't realize until I wrote this book that I was doing it wrong. Because I would interview people, I interviewed hundreds of people for this book over the

past five years. And the people who were most distracted, you know, I talked to them and they said, oh, you know, I'm so distracted these days, I can't seem to get what I want to do done. And, you know, did you hear what's happening in the news? And Donald Trump said this and Kim Kardashian that and all this stuff that they get distracted with. And then I would say, well, what did you plan to do with your time today? And they say, oh, let me show you.

Look at my to-do list. Look at all the stuff I didn't get done today that I plan to do. I said, no, no, you didn't hear the question. I said, what did you plan to do with your time today? Show me your calendar. Because what most people don't realize is the to-do list is evil, right? Yeah. The to-do list keeps most people as slaves and it's, and people don't realize this. This is a really important point. I call this the tyranny of the to-do list because here's how most people use the to-do list. They use it as a device to reinforce their identity of not being able to do what they say. They are using a method

that reinforces their inability to do what they say. And here's how it works. If you're anything like I was, I would keep a to-do list because, you know, that's what the productivity gurus tells you to get things done, right? You have to keep a to-do list. And day after day, about half of my to-do list, I wouldn't get done. I would just recycle that stuff from one day to the next, the next, and it just wouldn't get done. And so what I was doing to myself is reinforcing a self-image. When you see day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, yep, another

day went by and you didn't do what you said you were going to do. Loser. You start to believe that over time. You don't even realize the subconscious effects that it has on you. And so instead of keeping a to-do list, which is fine if it is a temporary repository of tasks, what most people do is they have a big long to-do list and then they do whatever they want whenever they want and they get very little done. As opposed to the right way is to keep a time box calendar where immediately if something's important enough to make it into your to-do list, you put it on your schedule because that is the only way we can live out our values.

If you want to see my values, look at my calendar. Why? Because I consciously sit down for 15 minutes a week, it's all it takes, 15 minutes, and I ask myself, how will I turn my values into time this week? care of myself, which include physical exercise, rest, education, meditation, prayer, whatever it is that are your values. I'm not telling you what to do, by the way. I'm telling you that whatever it is you want to do, you have to make time for it, even if it's video games, right? Here's the thing. Here's the amazing thing. This is why the tyranny of the to-do list is so evil. Because even when a productive person wants time to relax, okay? I used to get home from work and say, I just want to watch some Netflix, right? Even when I was watching Netflix or worse, even worse, playing with my daughter, in the back of my mind, oh, there's all those things on my to-do list I didn't get done yet.

And let me tell you, a tiny percentage of people in the world have ever experienced the bliss that is watching a movie, playing with your kid, going out to dinner with your spouse or whatever it is, without the guilt of thinking in the back of your head, ooh, I should be doing something else. by keeping a to-do list and not finishing what you said you would do, you're actually not even enjoying the leisure time you do give to yourself. And so that's why that technique really does backfire. I would say it slightly differently, but I agree a hundred percent. I mean, for me, the to-do list stands, like you said, it's a place to hold things until I can marry them to my calendar. Right. As quickly as possible. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer.

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How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really? No, really. Yeah, really. No, really. Go to

reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really? No, Really? And you can find it on the iHeartRadio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I start each day by sort of just writing out 30-minute intervals all day long, and then I look at what's actually already on the calendar. So, okay, that covers the things that I've already prioritized enough to put on. And then I look at the to-do list and I go, okay, what's getting plugged into those rest of those? And like you say, now I kind of know all day long at any given moment what I'm doing and prioritized in there are all the things that are also important, like exercise and meditation and spending time with friends and all of that. And so I agree a hundred percent. And I think that like Friday nights for

me is I know Friday nights with, unless something comes up Friday nights are like pizza and Netflix night. And I do it and I love it. And there's nothing wrong with it. And I took something that used to distract me all the time. And I turned it into traction, simply by deciding with intent when I will do it. This process is really life changing. In large part, I think a second order benefit is that when you have a physical manifestation, I don't tell people to do this every day. I advise most people can do it once a week. And it literally takes 15 minutes. In fact, I'll give you a link for the show notes where I built this online tool to make it super easy. You don't have to buy anything or even give me your email. It's totally, you know, totally free. Anybody can use it. It's just basically a calendar template for the week. And what it does is when you do this, you have a physical manifestation of what your week will look like.

And this is really powerful for a few reasons. One, you can know for every minute of your day, what is traction, what is on your calendar is traction. Anything else is a distraction. So that's really important. Now you can at least identify the enemy, right? Right. Coilo has this great quote where he says, a mistake repeated more than once is a decision. And in many people, including myself, before I wrote this book, I made the decision essentially effectively to be distracted all the time. Well, we can make the decision to be indistractable, but that starts by identifying, wait a minute, where did I get distracted? Right. People feel distracted, but they don't actually identify what did they get distracted from in order to understand the distraction. So that's a really

important point. The second point is that when you have this artifact of, yep, this is my schedule for every minute of the day for the entire week, it sounds like a lot of work. Believe me, it's not. Right. It's actually, and it sounds like it's stifling. People say, oh, I want to have spontaneity. You can plan spontaneity as oxymoronic as that sounds, you can plan time for that as well. You can reserve that time to go hang out with your kid. Every Saturday, I hang out with my kid for three hours. We don't know what we're going to do. We might go to the park. We might go get some ice cream. We might go to the museum. We don't know. But what I do know is that I will not be on email. I will not be checking social media. I will not be doing something that's a distraction.

That time is reserved for her. But the spontaneity is still there because the time is reserved. But the other point I wanted to make here is that when you have that artifact, you can take it to the important stakeholders in your life, like your boss. So when you go to your boss, you know, we've heard this ridiculous trope that gets repeated in every single productivity article I read. If you want to be more productive, you have to learn how to say no. Give me a break. You're going to go to your boss, the person who cuts your checks,

and you're going to say no. You're not going to be in business for very long. You're going to get fired. You can't say that to your boss. That's stupid advice. Instead of saying no, what you want to do is to get your boss to say no. How do you do that? You show them your schedule. You say, hey, look, boss, I made my schedule for the week. Here's how I will do all the things you asked me to do this week. Now, you see this other piece of paper? You see this other thing over here? I wrote down all the things you asked me to do that I don't seem to find time for because look at the week ahead. I don't, you know, there's no extra time left over. Can you help me reprioritize what's more important? Okay. Is it the task here that's on my calendar or should I rearrange the calendar in some way to make time for another task you think is more important? First of all,

your boss will worship the ground you walk on because most employers have no idea how you spend your time and most of them assume you're slacking off in one way or the other so when you show them here is how i plan to spend my time they crave that visibility let me tell you as a boss a founder of two companies i'm telling you from personal experience they want to know but they don't want to ask you to do this because they don't want you to feel like you're being micromanaged. But when you voluntarily show them, hey, here's how I plan to spend my time, help me reprioritize, that visibility is a game changer. The same tool of that time box calendar can help you in your home life as well. You know, I used to fight with my wife all the time about domestic responsibilities that, you know, she would say, why aren't you know,

look, the laundry needs to be done, or our daughter needs to be fed, or the house needs to be cleaned up. Why aren't you doing it? And my response was always, honey, if you want me to do something, why don't you just ask? Right? What I didn't realize is that when I said crap like that, I was giving her yet another job to do, which is to be my babysitter, essentially. And so now we never have those fights anymore. By the way, this is, this is a statistic that, uh, across the board in dual income, heterosexual relationships, women still take on, uh, an outsized share of household responsibilities, even when they have a job outside the home as well. So we are really slacking here, guys.

And let me tell you, a lot of it is not maliciousness. It's just ignorance, right? I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. So what do we do? We sat down, we said, okay, here's all the stuff that needs to get done. And now that stuff has time in my calendar. It's not just part of my to-do list. I know every Saturday, these are my responsibilities to do today and when they get done, because many household responsibilities have contingencies, right? You know, she can't cook lunch if I haven't cut the vegetables, things like that. And so I know when I will do those things. And so by having this weekly schedule sync, okay, where are you going to be this day? Do you need the car? Who's taking our daughter? Things like that. It takes 10 minutes, 10, 15 minutes a week. We do it every

Sunday night, life-changing. We never have those fights anymore because of this simple practice. It is a really powerful way to live, to be that intentional about your time. And like you said, to make it visible, because I love that idea too, of taking it to your boss. Because you're right, you can't be like, no, I'm not going to do that. The great question is always like, help me understand how to prioritize all this. If I can't fit it all in, you know, instead of just not fitting it in or that's a distraction boss. No, thanks. I'm learning how to say no. Right. Right. Give me a break. So an important point here is like you said, this sounds like it's overwhelming to do, like the amount of effort, and it sounds like it's control freaky, but I found that it's really not that much time and

effort. And that, you know, there's a lot of productivity systems out there that become way too much. And there's all this endless categorization and, and all this stuff. But, but, but this time boxing method is actually pretty straightforward and simple. It is. It is. And most importantly, it's backed by really good research. I didn't invent time boxing. It's been around for a very long time. And in fact, thousands of studies, no joke, thousands of peer-reviewed studies have found this is one of the most effective techniques for doing what you said you're going to do. The psychologists, we call it making an implementation intention, which is just a fancy way of saying doing planning, doing what you plan to do when

you plan to do it. And that's really what what living with personal integrity is all about. And so that's a very simple thing. Anyone can do it to some degree. And if you say, Oh, my gosh, every minute of every day, that sounds like too much. No problem. You know, becoming indistractable doesn't mean you never get distracted. Becoming indistractable means you strive to do what you say you're going to do. And so the beauty of this methodology is that anyone, whenever they want, can implement these four tactics in small degree. techniques like the 10 minute rule I talk about in the book is a wonderful way to disarm these internal triggers in order to help us stay on track and not, and not lead towards distraction. When we feel these uncomfortable emotional states, anyone can learn that technique in just a few minutes, making time for traction. Maybe you're not ready to book, you know, every minute of every day, seven days a week. How about you start with one weekend, right? And the question you need to

ask yourself is how can I turn my values into time? Values are? And the question you need to ask yourself is, how can I turn my values into time? Values are attributes of the person you want to become. So how could you maybe plan out one weekend, and then maybe two weekend days, and then maybe one weekday. And so what we're doing is progressively learning to use this muscle of getting better at time blocking. Because remember, unlike the to do list method, which tends to reinforce a self-image of someone who is not capable of doing what they said we're going to do, by timeboxing, you're a winner at the end of every block of time. Because remember, the goal of timeboxing is not to finish anything. Let me say that again. I know people are scratching their heads. What do you mean not finish anything? How am I going to get anything done? Here's the

goal. When you use a timeboxing technique, the only goal is to work on what you said you will work on for as long as you said you will work on it without distraction. That's it. Whether it's 10 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, two hours, doesn't matter. Irrelevant. The point of this methodology is that when you finish that time block, you are reinforcing your identity as someone who follows through. You do what you say you're going to do. That is what becoming indistractable is all about. You strove to do what you said you were going to do and you did it. That's why it's such a powerful technique. So that's what making time for traction is all about. The third technique is about hacking back

the external triggers. And so the external triggers, you triggers, this is what most people tend to blame. It's the pings, the dings, the rings, all of these things in our outside environment. And it turns out this is actually the easiest and most tactical section of the book. People complain about these technologies being so distracting. I can teach you in just a few minutes

how to make your phone indistractable, how to make your computer indistractable. That's kindergarten stuff. What's a bigger source of distraction are things like the open floor plan office, right? your computer indistractable. That's kindergarten stuff. What's a bigger source of distraction are things like the open floor plan office, right? 80% of survey respondents in the modern American workplace said the number one source of distraction wasn't their phones or computers, their apps. It was other people. So I teach you how to hack back distraction in the workplace,

how to hack back meetings. Holy moly, how much time do we spend in meetings that are just a pointless distraction? I teach you how to hack back all of these external triggers in all these various contexts. And then finally, the last step, the line of last defense is what we call preventing distraction with PACTS. And this is something we do after we've implemented the other three tactics. So a PACTS is what's called a pre-commitment device. We in advance decide what we will or won't do with some kind of backstop, right? Some kind of firewall that prevents us from getting distracted. So there's three types of pacts. We have what's called an effort pact where we put some kind of friction in between us and the distraction. Then you have a price pact where there's some kind of monetary disincentive. And then finally, there's an identity pact where who we are helps us stay on track. And so that's

the that's the essence of these four strategies. Master internal triggers, make time for traction, hack back external triggers, and prevent distraction with packs. And when you know those four strategies, the strategy is more important than tactics. Tactics are what we do strategies why we do it. And so understanding those four strategies is really strategy is more important than tactics. Tactics are what we do, strategies why we do it. And so understanding those four strategies is really all you need because you can come up with your own tactics to best suit you and over time implement more and more of these small tactics. So, you know, first you find ways to master internal triggers in a few small ways. You make time for traction. You hack back a few of those external triggers. You create a few

pre-commitments to make sure that you prevent distraction with packs. And you add more and more and more of these over your lifetime. This isn't something you're ever done doing. It's about constantly reassessing and saying, wait a minute, now that I know why I got distracted, will I do something about it? Or will I keep being a dummy and get distracted again and again and again, making the decision to become distracted, right? A mistake repeated more than once is a decision. Or will I decide I am indistractable? If I get distracted, next time I will make sure I won't get distracted by the same thing because I will know what to do about it when the time comes. I'm Jason Alexander.

And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you

and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park.

Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, no really. Yeah, really. No really.

Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's spend a couple minutes on mastering the internal triggers, because I think that's an area we could go a little bit deeper that would be really helpful. And I do think that's the biggest challenge of the work that you're talking about. The rest of the stuff, I agree. I think a lot of it is pretty straightforward, but I think it's learning to work with our uncomfortable emotions that is

the work of a lifetime in a lot of cases. So maybe let's dive a little deeper into that particular space. Sure. So there's three big pillars on how to master these internal triggers. It's about reimagining the trigger, reimagining the task, and reimagining our temperament. And it would take me a while to describe all three, but let me give you just one very tactical, practical technique that you can use that I mentioned earlier called the 10-minute rule. And this falls under the category of reimagining the internal trigger. And so this is really about finding new ways to deal with that discomfort in a way that leads us towards traction rather than distraction by disarming and understanding the source of that distraction. Because again, you know, procrastination, distraction, it's not a character

flaw. It's, it's an emotion regulation problem. But once you learn these techniques, once you have the arrows in your quiver ready, these tools, uh, then you can apply them. So there's only three reasons we ever get distracted. Only three. Either it's an internal trigger, an external trigger, or a planning problem. That's it. So all we want to do is to make sure when that distraction arises, do we know how to fix it for next time? And so let's say it's one of these internal triggers, which turn out the reason it's the first step is because it's the vast majority of distractions. The vast majority of distractions come about when people feel bored or lonely or indecisive or fatigued. And so they use something to try and escape that discomfort. That's what

procrastination distraction always is about. So this 10 minute rule is fantastic. The 10 minute rule says, and this, this is not something that I made up. This comes from acceptance and commitment therapy. The 10 minute rule says that you can give in to any distraction, any distraction, in just 10 minutes. Now, why is this so effective? Because what we want to do for those 10 minutes is one of two things. You want to either surf the urge, meaning to be with that sensation, contemplate what is it that you are feeling for just 10 minutes to ride out that sensation. Because remember, these emotions,

they feel like they're going to last forever in the moment. But it turns out that emotions are like waves, they crest and then they subside. So if you can ride that sensation for just a few minutes, most of the time it will subside by the time that 10 minutes are up. So your choice that you have to make for those 10 minutes, so you can give into that distraction, you can eat that piece of chocolate cake, you can go check email when you know you should be writing on that blog post or whatever it might be in just 10 minutes of surfing the urge. So your choice is either surf the urge, sit with that sensation without judgment, right? With curiosity, not with contempt. Don't be one of those blamers and shamers. Instead, what you can do is either surf the urge or get back to the task at hand. And what you will find if you set that timer, 10 minutes actually is a

long time. If you set that timer, you know, many times I'll take out my iPhone, I'll say set a timer for 10 minutes, I'll put down my phone, and I'll just sit with that sensation. And what we find is that nine times out of 10, before that alarm rings, you will be back at that task at hand by just giving that sensation a little bit of time, a little bit of space before you react to escape that discomfort. And that of course, you know, you get better at this technique over time. So it becomes just as effective when you know you shouldn't eat something or drink something or say something, you can use this technique with all kinds of impulses that you might have. A tremendously useful one. It's sort of the 12-step program, you know, one day at a time,

but shrunk way down, you know, because that's the origin really of that, you know, like just not today, just not today, delay till tomorrow, you know's but it's shrunk down and it's an it's a remarkably effective technique yeah you know just delay right exactly you know i like to say the antidote to impulsiveness is forethought the antidote to impulsiveness is for that i think this is a really important concept because you know if there's one thing that our species does better than any other animal on the face of the earth. It's that we can plan ahead. We can see into the future with greater fidelity than any other creature that has ever roamed the earth. And we can use that ability, right? Because we know that if you wait till the moment, right?

If the chocolate cake is on its fork, you're going to eat it. If the cigarette is lit in your hand, you're going to smoke it. If you sleep next to your cell phone every night, you're going to pick it up first thing in the morning. It's too late. They've won. They gotcha. So the antidote to that impulsive reaction is not willpower. It's not self-control. The people who I interviewed for my book, these masters of doing what they said they're going to do, the most indistractable people on earth, they don't have tremendous amounts of willpower. What they have is a system so that when the time arises, they don't have tremendous amounts of willpower. What they have is a system so that when the time arises, they don't need willpower and self-control. Willpower and self-control don't work. They collapse over time. Instead, it's about thinking in advance,

what am I going to do? Okay, when I feel that internal trigger, what becomes my habitual response? Is it to escape this discomfort, right? To look for a pacifier, like a baby looks for their pacifier, to just take my mind off of that sensation? Or do I have a mature response to this that leads me towards traction rather than distraction? Yep. Okay. So the 10 minute rule, that's a great one. What else? And so there's other tactics as well in the book about re-imagining the task itself. This is where I look at this freaky science around how we can learn to do what's called play anything. And basically what we can do is we can learn to make any task something that is play without necessarily looking for enjoyment. It's interesting that play doesn't necessarily

have to be fun, believe it or not. It just has to focus our attention. And so we look at this weird science around how people learn to love all kinds of mundane tasks, right? We all know that car buff that works on their car. Now, of course, you know, you'd have to pay me to be a mechanic. And yet these people love it. Why? The barista who's obsessed with getting just the right brew.

You know, you'd have to pay me a lot of money to work in a Starbucks. I wouldn't do that for free. And yet they're obsessed with it. I have another friend who's really into quilting. Oh my God, I can't even imagine how boring that is. And yet she loves it. Why? How do you make a task something that is playful?

And I teach you exactly how to do that. There's some very simple tactics that we can use to learn how to play anything. And then finally, the last of these three pillars is about reimagining our temperament. There's a lot of junk science out there, or overturned science, I should say, that people still believe. One of the most prevalent myths is this idea of what we call ego depletion. Ego depletion says that we run out of willpower. And many, many people believe this, that they run out of willpower.

And even if they don't know the term ego depletion, they experience something like this. So I used to come home from work, and I would say, boy, I've had such a tough day. I feel, quote unquote, spent. Give me that pint of Ben and Jerry's. I have no willpower left. I'm going to watch some Netflix and just veg out, right? I'm spent. I got nothing left. And many people have this notion, consciously or subconsciously, that willpower is something you run out of. And there was actually some research that showed this was true about a decade ago. And it turns out that the research that, you know, the press loved it, there was a best-selling book about this. But when other, you know, in the social sciences, when a study sounds too good to be true, we replicate the study. We try and run it again.

is when a study sounds too good to be true, we replicate the study. We try and run it again. And it turns out when other researchers tried to replicate this study, it turns out that ego depletion didn't exist, that the studies can't replicate, except with one group of people. There is one group of people who really do experience ego depletion. They really do run out of willpower like gas in a gas tank. Who is this group? It's people and only people who believe that willpower is a limited resource. So if you believe that you are running out of willpower, you are running out of self control, it becomes true. And so much of our beliefs these days are self-limiting. Principally, this idea that technology is addicting you, it's hijacking your brains, your kids won't stop playing video games because of these algorithms. If you believe

it's true, it leads to what's called learned helplessness. And that's exactly what the ego depletion study shows. So what we want to do is to reimagine our temperament, to realize that we are not a fixed self, that we can reimagine our capabilities and only keep the identities that serve us versus the identity that we are serving. Such an important piece, this idea of I'm the kind of person who, and we are attached to these ideas that simply aren't true. They're just, they're patterns of behavior that we have over-identified with. I often say, it's not you, it's your approach. It's this idea that we can be different with the proper tools and techniques and skill sets.

Absolutely. That's exactly right. And I'm not saying that having an identity is a bad thing. In fact, one of the last chapters in the book is about how you can reshape your identity to make what's called an identity pact. So I want people to go from these self-limiting beliefs to self-enhancing beliefs, right? So we know, for example, in the psychology of religion, that when someone calls themselves a devout, you know, observer of a particular faith, they become much more likely to stay in line. So when someone for you know, when a devout Muslim says, you know, they don't ask themselves, Oh, I wonder if I should have that gin and tonic. No, that's forbidden. devout Muslims do not drink alcohol, even a vegetarian, you know, if you call yourself a vegetarian, you don't wake up in the

morning and say, Hmm, I wonder if I should have some bacon for breakfast. No vegetarians don't eat meat. So we can use an identity to help us become indistractable. And that's exactly why I named the book what I did. Indistractable sounds like indestructible. And we can use that moniker, we can use that identity and teach others about this practice to help us stay in line, to help us do what we know we are capable of, to live the kind of life we know we deserve. That's a great way to say it. And that idea of letting identity be something that serves you. Because they're not as fixed as we think we are. So if we're putting one on, if in essence, in some ways, it's like a costume, we ought to choose to put on the costumes that lead us in

the direction of what matters. If we're making it up, we ought to make up stories that are useful and life-supporting and being indistractable is a good one to carry. Absolutely. Yep. Couldn't agree more. All right. Well, you and I are at the end of our time here. So thank you so much for taking the time to come on. You and I are going to talk for just a couple minutes in the post-show conversation about some simple techniques to hack back distractions from our phones and computers.

So we'll do that in the post-show conversation. Listeners, if you'd like access to that as well as a mini episode each week and supporting the show, you can go to oneufeed.net slash join. Nir, thank you so much for taking the time to come on. I've really one you feed.net slash join near. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on. I've really enjoyed this conversation. Oh, my pleasure. Thank you so

much. All right. Take care. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our community. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make a donation at any level, and become a member of the One You Feed community, go to oneyoufeed.net slash join. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the

show. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really No Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition

signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.