Distraction is when we avoid emotional discomfort around doing what we say we want to do by doing something else. The opposite of distraction isn't focus, it's traction. Traction is any action that pulls you toward what you said you wanted to do. You can't get distracted if you didn't know what you wanted to do in the first place! ## Time management requires pain management Distraction comes from within ourselves first and foremost - from our boredom, fatigue, anxiety, and uncertainty. Procrastination and distraction is the inability to deal with our own emotional discomfort. Pain isn’t meant to feel good, it’s meant to spur us to action. It’s better to harness discomfort to lead us to traction instead of distraction. (See also: [[The homeostaic response]]) ## Three types of people who get distracted People who get distracted fall into three buckets: - **Blamers** blame the world around them for their distraction - **Shamers** feel shame that they are easily distractible - Shame can become self-reinforcing because whenever we feel shame that can become a trigger for distracting behaviors - **Claimers** claim responsibility for how they respond to their internal triggers ## 4 Strategies for mastering indistraction ___ Note: The 4 strategies are meant to be done in order! Don't try to do one without first accomplishing the preceding ones. ___ ### 1. Master your internal triggers Internal triggers are when we feel discomfort as we think about taking an action. There are a few strategies for coping with internal triggers: - Write down the emotion that preceded the trigger - Explore the emotion and sensation with curiosity, not contempt - Surf the urge. Emotions are like waves - they crest and subside - Try the 10-minute rule: say you can give in after 10 mins. Unfortunately, abstinence doesn’t work and leads to worse habit forming, because the release of "finally getting the trigger" is reinforcing to the original habit. Only "waiting out" the emotion can strengthen your ability to master the internal trigger. ### 2. Make time for traction To do lists are terrible. They enable doing the easy stuff first and there’s no constraint on time and it reinforces a self image of “another day went by and I didn’t do what I said I was going to do.” We need to change our mindset from the reward being “I completed something” to “I worked on what I said I would for as long as I said I would without distraction.” This mindset change will allow us to start scheduling work we need to do in our calendar. When we schedule work we are giving ourselves the ability to create traction - we know what we want to do with our time! Another benefit of making time for traction is that we can make time to think. Very few people take the time to step back from their current situation to create more of a [[Subject-object relationship]] with their work. ### 3. Hack back the external triggers External triggers are the dings, rings, and pings we get from the outside world. When we receive external triggers we can be prompted to execute harmful habits (See [[Forming habits]]). There are many ways to hack back external triggers covered in [[Avoiding distractions#Tools|the "tools" section]] below. ### 4. Prevent distraction with Pacts. Pacts are effective strategies for preventing yourself from doing something you don't want to do. There are 3 basic kinds of pacts: - An **Effort Pact** put effort in between us and what we want to do, for example we put a barrier where we have to type 100 random characters before we can log into a social media account. - A **Price Pact** puts a monetary disincentive to getting distracted. This is best implemented when based on [[Loss aversion]] - for example if you want to pay people to quit smoking, we'd want them to put in $150 and get it back if they quit. - An **[[Identity pact]]** is the most powerful technique and involves having some kind of moniker for yourself like "I don't drink" ## Tools Nir Eyal has created a lovely set of his favorite tools for avoiding distraction [here](https://www.nirandfar.com/indistractable-tools/).