How to Stay Focused and Beat Distraction - Nir Eyal

so there's something about the human condition that makes us distractable that makes us constantly look for other things and that probably served us on the planes of the S and G 200,000 years ago when you know you were constantly looking out for danger you're looking out for opportunity but you know today that that's not necessarily a skill that we want to run rampant we need to learn how to control it if you can remove external triggers from your environment so for example if people are trying to stop a substance abuse sure absence might be able to work for you but how do you remove the triggers for technology there's nothing wrong with external triggers if an external trigger tells you hey it's time for that meeting it's time to go exercise it's time for that thing you said you were going to do that's in your calendar wonderful it's serving you but if it's an external trigger that uh you get this notification while I was with my daughter now it's not serving me I was serving the notification oh by the way before we get into this episode I would love to tell you a little bit about life notes now Life notes is a weekly-ish email that I send completely for free to my subscribers and it contains my notes from life so notes from books that I've read podcasts I'm listening to conversations I'm having and experiences I'm having work and in life and around once a week I write these up and share them in an email with my subscribers so if you would like to get an email from me that contains the stuff that I'm learning almost in real time as I'm learning it you might like to subscribe there is a link down in the show notes or in the video description near are welcome to the podcast how you doing I'm doing great it's so great to be with you we've been talking about this for a while now thank you so much for coming to London for pleasure experiencing the vibe on this lovely summer's day all right so what does it mean to be indistractable being indistractable means that you are as honest with yourself as you are with others meaning one of the worst things you can be called in life is a liar right that is a horrible put down about your character and so we never want to be a liar that's that would be a horrible thing for for someone to call us and yet we lie to ourselves every day we say we're going to exercise but we don't we say we're going to eat right but we skip we say we're going to be fully present with our loved ones but we're not really we say we're going to work on that big project we're not going we're not going to procrastinate but somehow we delay and we DeLay So we constantly lie to ourselves and what that means is that we look back on our lives and we are full of regret we said we should have done that thing we should have started the business we should have written the book we should have started the podcast we should have started youtubing whatever the case might be but we didn't do it we got distracted so being indistractable is about doing what you say you're going to do so what prompted you to write the book indistractable okay so for me um there was one inciting incident for me that really kind of started me down this path where I had to reassess my relationship with distraction I was with my da one afternoon and um we just had some daddy daughter time planned and we had this book of activities that dads and daughters could do together you know make a paper airplane throwing contest do a sodoko puzzle but one of the activities in this book was to ask each other this question the question was if you could have any superpower what superpower would you want and I remember that question of verbatim but I can't tell you what my daughter said because in that moment for whatever reason I just thought it was a good time let me just check this one thing honey and by the time I looked up for my phone she got the cue that whatever was on my phone was more important than she was and she left the room to go play with some toy outside and I knew I blew it and so that's when I realized that I had to reassess my relationship with distraction because if I'm honest with you it wasn't just with my daughter it would happen when I would say I was going to do one thing I was going to exercise I was going to work on a big project and yet one thing or another came up and I didn't do what I said I was going to do and so that's when I decided that if I could have any superpower it would be the power to become indistractable simply to follow through on the things I know I want to do right I don't need convincing I know I need to do this and yet somehow I didn't do it and so that's why I think becoming indistractable is the skill of the century that there's no facet of your mental health your physical well-being uh your your career all of these things require us to be able to harness our attention this is truly how we choose our life nice so why do so many of us struggle with distraction what's going on there I think it's a product of uh two things one it's Human Nature we know that Plato the Greek philosopher talked about this struggle with Acasia the tendency to do things against our better interest he talked about this 2500 years ago so there's something about the human condition that makes us distractable that makes us constantly look for for other things and that probably served us on the Plaines of the S and G 200,000 years ago when you know you were constantly looking out for danger you're looking out for opportunity but you know today that that's not necessarily a skill that we want to run rampant we need to learn how to control it so that's reason number one reason number two is that we have this this abundance of so many good things in our life right we live in an age where the first time in human history there are more people dying of diseases of excess than of of of scarcity so it used to be that human beings would die of starvation when there was a famine well today more people die of diabetes and obesity than they do of famine so we have this excess we have abundance the same that goes with information we don't ever have to be bored anymore because there's instant Ain mment at all times of day or night right here in our pockets found with our phones and that's a good thing a lot of people like to Dy this stuff they say oh it's technology it's the modern world it's all these bad things well number one te these distractions have always been with us right Plato talked about it 2500 years ago and two getting rid of these things are not going to solve the problem because distraction is part of the human condition and furthermore the fact that these devices are so engaging that they're uh so fun to use that's not a problem that's progress right what are we gonna say hey Apple your phones are too user friendly H stop making them I don't I want to use them too much hey hey Netflix your shows are too entertaining please stop making such good shows no that's ridiculous we want these good things in our life so the price of all that progress the price of living in an age with so much abundance is that we have to learn a new skill set we have to learn how to live with these Technologies how to get the best of them so they don't get the best of us um you in the book you talk about the idea of internal triggers uh what are internal triggers and how do they cause us to get distracted yeah so many people when it comes to distraction they blame the things outside of us we blame the pings the dings the Rings all of the things in our outside environment that can lead us towards distraction now they those things can be a trigger for distraction those are called external triggers but we know from time studies that those external triggers only account for about 10% of our distractions so 10% of the time that you check your phone is it because of a pingting or ring but that's what we tend to blame what we don't remember what we don't think about is that 90% of our distractions 90% begin From Within These are called internal triggers what are internal triggers internal triggers are uncomfortable emotional states that we seek to escape boredom loneliness fatigue uncertainty anxiety these are these uncomfortable Sensations that we look to escape many times with distraction so whether it's too much news too much booze too much football too much Facebook you are always going to get distracted from from one thing or another unless you understand the root cause of the problem so if we just keep blaming the external triggers when they account for such a small share of the reason for our distractions we don't get to the real cause of the problem solid that surprises me I would have thought that like the reason I get distracted by my phone is the fact that I get all these notifications but we're saying it's it's not actually because yeah because then I think when I'm on the couch or when I'm on the toilet it's not a notification I'm responding to it's something yeah that's right it's a feeling and so that's to me you know this whole question of distraction and and why don't we do what we say we're going to do right this ancient question that Plato asked as well I think it's a fascinating question if we know what to do why don't we just do it right we all know what to do and today you know you could say okay well maybe in Generations past our grandparents uh had a shortage of information if you wanted to know how to do something you had to go to the library or ask some expert today it's all here right Google it it'll tell you what to do and who doesn't basically know what to do we know if you want to get in shape you have to eat right and exercise if you want to have better relationships with your family you have to be fully present with them if you want to uh do well at your job you have to do the things that other people aren't willing to do right we we know this stuff you have to do the hard work we know but we don't do it and so to me that's a really interesting question so in order to understand why do we get distracted I think we have to actually go a layer deeper and ask why do we do anything and everything what's the nature of human motivation most people will tell you that motivation is about carrots and sticks we've all heard this right turns out neurologically that's not true that neurologically the way the brain gets us to act is not through carrots and sticks per se but rather everything is about the desire to escape discomfort the way the reward system in the brain works is that the carrot is the stick right think about that the carrot is the stick meaning that even when we want to feel good pleasure desire craving hunger lusting for something the desire for pleasure is itself psychologically destabilizing so everything we do everything you do is about the desire to escape discomfort so that means if everything you do is about the desire to escape discomfort that must therefore mean that time management is pain management money management is pain management weight management is pain management and so that's why these internal triggers are so important if you don't Master these internal triggers they will become your master nice um how do we Master these internal triggers yeah so this is the most important part I think a lot of people gloss over uh they look for the tips the tricks the hacks right show me the app show me the secret solution give me the new Tropic that's going to fix this problem but at the end of the day if 90% of our distractions begin from within we have to figure out these strategies to master internal trigger so there's a dozen different tactics in my book IND distractible on how to do this and you have to experiment you have to see what works for you I'll tell you what works for me so a couple techniques that work really well that I I use literally every single day uh come from acceptance of commitment therapy I didn't make them up they've been around for decades one of them is called the 10minute rule the 10in rule says that you can give in to any distraction whatever that distraction might be whether you're on a diet and you're trying to resist that chocolate cake whether you're trying to quit smoking whether you're trying to not check your phone every five minutes when you're trying to be with your family or do a work project you can give into that distraction but not right now in 10 minutes and if 10 minutes is too long make it the five minute rule it doesn't really matter what you want to do is a couple things number one this shows you that you have agency that you can actually do what you say you're going to do you can resist anything for just 5 minutes so by showing to yourself hey you know what I I'm not controlled by these distractions I can wait a few minutes I will do that thing but a little bit later in 10 minutes the other thing that I think is super important a lot of people forget is that they think that the right path to stop a behavior is abstinence and for some behaviors that can be the case right if you can remove external triggers from your environment so for example if people are trying to uh stop a substance abuse if you can remove those triggers from your environment sure absence might be able to work for you but how do you remove the triggers for technology right it's it's all it's all over the place right we we need our devices in order to stay connected to work to family to loved that is part of the modern experience food same way you can't just stop eating food you need food to survive so in those cases strict abstinence telling yourself no can backfire it's called psychological reactant psychological reactant says that when you are told what to do when your agency is threatened the natural human response is to Rebel so when your mom told you oh it's raining outside put on a coat and you said don't tell me what to do or your boss tries to micromanage you that feeling of being controlled that's reactants now the crazy thing is that the human brain will elicit reactants even when we are telling ourselves what to do so when you tell yourself don't check Tik Tok don't watch YouTube you are literally making yourself want it more so instead to disarm Psychological reactants a much better approach is to say hey I can do whatever I want I'm a grown human being I can I can make my own choices I choose to delay this by 10 minutes I will do that thing in 10 minutes now what's the next step when you do that you want to explore that internal trigger with curiosity rather than contempt a lot of people they beat themselves up so when people uh think about distraction we find that they fall into two buckets two categories we have what we call the blamers and then we have What's called the shamers the blamers they blame things outside themselves they blame technology they blame the news they blame the modern world they blame all this stuff outside of them those are the blamers and that's feudal because you're not going to change that stuff right people have always been distracted by things happening outside them so that's not that's not an effective strategy the other category is what we call the shamers they take it on the inside that's what I used to do oh there must be something wrong with me uh if I was a real writer I wouldn't have this urge to constantly get distracted maybe I'm my brain is broken somehow I would shame myself into thinking there was something broken about me and of course shame is a very uncomfortable internal trigger so what do we do in response to shame we're more likely to look for distraction to escape the shame that we're feeling so we don't want to be a blamer we don't want to be a shamer we want to be what's called a claimer a claimer claims responsibility not for how they feel so this is this was a big one for me turns out we don't control our urges we don't control our urges people try and control their urges you cannot control your urges think about the urge to sneeze when you feel the urge to sneeze it's too late you already felt the urge all you can do is to decide what you will do in response to that urge right hence we can claim responsibility responsibility comes from how you will respond to that urge so what do you do when you feel the urge to sneeze do you sneeze all over everyone and get them sick no you you take out a handkerchief and you cover your face right that's the responsible thing to do and the same goes for our urges around getting distracted right it's not about claiming and blame it's not about shaming and blaming it's about claiming responsibility for having a plan for what we will do when we feel that discomfort so the 10-minute rule allows us to say okay I will give into that distraction in 10 minutes now what do you do for those 10 minutes what I do is I do I use this technique called surfing the urge surfing the urge acknowledges that these emotions are like waves they Crest and then they subside but that's not how it feels in the moment in the moment when you feel bored or anxious or uncertain or lonely you feel like you're always going to experience that emotion but that's not true right that if you acknowledge that in a short very short period of time that emotion will crest and subside you can ride it like a surfer on a surfboard until it's gone and so what I do uh you know I write every single day uh and writing never gets easier like there's no such thing as a writing habit by the way you know people try and make everything into a habit these days and by definition that that you can't right a habit is defined as a Behavior done with little or no conscious thought how exactly do you write with little or no conscious thought right I I don't know how to do that right how how do you an exercise habit that's a misnomer because habit requires little or no conscious thought if you're trying to break your PR that requires effort that requires thought uh so so you can't just you know habit it away you have to put effort towards these things these are the things that people tend to get distracted from so while I'm writing often times when I'm about to say oh let me just check email real quick or let me just Google something right what I'm doing is I'm trying to an excuse for me to to get away from that internal trigger of of is this writing going to be any good and uh uh it's kind of boring and I'm not sure where it's going to go and is anybody going to read this all this doubt and uncertainty what I do what I do is I I take a pause I set a timer for 10 minutes I put my phone down I say okay I close my eyes and I just surf that urge and so for me a useful technique another one that I talk about in the book is to have a personal Mantra and so you can create your own Mantra I'll share with you my Mantra so in those 10 minutes I have a choice to make I can either get back to the task at hand and whenever I'm ready to get back to the task at hand get right back to the writing or I can surf that urge by just taking a few seconds to repeat my Mantra my Mantra sounds like this I close my eyes and I say this is what it feels like to get better this is what it feels like to get better that's just my my personal Mantra you can create your own to me that reminds my reminds me that it's supposed to be difficult right if it was easy everyone would do it that's part of the struggle that's part of a craft is is is pushing through that discomfort and what I find nine times out of 10 is that before those 10 minutes are up I'm right back at that task in hand and what what happens over time is that the 10-minute rule becomes the 12-minute rule becomes the 15minute rule becomes the 20-minute Rule and now you're proving to yourself that you actually do have control you do have agency over these distractions man you're so good at this like [ __ ] sick I'm like damn I wish I was this like prepared when I was doing podcast my like really you're conviction such confidence I'm like I don't know what you're talking about I've always admired like how you can get in front of a camera and and do what you do wait so you don't you don't do it like this no how you I feel like I'm all over the it feels like you've got the talking points down youve nailed it the the blame or the shameer the this you've got your your football Facebook thing it's like your the the Rings the dings the pings the thing I was like it's just so well done I guess you've done so many of these that you've gotten in the Reps or but when you when you your YouTube videos sound this sound just as good of not better yeah maybe do you edit them to like we do a lot of editing in the YouTube videos I'm not very uh spontan I well I don't know maybe it sounds like you're just spouting off genius like yeah okay nice I'm glad to hear it because it's sound like you were spouting off genius right now anyway um is willpower a resource that runs out okay so there is this popular notion that willpower is a limited resource and this came out of some research uh done several years ago now uh around this concept called ego depletion ego depletion says that we run out of willpower just like we would run out of battery charge on our phone or gas in our gas tank that it's a depletable resource and this got a lot of of of press because it's kind of a concept people want to believe right we want to think like I used to I'd get home from work and say oh what a rough day give me that pint of ice cream I'm going to sit in front of the TV and just chill out right I'm out of willpower I'm spent I used to say I'm spent and so it's kind of a comforting thought turns out uh it was a little too good to be true so as happens in the social sciences when something sounds a little bit fishy what do we do we rerun the study we try and replicate the study and it turns out that this idea of ego depletion that we run out of willpower like gas in a gas tank turns out not to be true except in one group of people there is actually one group of people who really do run out of willpower they really do spend it up and those people and only those people and this work was done by Carol DWI I'm sure you know her work uh wonderful book uh called mindset and she found that the only group of people who run out of willpower are people who believe that willpower is a depletable resource and so I talk about this in the book uh in in distractable as a way that we have to reimagine our temperament that if you believe you are spent you are as Henry for said whether you believe you can or you cannot you're right and so when you hear people saying things like we're all addicted to technology and there's nothing we can do it's hacking our brains if you believe that stuff of course that's the case and of course that is exactly what the tech companies want the tech companies want you to believe you're addicted the word Addiction comes from the Latin addico which means slave So when you say to yourself I am a slave I am addicted I have no more willpower I'm spent you're making it true and so we have to be very very careful about these labels and make sure that we only adopt the labels that serve us rather than the ones that hurt us interesting so um I very much Vibe with this um a push back to this might be okay like one of my team members for example comes to mind she always says to me that like oh you know Ali I don't have time to work on my YouTube channel because after a day of work I have no energy and I just have to watch Netflix to recharge and I've always found that a bit fish I'm like do you really like I mean the work that we do is it's not like we're coal miners or something it's not it's not that physically demanding she's like no but I'm I'm I'm just like mentally I'm mentally drained of energy and she says she has to watch Netflix for 3 hours or whatever it is to she has okay I love it when people say I hear this all the time they say you don't understand I can't or I have to or I must or there's no way right I hear it all the time I've heard the book is published 2019 I've heard literally every excuse you could possibly come up with and whenever I hear one of these definitive statements of I can't or I must or I have to I would say okay well let's test that a bit let's let's test this what would happen if when you got home instead of watching Netflix which you say you have to watch because you're spent I told you that if you don't do whatever it is you said you're going to do go to the gym uh play with my kid read a book uh work on a project if you don't do that you're going to have to pay me $110,000 are you g to do that thing of course I am I'm going to go to the gym of course I'm going to work on the video of course I'm going to do that thing of course I'm not going to pay $10,000 okay well what does that tell us that tells us we've established you can now we're just negotiating the price and so when you do that this is this is step four becoming indistractable making a PCT and this is something that that I actually did with a friend of mine uh with with Mark Manson actually when we were writing we were both working on our books and uh I had I it took me five years to write indistractable took me five years to write indistractable because I kept getting distracted right it wasn't until I figured out these techniques starting from first principles and adopted them into my own life that I could actually change my life and today I'm in the best shape of my life I've better relationship with my family than ever before I'm more productive than ever before because I've adopted these techniques but it took me a long time to dig through all the garbage out there that doesn't work so once I finally figured out how to become indistractable now was time to actually write the book and I I had to practice what I preach I looked at this technique called making a commitment PCT and I told Mark I said look if I don't finish my manuscript by January 1st I will owe you $220,000 and we shook on it you think I paid him the $20,000 of course not I finished my day damn book and think about right we pay coaches and trainers and fitness and diets we pay all this money which which is gone we'll never get that money back in order for other people to hold us accountable well we can do this to ourselves right by making this commitment PCT what what I call a price Packa that's one of of several different kinds of packs we can make turns out we can have our cake and E it too except if you're on a diet you can have the goal you can get to that accomplishment you can finish that book you can do whatever it is you said you're going to do and you get to keep your money so as the fourth step by the way I do have to give a disclaimer that technique of setting this packed you have to do it last many people have heard of of a similar technique but if you don't do it in the right order it will absolutely backfire if you don't first do step number one master internal triggers make time for traction hack back external triggers then prevent distraction with packs as a fourth and final step if you don't do it in the right order it will backfire but having that type of commitment PCT right when someone says I can't I won't it's impossible always shows you that actually you can there's just a matter of a price to be negotiated why why does it backfire how does it backfire if you do it first because the the most common cause of distraction are these internal triggers so if you don't first deal with the internal triggers for example um so I used to be clinically obese and uh exercise has always been a struggle for me I I still to this day I'm in the best shape of my life at 46 years old but I uh I I've always disliked it so one of the things I did after I did the research for the book is I I utilized the technique of making a price packed and I um still to this day I have a calendar in in my dresser next to my dresser that on this calendar is taped a fresh crisp $100 bill and above that that the calendar there's a little shelf and on that shelf there's a bick lighter and every day I have a choice to make it's called the burn or burn technique I can either burn some calories by doing some push-ups going for a walk around the block going for swim doing some kind of exercise every day to burn calories or I have to burn the $100 bill the burn or burn technique now I've been doing this for five years now I've never had to burn the $100 bill because I just do the damn exercise right because my personal Integrity is worth more than the $100 bill now if I haven't if I hadn't done the first three steps if I didn't know how to deal with those internal triggers of I don't really feel like working out right now if I didn't plan the time if I didn't remove the external triggers that don't serve me then this technique wouldn't work so you have to do it last nice so it sounds like you don't buy the idea that uh mental energy is like a thing I get to the I get home from the day of work I've been like productive all day at work and now I feel mentally drained dot dot dot yeah I mean I can prove it to you right now if you had something interesting yeah all of a sudden you have energy how could that be if the brain is drained of you know the the theory was that that bow Meister the guy who did the research on WR ego depletion was that it's a depletable resource because you're glucose is somehow depleted right and he's had these studies which we can't replicate that if you give people lemonade somehow they were boosted well it turns out that if you think about it if the brain is drained of of energy well then why are interesting and fun things suddenly possible to do right so it turns out I think it's it's what we call a no sibo effect like the opposite of a plus sibo is a no sibo effect that when you think something is is going to happen right when you have an expectation that you're spent when you have an expectation that you're tired when you have an expectation that you can't it's true this episode of Deep dive is very kindly sponsored by wab which stands for you need a budget now for many people money is a cause of guilt and anxiety you're never entirely sure where all your money goes and you're left feeling guilty about purchases big or small money is often associated with restriction fear and uncertainty but your money is an extension of you in many ways and it's obviously not ideal to feel so bad about it now wab is an app that's helping millions of people change their mindset around money it's built on four simple habits which could transform the way you think about money these habits are first first ly give every dollar a job two embrace your true expenses three roll with the punches and four age your money now these habits are actually really simple giving every dollar a job basically just means that you plan out the different things you want to spend your money on after you've been paid then all you have to do is stick to the plan knowing that you already have enough to cover everything your true expenses refers to those big non-monthly outgoings like trying to buy a car or a holiday deposit you want to break these down and you want to save in advance so that hopefully you're not hit by a big charge that you were not expecting and one of the things that I really love about wab is their idea of rolling with the punches cuz sometimes life does throw things at you like a piece of tech braks and you need to have it fixed or you get your stuff stolen from the back of your car like happened to me or a pipe burst and you have to call a plumber wab helps you set money aside in advance to help cushion you from life's unexpected expenses they also recognize that we can feel really guilty for spending money so if you do spend more than you plan that's totally okay just move your money to wherever it's needed it's yours at the end of the day and you can even age your money spend less than you earn and have a nice stack of saved money waiting for your bills as they come in not the other way around in an Ideal World money really shouldn't be scary or stressful for us and we actually have way more control over our money than we often think so if you're interested you can try out WAP today and you can see if this approach to budgeting can make a difference in the way that you think about money so thank you again WAP for sponsoring this episode of Deep dive that's really good I found myself so yesterday um I had like a I had like a big session at the gym with a personal trainer I got home and I was meant to be going on this um this like nice restaurant with a few friends friends for dinner and there was like an hour to wait between kind of coming back home from the gym and the dinner and the story I told myself was oh man I'm so tired oh I just want to blob out and then I ended up just like scrolling Instagram or something for like an hour until the dinner and then the dinner rolled around and I was like Pokey and fresh there was no side of the tightness right and I was kind of thinking hm that's that's a bit suspicious it's like there's no law of physics really that's like I wasn't running out of glucose and ATP and stuff like realistic right I I had just told myself the story that oh I I'm I'm mentally fatigued right now therefore I'm just going to blob out and watch random memes on Instagram right and of course the more you you do that in the past the more you abide by that expectation the more likely you are to expect it to occur yeah so the more you come home and say oh I can't I can't I can't well now it becomes a pattern right now you're it's becomes a self-fulfilling Pro prophecy what is a distraction notebook uh so a distraction notebook is a way for for you to keep track of what took you off track right so when you uh so so one of the things we have to do in order to become indistractable is to be able to identify those internal triggers again that's 90% of our distractions so most people have no sense of why they got distracted they all of a sudden find the cigarettes in their hand they all of a sudden find the phone you know they're scrolling on Tik Tok or whatever without realizing what was the preceding internal trigger so a distraction notebook is a way for you to start bringing awareness to what is that preceding emotion that you are trying to escape because every distraction every distraction only has three potential causes right if you're doing something that is not what you said you were going to do it's only because of three reasons either it's an internal trigger some kind of feeling an external trigger some kind of external prompt in outside environment or a planning problem that's it there's only three potential reasons so when you have a distraction Journal when you start keeping track of okay I said I was going to do this but I did something else you can start identifying why now why is this so important there's a wonderful quote by po coo who said a mistake repeated more than once is a decision such a good quote a mistake repeated more than once is a decision so good right so the problem is that for distractable people they keep getting distracted by the same things again and again again how many times are we going to complain about YouTube and Tik Tok and Facebook before we do something okay we got it you distracted me once I'm not going to let it happen again so an indistractable person looks at why they got distracted the first time and they make sure they take steps today to to prevent getting distracted again tomorrow one of the things that I found really helpful um and that and that we recommend for our students in productivity lab is at the end of every focused hour every focused hour of work you just do a little like 30 second reflection to reflect on how focused was I really during that time and were there any distractions that came up and then if you have that written down like for me the the other day I noticed that like in the middle of the work session I got up and went to the bathroom but while I was there I uh opened up my phone and just habitually went on Instagram M and then I ended up there for like 15 minutes longer than I really should have been I was like oh that's interesting it's interesting that I did that and I just said opal my app blocking thing to be like okay let me just block Instagram during working hours and now that problem is gone right so now when I'm on the toilet it's like the only thing I have the option of opening is the Kindle app and that is just a lot less dopam inducing than Instagram for example so I okay cool I may as well get off the toilet and get back to work and if it gets you once okay distraction can get anybody wants but you took action about that you noted what happened and you did something about it so you can't complain about it if you know the cause you know the solution you can't just keep complaining you got to do something about it and that's exactly what you did yeah the the the other thing I found when when when doing the strategy was I'd be like oh you know there there's a thing on my desk like a piece of paper I've just taken a note on and then oh I I don't have a bin next to me so let me just get up and go downstairs to the kitchen and I realized you know what let me just spend 3 on Amazon just buy a bin and just have it next to my desk Sol that problem so that's exactly the purpose of this distraction Journal is that when you write down oh I wanted to take down the trash downstairs and then you look back and say like okay that wasn't necessary what can I do to prevent it from happening tomorrow so if you want to boil down my work over the past decade now on distraction it's it's this the antidote to impulsiveness is forethought that's the summary of my work the antidote to impulsiveness is forethought that procrastination distraction it's not a character flaw there's nothing wrong with you it's not a moral failing for the vast majority people they don't have ADHD it's way over diagnosed very very few people actually have clinical level ADHD I believe but we we believe that there's there's something you know there's something wrong with us but rather what what it means is simply that if we can take steps today to prevent distraction tomorrow so the antidote to impulsiveness is forethought that if you leave it to the last moment if you wait till the cigarette's in your hand you're going to smoke it if the chocolate cake is on the fork on the way to your mouth you're going to eat it if you leave your cell phone on your nightstand every every night it's going to be the first thing you reach for in the morning before you say hello to your loved one it's too late right if you leave it to the last minute they're going to get you but if you take steps if you prevent it from happening by taking steps today there's no distraction we can't overcome tomorrow one thing that my uh my fitness coach swears by is that whenever you're going to a restaurant look up the menu online and decide before you get there what you're going to eat love it and I still don't do that but but I really should yeah or or like for example one rule that I have uh so for a while I I stopped drinking all together and then I I brought it back cuz it was I missed it frankly uh and so now I have a rule because we all know how unhealthy alcohol is for you but now I have a rule I say I only drink alcohol when I don't pay for it so if I'm going to a function if it's a corporate event okay fine you know if it's if I'm uh I don't know flying somewhere and they offer it okay great but I have these rules these hertica I'm going to do well one of my favorite rules that I've had since I started University was I never watch TV on my own nice it it has to be a social activity otherwise I'm not going to do it oh that's a great that has saved years of my life absolutely the last 10 years and probably I would argue probably made the TV watching you do do even more enjoyable doing with somebody like doing a Game of Thrones night inviting people over ordering pizza it's like yeah that's the one TV show that I watch in the in a 5year period you know that kind of thing isn't it amazing how we are so uh generous with our time like we give it to all these forms of media right we just throw it away whoever wants it takes it uh right whatever stupid things happening in the news some war that has nothing to do with us thousands of miles away so you know whatever drama or whatever is happening gossip at work and yet when it comes to our time we give it away but our money we're so cheap with right how much time do people spend how much effort people spend protecting their money we put it in vaults and we uh clip coupons and we split checks to save every penny but that's a renewable resource right you can always make more money you can always make more money you can't make more time and yet somehow we're we're very cheap with our time uh sorry we we're very generous with our time and cheap with our money and I think it should be the exact opposite we should be generous with our money and cheap with our time love that um do you ever get accused of like toxic productivity with all of these like rules and stuff what does that mean oh oh oh it's a it's like a I think it's like a gen Z thing um one thing you know I've often mentioned this like you know I have this rule that I don't watch TV on my own and people will say that's toxic productivity you're like being toxic in the way that you're telling people that they shouldn't be able to chill out and they shouldn't be able to relax and in fact and they should be working all the time yeah and I think it's a bit of a dumb kind of criticism like no it's not what I'm saying what I'm saying is that productivity is when you're using your time intentionally if you intend to watch the TV watch the damn TV if you intend to scroll Tik Tok scroll Tik Tok but just do what you intended to do that's right and by the way you're sharing what works for you it may not work for somebody else they don't have to adopt this technique but I think my goal is to help people do whatever they say they want to do right so if you want to play video games all day do it right you have that right who am I to judge how you spend your time but do it with intent it's about forethought if that's what you said you're going to do do it and do it without guilt right so one of the things I tell people to do is I want you to schedule time for social media if you find you're using too much social media that becomes a distraction right you're checking Tik Tok when you or Instagram when you didn't intend to it's because it's not in your calendar put it in your schedule I have time in my schedule to go on social media so I'm not using it whenever I'm looking to escape boredom or insecurity or fear uncertainty or loneliness I'm not using it as Escape for an internal trigger I'm doing it because it's a planned activity and there's nothing wrong with that I should enjoy so it's it's not about me telling people what to do it's about me helping people do the things that they themselves want to do but aren't doing love that yeah I've got uh solo evenings playing PlayStation scheduled into the calendar for Wednesday evenings beautiful so good and what's great about that I think very few people have actually experienced what true Leisure feels like because even when they're supposed to be having fun right this is why I hate to-do list I'm a I I hate to-do list because even when you are spending time with your kids or you know having a nice dinner or playing a video game you're thinking about all the things you still haven't left undone as opposed to a person who time boxes who says this is my time to do what I said I was going to do whether that's playing a video game or meditating or being with my kids or whatever that's exactly what I said I'm going to do and everything else becomes a distraction nice okay I feel like that segu us nicely into method number two so traction time boxing what is that sure okay so let's talk about uh let's start a little bit at beginning with what is distraction right so this is important to understand what does that word even mean um and and I and I I'm I mean I I think this it relates to productivity but I I don't know if it's exactly productivity because I'm trying to help people get the things out of their way right so much of of behavior changes about what you should do and I think maybe we should focus more on the things that get in our way from doing the things we know we should do so let's start with what is distraction so the best way to understand what distraction is is to understand what distraction is not what's the opposite of distraction so most people if you say what's the opposite of distraction they'll tell you it's Focus but that's not true the opposite of distraction is not focus if you look at the origin of the word the opposite of distraction is traction right it makes sense when you look at them next to each other traction and distraction they're opposites they both come from the same Latin root trahar which means to pull and they both end in the same six-letter word AC n that spells action reminding us that distraction is not something that happens to us it is an action that we ourselves take so traction by definition is any action that pulls you towards what you said you were going to do things that move you closer to your values help you the kind of person you want to become those are acts of traction distraction is any action that pulls you away from what you said you were going to do away from your values away from become becoming the kind of person you want to become so this is this is super important uh it's not just semantics because the difference between traction and distraction is one word and that one word is intent so as Dorothy Parker said the time you plan to waste is not wasted time so there's nothing wrong with scheduling time for video games that is traction if that's what you said you were going to do in advance conversely and more dangerously is when people don't even realize they're distracted so my workday routine used to look like this I would say okay I'm not going to procrastinate I've got that big project I have to finish nothing's going to get in my way here I go I'm going to get started but first let me check some email right let me just scroll that slack Channel real quick let me just do this uh easy task on my to-do list right that those are productive things I'm I'm doing work rated tasks I'm being productive right but if it's not what you said you were going to do in advance it's just as much of a distraction as you know plain Candy Crush or something so it is all about what you said you were going to do in advance that's traction and distraction so how do you put this into practice you cannot call something a distraction unless you know what it distracted you from so if you have big open whites space in your calendar what the hell did you get distracted from you can't tell me everything is a distraction unless you plan your time so unlike a to-do list which is just a register of things you want to have done when you time box and I didn't make up this technique it's been around for a long time it's called setting an implementation intention it's the most widely studied technique that far too too few people use it's basically saying here's what I'm going to do and when I'm going to do it now the difference is that the metric of success what I added in my book uh which is is unlike a to-do list which is about checking cute little boxes it's about finishing things that's a terrible metric because you don't control the output right you don't control the output how how long is something going to take take you when you're doing a YouTube video sometimes it takes you a few hours sometimes it can take you dozens of hours probably you don't always know what you do know is the input what's your input it's time and attention and so when you budget those things your time and attention the new metric isn't did I finish the new metric is did I do what I said I was going to do for as long as I said I would without distraction whether that's being with my family whether that's playing video games whether that's working on a big project did I do what I said I was going to do for as long as I said it without distraction because that is the only way to have a feedback loop so the reason that it takes people on average three times longer to finish a task than they predict is because they have no way of knowing how long things take so when you have a time box calendar you say okay I'm going to work on this task for 1 hour 30 minutes 15 minutes doesn't matter and I'm going to do nothing but now you have a feedback loop now you can say okay well I need to make this slide presentation and it's going to be 30 slides long and I did about three slides that means I need a total of 10 time boxes to to finish the entire presentation you can start being a better estimator of how long things take as opposed to someone who uses a to-do list say okay I'm going to I'm going to finish that task today here I go I'm going to get started for five minutes they work on it and they say oh you know what uh let me get a cup of coffee real quick and oh Janice is at the water cooler and oh you know what I need to do this other thing and wait what was I working on again so this is why time boxing eats to do list for breakfast it's a much much better technique because it allows you to understand For the First Time what is traction anything that's actually in your calendar and everything else is a distraction yeah man I completely agree um I discovered time boxing I think sometime into my first year of med school and immediately I realized oh okay this is just has unlocked so much more time for me because now I can time box when I'm supposed to be working on that ESS say based on the deadlines I can time box all of my social events I can time box lunch breaks I can time Box breakfast I was rowing for that first year so I could time box waking up at 4 freaking a.m. and going through a rowing session in the freezing cold but it it it helped me figure out what I wanted to do with my time but also where the free time was yes so I could be like oh got 3 hours tomorrow evening free I wonder what I want to do with that time oh there's this long list of clubs I've been thinking of joining let me go try Taekwondo for like an evening or something like that I became immediately way more intentional when I started running my life by my calendar and this is what people forget they think oh time boxing has to be just about the boring stuff just about the product of you know the the work and the you know the I have to be an automaton you can schedule fun right you I want you to schedule fun right if you like playing video games you want to hang out with your friends you whatever it is you like to do put that time in your schedule in fact uh in the book I talk about these three life domains of you you have to schedule time to take care of yourself if you can't take care of yourself you can't take care of other people can't make the world a better place you've got to schedule time for for rest for exercise whatever it is that's important to take care of yourself including video games including Netflix including all the stuff that you want to do for yourself to become the person you want to become but the second domain is your relationships that part of the reason we have a loneliness epidemic in the industrialized world is that we no longer have those pre-scheduled interactions with our friends with our community right but as Society became more secular many people don't go to church or the kianus club or those those interactions and this is why more and more people are lonely today and loneliness isn't just sad it's it's unhealthy we know that it's as dangerous statistically as smoking and obesity so we've got to schedule this time whether it's our significant others our family our friends that time has to be in our schedule to to connect with other people so that's the relationship domain and then finally the last life domain is the work domain so most people go throughout their day doing what's called reactive work reacting to Notifications reacting to emails reacting to Taps on the shoulder from their boss that's reactive work it's part of everyone's job we have to have that time the problem is that people get habituated to this reactive work why because you don't have to think you don't have to ask yourself what should I be doing I'll do whatever my email inbox tells me to do I'll do whatever you know the whatever the the local crisis that's what I'll do right I'll do whatever is easy that's what I'll do as opposed to when you do what's called reflective work as opposed to reactive work reflective work is the kind of work that can only be done without distraction so planning strategizing thinking for God's sakes can only be done without distraction so if you're not planning that time in your day if you're not keeping some time in your calendar for reflect reflective work I promise you you're going to run real fast in the wrong direction M nice yeah one uh one way I think about this is where I kind of think of tasks as falling uh into two categories either it is a focus task or it is a admin task and I like I have to categorize it when one of the two a focus task is like the goal for me is to just sit down focus on just one thing and just do it ideally for as long as I can without being distracted as long as it takes to get the thing done an admin task is uh where I where the goal is to just finish it as soon as possible because it's this random thing that has and so I will schedule when I have enough admin tasks that pile up I'll schedule a half an hour block that I call an admin party in my calendar to just sort of play a game with myself where the goal is to put put on some music maybe go to the local coffee shop and just bang up like all of these different admin tasks yeah and the way I think of it is that admin tasks it's sort of like if you're if you're a boat the random reactive [ __ ] you have to do is like water piling onto the boat and your admin is sort of like Ping it out it's not actually helping you move forward the focus task are helping you R the but forward going in a direction that you want but like you got to make some time to get rid of the admin because otherwise it's going to cause you to sink you haven't paid your taxes or haven't your bills or whatever so this actually what you've done is a fantastic demonstration of uh what Ian bogos calls making things fun now what's interesting about he he talks about play anything he has a wonderful book called play anything and what's so interesting about the about his technique is that he talks about how the conventional advice of of how do you do the things you don't want to do Ju Just to back up everything we're talking about now is about the things you don't want to do right people talk about flow as a solution to our productivity problems just get into flow well how do I get get into flow doing my taxes that's no fun right like you'll never get into flow with taxes flow is about you know chick semi High when he wrote flow it's about athletes playing basketball and Painters painting it's fun things it's the things you want to do the the part that people have trouble with are the things that are not fun to do so so how do you how do you get those things done so uh Ian bogus talks about how you can add fun to a task and that fun doesn't have to be enjoyable it's kind of counterintuitive you don't have to enjoy play why because play can be a tool to focus our attention long enough enough to help us complete the task so how do you do that how do you make something into play you do two things you add constraints which is exactly what you did you said okay I got a bunch of things I want to see how many I can do in this hour at this coffee shop without distraction right how many can I bang out that's a constraint right the time constraint and the other is to add add variability to look for the uh the the the uncertainty in that situation and kind of peel back the onion and find what's interesting about it so when I write the only thing that drives me is that Curiosity right what might I find what's the answer to this problem so if you can find what's interesting about that task you can learn to play it and again it doesn't have to be enjoyable it just has to hold your attention long enough to get the test done nice you talk about building a schedule around your values what do you mean by that so value what are values I Define values as attributes of the person you want to become so the way you do that is that you turn your values into time if you want to know what someone 's values are you don't look at what they say you don't what you do is you look at two things you look at their calendar and you look at their pocketbook right you look at how they spend their money and how they spend their time that's someone's values so what you want to do is to turn your values into Time by asking yourself how would the person I want to become spend their time and that's where those three life domains come in handy right how would the person you want to become spend their time taking care of themselves taking care of their relationships and taking care of their work and so what that's going to invariably do is it's going to force you to make tradeoffs because unlike a to-do list that has no constraints right you can always add more to a to-do list by the way I'm not against taking things out of your brain and putting on a piece of paper that's a great idea but most people end there so they've got a million things on their on their to-do list and they never accomplished half of them and then they get home from work every day and they say oh man I I was I was so busy today I did so much but look at all these things I still haven't done and so what does that do to your psyche if day after day week after week month after month year after year you have this list of things that you said you were going to do and you didn't do loser so you start this script in your head of oh I must not be good at time management or it's because I'm a Sagittarius or maybe I have some kind of disorder it's not that you're broken it's that this stupid time management technique doesn't work so what we have to do instead is to turn our values into Time by asking ourselves with the limited time we have how would the person I want to become spend their time so you're always going to have more things that you want to do in that day than you have time for and that forces you to make the trade-offs to say well well how bad do I want to watch sports on TV versus being with my kids how much do I want to spend an extra hour of work versus going to the gym you have to make those trade-offs but that's the only way to live a life without regret because if you don't do that if you don't decide how you going you're going to spend your time somebody's going to decide for you your boss your kids the media distract some distraction is going to take you off track unless you decide in advance what trade-offs you're going to make based on your values nice what apps do you use to help build this schedule or like the to-do list do you have like a special stack or what's what's your take on the apps yeah a very very special stack it's uh Google Calendar any calendar look the best and I get this question a lot like what's the secret app what's the secret solution the best solution is the one you use right this is what I call talking protein so you ever go to the gym and you see those two guys typically guys and they're in the corner uh they're not in particularly good shape and instead of exercise they're talking about bro should we use the way protein isolator we use the soy protein or you know they're arguing about details right what really matters is to do the exercise work out if you want to get in shape protein what kind of protein you use that's details so what kind of tool you use is not as as important right uh tactics are what we do strategies why we do it so it's much more important that you understand traction distraction internal trigger external triggers the indistractable model that picture if you can engrave that in your brain to understand hey if I'm not doing what I say I'm going to do why right which one of these four steps is missing did is there an internal trigger uh is it a planning problem is it that hacking back external triggers or is it uh having a Packa in place using those four tactics anyone can become indistractable nice um to what extent do you recommend uh I should have 24/7 time boxed uh yeah I think that's a great idea yeah I mean that's what I do I'm just wondering like I think it's a great idea I mean I I think it helps you enjoy every moment more yeah it's like I've got my wake up time time box my sleep time it's like walking walk at the park first thing in the morning do the podcast everything me too and and by the way it's it's you can absolutely change it you just can't change it in the day I think people sometimes resist making a time box counter say oh it's too rigid and what if I can't follow it that's fine because they they have this mentality that we have to be like drill sergeants but that's not the right mindset the right mindset is not being a drill sergeant it's being a scientist what's the job of a scientist a scientist makes a hypothesis runs an experiment and then looks at the results and then runs new experiments based on those results so what I what I've done I change my calendar constantly I just don't change it in the day so I can change tomorrow's schedule that's fine if I say oh I'm going to meet my friend Ali or I'm GNA do this task or that test that's fine there's no problem with that but once that calendar is set once I know what I I plan to do that's it now I have to leave it alone so that the the tools I use I use Google Calendar um uh that's you know but you can use a spreadsheet you can use a piece of paper whatever works for you to make make a time box calendar uh there's a schedule Planner on my site that that people ask this so much that I I created one that they can download um I'll tell you some other tools that I really like um for what what's called multi- Channel multitasking because there there's a myth that we can't multitask and that's not true we absolutely can multitask if we do it correctly that uh you know it's kind of productivity device don't try and multitask if you do it correctly you absolutely can how do you multitask you do what I call multi-channel multitasking so it is true that you can't multitask on the same input Channel you can't do two math problems at the same time you can't watch two uh television shows at the same time you can't listen to two podcasts at the same time it's impossible your brain will have to switch attention between the two but what you can do is you can mix the channels so for example uh when I'm in the gym the reward for going to the gym is that I get to listen to podcast or in my case I use an app called pocket that reads articles to me they have this wonderful text of speech service I'm not affili with them wonderful way to to to you know kill two birds with one stone I'm not reading articles online I have a very strict rule I never ever read articles on my desktop I only read them through this Pocket app and it reads it to me so that I can do something else healthy like taking a walk or exercise yeah so it's like doing a walking meeting yeah abely a phone call with Ang get my general manager while walking around the park and it's like multi- Channel multitasking um but if I was trying to have two meetings at once that's that's right that's right a bit tricky um what is schedule synchronization okay so this is a fantastic technique it's one of my favorite techniques a schedule sync solves this problem that I hear all the time which is okay I'm indistractable I read the book I'm doing the techniques I'm indistractable but my boss is not what do I do now right my boss is constantly pinging and digging me asking me for all kinds of stuff what do I do then how do I how do I let them know I need my time to do my work so this this process of of schedule syncing helps you with that and it helps you avoid the worst piece of personal productivity advice that we hear all the time it drives me crazy the worst piece of personal productivity advice is if you want to be more productive you have to learn how to say no how many times have we heard that that is the worst piece of productivity you're going to tell your boss the guy who pays your bills you're going to tell that person no you're going to get fired that's terrible advice you don't tell them no instead what you tell them is let's look at the schedule right let's you don't not in this way let me tell you how you do you sit down with them and you say look can I have 15 minutes with you Monday morning whenever time 15 minutes I want to show you something and what you do is you take you print out your time boox calendar part of the beauty of a time box calendar is that now you have a physical manifestation of how you spend your time you print that out you show them your time box calend okay boss here's how I'm going to spend my working hours here's this meeting you asked me to attend here's what I'm going to spend time doing email here's time when I'm going to work on that big project you asked me to do and then you say okay boss here's this other list of things you asked me to do okay okay here's all the things you ask me to do that I'm having trouble fitting into my schedule and now you're asking your boss to do their most important job your boss's most important job is to help you prioritize that is the most important job of a manager right so you're not saying no you're saying please help me prioritize what on this list is more important than what I currently scheduled and your boss will kiss the ground you walk 100% right yeah I'm just like right everybody fresh right we're all wondering what are you doing all day how are you spending your time and we don't want to ask you what your schedule is because we don't want you to think like we're we're micromanaging you so if you proactively do this if you manage up if you manage your manager by doing the schedule sync every time they're going to say you know what that meeting that's actually not that important but this task over here that's super important can we swap that out so by having that transparency by doing this weekly schedule sync it's it's incredible it solves so many problems by the way it also works really well in the home so U my wife and I have been married now for 23 years and we used to have these terrible fights uh a few years ago before I wrote indistractable around how I wasn't pulling my weight and by the way this is something statistically is very common this is going to be no surprise to any married woman but it turns out that women even in 2024 take on a disproportionate share of household responsibilities okay even in marriages where both people work outside the home that's still the case and that was certainly the case in my household I didn't realize I it but my wife would tell me hey you know near stuff's got to get done right you got you got to feed our daughter we got to take out the trash we got to we got to do all this stuff like you need to help out more to which I would say honey if you need me to do something just ask what's the problem if you need it you know don't get all upset right don't get emotional just tell me what you need and I didn't realize that what I was asking her to do was yet another job now she had to be my camp counselor right telling me to clean up so now what we do we never have these fights anymore this has been such a game changer for our marriage now every week Sunday nights 8:00 P.M it's in our calendar we have a schedule sync we sit down together she brings out her time box calendar I bring out my time box calendar takes us maybe 10 minutes and now we know okay who has to do what when okay my daughter needs to be taken here then and we need to make sure that dinner is made by this time 10 minutes now we're in sync and now exactly I I can live out my values of being in in Equitable marriage because we know where the responsibilities Li I know what I need to do she knows what she needs to do nice um what other productivity techniques have helped you in your marriage in my marriage per um so I I talk okay this is kind of personal but uh you asked so let's talk about our sex life why not um so we found a few years ago again been married for married for 23 years now and uh a few years ago we found that our sex life was really suffering and the reason it was suffering was not for a lack of of not loving each other or lack of intimacy it was that every night we were going to bed later and later and we were just exhausted and part of that was that every night I would go to bed and I was caressing my iPhone and she was fondling her iPad and we weren't being intimate yeah and so it wasn't until I started writing indistractable that I decided to take on this Challenge and one of the best things we did was that I went to the hardware store and I bought us this outlet timer and this outlet timer will turn on or off anything you plug into it at a set time of day or night so in my household till this very day every night at 10pm our internet router shuts off so uh we probably don't even need it anymore because we've been doing it for so long but what that means is that everybody knows no internet past 10 p.m. my daughter knows that my wife knows that I certainly know that so as opposed to uh checking email to the we hours or scrolling social media or watching YouTube videos or whatever hey got to wrap everything up because p.m. the internet's going to shut off and so that that that's called a an effort PCT now it's called an effort Packa because it takes a bit of effort it puts some friction in between you and the distraction now could I still get on the internet of course I could I could use my cell phone I could unplug the internet and then you know take out this timer and replug it in but that takes work that takes effort it it proposes this minute of mindfulness when I say wait a minute do I really need to stay online here or is it time to go to bed and maybe be intimate with my wife love that that's that's great um one of the things that people often say in response to the whole like time box everything is that but but doesn't that take the joy out of life doesn't it remove any uh spontaneity yeah well the beauty of it is I've heard this one before the beauty is that you can plan spontaneity that's literally what I do so uh every Saturday I have time with my daughter and we have this big swath of time we have three hour chunk of time where it's literally called Planned spontaneity why I don't know what we're going to do maybe we're going to go surfing maybe we're going to go get some ice cream maybe we're going to take a walk I don't know what we're going to do but I know what I will not be doing I will not be checking social media I will not be responding to work emails because that time has been a portion for someone I love very much and I want to be fully present so you can still be spontaneous right you can still plan that time but by booking that time you're blocking out all the things that you don't want to be doing nice all right good stuff let's talk about external triggers yeah so exter triggers all these ping dings and Rings they only account for about 10% of our distractions but there's all kinds of things we can do uh to prevent them and this is where it kind of gets nuts and bolsy so of course we can do stuff with our phone right I there's maybe one page in my book about how to make your phone indistractable it's not very hard you know you just need to use some of the settings that come pre-installed with everyone's phone uh to do that that's kind of the kindergarten stuff right because we all know that that those are external triggers uh so just simply following the rule the best rule is asking yourself for all those notifications which are serving you and which are you serving fun yeah if the notification is serving you for example if you get a notif there's nothing wrong with external triggers if an external trigger tells you hey it's time for that meeting it's time to go exercise it's time for that thing you said you were going to do that's in your calendar wonderful it's serving you but if it's an external trigger that uh you get this notification while I was with my daughter uh now it's not serving me I was serving the notification so having that rule is is is is a great step turns out 2/3 of people with a smartphone two3 of people with a smartphone never change their notification settings can we honestly say that that technology is addicting us it's hijacking our brains when we haven't taken five minutes to change the notification settings that's kindergarten stuff the more I think that the the the stuff that people don't think about are the external triggers uh that that we don't give enough attention for example uh meetings how many stupid meetings did we not need to attend that could have just been an email right why do we have to meet synchronously huge waste of time how many of those emails that we get in our inbox are a complete waste of time those can be external triggers that we need didn't need to receive or send turns out uh there was an article in the Harvard Business Review that found that 50% of the emails that the average white collar worker receives they didn't need to receive and 50% of the emails they sent they didn't need to send so email can be a huge source of distraction our kids we love our kids right family members are great but they can be a huge source of distraction so we have to go through and hack back each and every one of those external triggers and there's a a way to conquer each one of them how how do you hack back your kids like how do you think about that yeah so how do you hack back the external trigger caused by uh your kids so we love them to death they're fantastic we love our kids but they can be a distraction when you're trying to focus on a task and your kid needs you so what do you do first thing is to make sure you schedule your time appropriately I I talked to a lot of people who somehow think they can do it all at the same time right you can do it all you just can't do it at the same time so if your primary responsibility is to take care of the kids take care of the kids but if the primary responsibility is to work on something work on something so what do you do while you're working working on something don't don't try and do both so when my daughter was only 6 years old and my wife and I both work from home when my daughter was was 6 years old we sat down with her and we said uh look honey uh mommy and daddy need time in their day to do their work and uh so we we went to Amazon and we bought what we call in our household the concentration Crown the concentration Crown there's a picture of it in the book it's this little wreath that that my wife puts on her head and it has this little LED it lights up you can't miss it and what we told our daughter we said look when Mommy is wearing the concentration crown that means you can't interrupt her unless you're bleeding right if you're bleeding it's okay to interrupt but unless you're bleeding go figure something out and it will never be more than 30 minutes we promised her the time block will never be more than 30 minutes so what we're doing is interrupting the interruption right that frankly if you're on your computer your kid doesn't know what you're doing are you watching a YouTube video and you can be interrupted or are you doing a work call and you can't be interrupted right so by interrupting that Interruption we're giving them that that Grace to to give them a cue to not interrupt you right so if you have if you're lucky enough to have a a a door in your room that you in your house that you can close so I got a little U uh thing that I a little label that I put on the the hook for the door so that she knows okay I'm indistractable at the moment uh but my wife wears the indistractable crown the concentration crown and it's surprisingly effective not only with children but also with husbands that when I see her you know I used to inter when she's doing work it's really effective now when she wears a concentration Crown she says okay I can't be bothered we all know it's time to leave her alone yeah it's so it's interesting you say that because another way of thinking about that might be that like hey you know the kids's only going to be sixy six years old once there's nothing on my work that's more important than being distracted by the kid and this is in fact a welcome distraction I love for the kid to distract me how do you but I guess yeah how do you think about that versus balancing with I want to grind on this work task well for that time when you're with them absolutely be 100% % available if they want you be 100% available but and and that could be your entire day if that if your value system and if you have enough money in the bank to not have to work good for you you're in a very privileged Place most of us got to get some work done yeah right and so it's a reality that we need that time and space and so as opposed to say here's what happens people don't drop everything and play with their kids they yell at their kids right they say hone I working right now get out that's that's really unfair because they don't know they can't see so you have to make some kind of very clear cue by the way this is also very effective in the workplace so in every copy of my book there is a what's called a screen sign it's this piece of card stock you pull it out of the book you fold it into thirds and you put it on your computer monitor so everybody who walks by sees this big red sign that says I'm indistractable at the moment please come back later so by having that explicit message that says hey I need to work without distraction for a bit not all day you can't you know go in some cave like a monk and and not be of course some of your day is going to be spent doing that reflective reactive work as well but for that time when you're when you need to work without distraction particularly if you're working an open floor plan office incredibly distracting incredibly hard to get work done you need some kind of external cue and frankly putting on headphones nobody knows what you're doing when you're wearing headphones are you're listening to music can you be interrupted can you not no we need to make it so socially acceptable and and increasingly it has been since I published the book having that screen sign that says I can't be distracted right now is very effective nice what is Temptation bundling so Temptation bundling is when we take uh a reward from one area of our life and we use it to incentivize us to do something in another area of our life so this was uh work done by Kitty Milkman and uh it's what I use when I do this multi- channel multitasking so listening to a podcast episode while I'm exercising right uh in my case it's oftentimes it's articles that I I have a hard rule I never read an article on my computer I only listen to an article when I'm doing something healthy so that would be tempt a bundling nice yeah I really like that um back when I didn't have a personal trainer I would listen to fiction AUD books at the gym I would find that for me I would get so engrossed in the audiobook I would half ass the workout like how how how do you not half ass the workout if you're like a great point I find uh so short form articles yeah you can only get so engrossed because they're Max what five minutes so uh even if I miss something I don't miss that much because it's only one article worth so worst case I'll just listen to the article again nice good idea um let's talk about the three different types of packs packs okay so we have price packs effort packs and identity packs so price packs is when there's some kind of monetary disincentive for going off track so if you're making a bet with someone and saying okay uh I'm going to finish my book and if I don't finish my book I'm going to pay you a certain amount of money uh the burner burn pack I made with myself that I'm going to burn that $100 bill unless I decide to to do some form of exercise that would be an an example of a price pact an effort pact is when there's some bit of effort some friction in between you and the raction so some kind of effort something that that is is is uh makes you pause and reflect on whether that task is something you really want to go off track or whether you want to like unplugging the PlayStation or something like that well the the the timer for example right unplugging the the the outlet timer and then an identity pacta is actually the the most powerful of the three an identity pact is when you give yourself some kind of moniker and this came out of some amazing work done by nson and all and uh he found that the most effective uh way to increase voting uh you know in an election was this very simple technique whereby he called participants in the study and he changed one variable he asked them are you a voter or are you planning to vote it's the only difference noun versus verb form and he found that people who were asked are you a voter were much more likely to vote he actually went later and looked at the voter roles to see how they voted well if they voted you didn't know how they voted but whether they voted or not and by simply asking are you a voter they were much more likely to go ahead and head to the polls so using that technique to our advantage by actually having a moniker by having an identity this is why the book is called indestructible indestructible is meant to sound like indestructible it's who you are so when you have that this this identity makes you much more likely to follow through this comes from the psychology of religion in fact that when someone calls themselves a member of a particular Faith they're much more likely to to act in accordance that's very good um this is going to be a a very first world problem but I've been thinking a lot about like what do I call myself on my Instagram buyer do I go like Dr turned YouTuber do I go doct turned entrepreneur plus YouTuber do I put writer in there somewhere and like two like two days ago I was thinking huh you know I want to make start I I want to make a start on my next book cuz I feel like that would be kind of fun you know what let me just add writer into my Instagram bio and on my kind of website sort of thing be like hey I'm I'm a doct turn YouTuber entrepreneur and writer it's like ah now I feel like I can really embody the identity of writer and what does a writer do well a writer writes and now it's like I've almost given my I've given myself permission that like oh this is the thing I'm going to do with some hours of the day yeah and it's it's weird how adding that as an Instagram Instagram bio thing has actually made me feel a lot better about like oh I can do my writing absolutely and and we we see people using it uh in a way that serves them many times in a way that hurts them so when someone says uh that I'm a Sagittarius and a Sagittarius has certain things that I'm bad at or I'm good at you act in accordance with that right or if you think you have some kind of diagnosis and that's incurable and you know there's all kinds of things that we label ourselves that many times are not pro are not actually helpful so if you say oh you hear this all the time I'm bad at time management or I have a short attention span well yeah again if you label yourself as that it'll be true versus someone who says I'm indistractable it's who I am right and and is it that different from someone who says I'm a vegetarian is it so different not really right you go to lunch with someone who's a vegetarian they order what they order you order what you order it's who they are it's part of their identity the fact that you know I am a vegetarian means that that person isn't contemplating oh should I have a bacon sandwich for breakfast no it's who they are and so they act in accordance with that and so it should be the same when it comes to being indistractable you know what I'm I'm sorry I don't respond to Notifications every 30 seconds cuz I'm indistractable or you know what if we're going to have lunch together let's be both present in body and mind let's put our phones away I because I'm indistractable that's really cool I remember a few a few years ago um there was a friend of mine who who who asked something we were talking about like learning languages or something and I just sort of threw out the phrase oh I'm not very good at languages and then I was like hold the [ __ ] up who says who how did how did that thought come into my and I was like oh it's because when I was in like year eight I got like when the the groups were set in terms of ability I was like in the middle group and I was in the top group for everything else but I was in the middle group for French and I realized like 15 years later that that had come back to give me this narrative that I'm bad at languages I was like no I'm I'm not going to accept that of course I'm not but like if I wanted to learn language I'd learn a freaking language of course and and it's true you may not have been very good but that doesn't mean you can't practice any better yeah right and so it's the same when it comes to our focus and attention and unfortunately I think a a lot of people almost want the label right want to think that we're somehow deficient in some way because then we don't have to try anymore I'm no good at languages so then I I don't have to learn right I can bow out of it uh which is fine if that's if that's your value system but if there's something that you know you are capable of and you have this self-limiting belief that's keeping you from accomplishing that goal that's sad it's it's a disaster of your human potential we have a bunch of students in our YouTuber academy uh often beginners often slightly older I.E in their 40s but slightly older who will say oh I'm very bad at 10 Tech M and that is just a sure fire sign that we need to work on some like emotional issues here because like they're telling themselves they're bad at Tech and then they need the handholding from our team about like the cameras and the settings and then they're they have this narrative that they're bad at Tech and like you can't do anything on YouTube if you have the self-professed belief that you are bad at Tech right um and so that's a big part of what we're trying to work on we're doing like accountability calls like no Johnny like I don't think you're b a tech like you know you managed to figure out how to do your job you man to figure out how to drive you can figure out how to operate a camera here's some tutorial you know that kind of thing yeah absolutely absolutely and it's it's again it's through practice just like any other skill we somehow think that uh we're supposed to miraculously have these skills embedded we're supposed to know how to deal with these internal triggers I never took a class on how to deal with my emotions no we never sat down and said okay how do you react to uncomfortable emotional Sensations it's a learned skill it's a learned behavior what do you f on ADHD over diagnosis and stuff yeah uh so this is pretty contr veral um and not very popular but I think it's way way over diagnosed I mean just the fact that you know there's apps on here that I that I could um download and basically get a diagnosis in less than 30 minutes tells you something and everybody gets a diagnosis if you know what to say you're you're going to get that diagnosis and uh it's not that I don't think ADHD is real ADHD is absolutely real there are particularly children who do suffer from it I think it's way overdiagnosed how can it be the case that 1% of European children have ADHD and 10% of American children something's going on here um and part of it is that uh it's very it's a very convenient diagnosis right if Little Johnny can't sit still and uh he's six years old I don't think little boys were meant to sit still for very long at six years old and and in our generation we were just rambunctious right and we accepted it and we grew out of it today it's just very inconvenient for teachers and parents to to find other means and so what do you do you medicate and I think not only is that very dangerous from potential side effects uh it's also it it it it casts a die of saying that to solve my problems uh a pill is a solution and I think that that's potentially uh very dangerous so it's not that I'm against meditation medication it's not that I'm against ADHD I think though we always need to try skills before pills that pills should be what we do after we've tried the non-pharmaceutical interventions right simple things like learning to deal with uncomfortable emot States planning our day removing external triggers this is not rocket science right we can all do this and then if that stuff doesn't work okay now let's look at some perhaps pharmaceutical interventions particularly when I think it comes to adults I mean there's a lot of controversy around adult ADHD that it turns out that uh uh particularly when it comes to uh thinking that it's incurable that it's a state you'll have for the rest of your life well look if I can fix the symptoms haven't I cured the disease right if you're no longer you're a doctor right like if you're not exhibiting any symptoms uh it's at least in remission you could say right and so wouldn't we want to try that wouldn't we first want to say like look let's use these these techniques and I I many ADHD coaches now use my book IND distractable in their coaching practice the book wasn't written for people with ADHD but it's been very helpful to those folks as well and if they are able to reduce their medication stop their medication altogether and their symptoms uh are alleviated well it can be I think a curable disease yeah this is something I really want to look into cuz I I've every single psychiatrist I've ever spoken to and and ask this question too says oh yeah way overblown in terms of overdiagnosis I like that's interesting but the public hates hearing that that's they never want to say it like on the record you you get I'm sure if you if you post this you will get I'm not sure it's even worth posting because you're going to get so much hate because it's not a diagnosis it's an identity it's an identity people think that having ADHD is like being a particular race uh that it's it's your you're born within that's what I am and I don't for I don't know if that's true I'm not going to claim to know if that's true but even if it is true why would you believe that's an inhibiting Factor Why would you why would you succumb to that because what happens is when you think oh uh I I I can't focus it's because of my ADHD you're focusing on the ADHD rather than getting back on the task so it's like you know this idea of a senior moment you someone loses your their keys and they think oh my gosh it's a senior moment well it's because you're thinking about the senior moment that you're not finding your keys so you're taking up that cognitive bandwidth to actually pay attention to the thing you you should think through uh so it's just not a helpful for most people uh I think it oftentimes hurts rather than helps not not that we shouldn't try and uh you know if if it is a problem if it is something that that is is a challenge the worst thing you can do is to say oh I probably have undiagnosed ADHD at least go get a diagnosis to know one way or the other rather than you know caring around that this belief that really may not even be true nice um final thing I wanted to ask you about it's a bit more of a sort of selfish question um how do you make time for writing amidst the other things that you want to do with your life yeah is is something that I'm currently struggling with with like business commitments and all this stuff it's like the videos and the podcast and the business stuff and it's like carving out time for writing which always feels like it is it's it's never urgent cuz it's like I don't need to write another book like ever but like I kind of want to it's like one of those project that's like I don't know important but not urgent in the slightest any any tips so I think there's different seasons to writing a book um and I think the best so I have a friend in Hollywood uh who I went to college with who's been in Hollywood Forever and he uh he he never made his big break he's never gotten any you know super famous roles um and I I I asked him you know I told him I was like you know you've been doing this for like 20 years now like at at what point do you find a different profession and he says the only reason you become an actor is because you can't do anything else and I think that applies to book writing for most authors it's not going to be profitable right it's not a good idea if you think you're going to make lots of money being an author uh the same with a startup right if you think you're going to get rich on your startup you're just bad at math right you have to do these things because you want the thing to exist you want to birth this so if you're going to start a company do it because you want a certain product to exist in the world you want to use that product if you're going to write a book it's because you want the answer to this question that's burning don't write a book because of what you know write a book because of what you want to know that's what that's why I write I mean personally that that's my experience I always write books because of what I want to know I never have the answer in advance it's a journey and sometimes I don't write the book because I find uh the answers not that interesting but if I do publish a book it's because I have this this brain desire so in that early stage only do it because you have to right because it keeps gnawing at you to get the answer to this question um so with indistractable you know I wrote I I I read everybody else's book on the topic and it still didn't solve my problem right saying well get rid of your technology stop using email it was not really practical it didn't work for me so I I needed to to really start with with uh uh Bare Bones on what is distraction and dive into the psychology of the problem to really fix it for myself um then at some point after you have tons and tons tons of information tons of research at least again this is all autobiographical your mileage might vary I had so much information so many anecdotes so much research so many things then the stage uh I think is the most fun where you're starting to connect dots right you see this constellation of stars and now you're trying to figure out are there any patterns here so that's why both my books there's always a central picture yeah it's really nice well that that to me is actually that must been very satisfying it's very satisfy it's also the hardest part like I spend more time on that picture the writing cuz that's actually the hard part CU that's when you have to figure out what goes in and what goes out cuz it's really easy to write a book full of anecdotes right you can fill out you can in a week uh write a bunch of anecdotes around successful people and you know cockamamy uh case studies and okay you got a book but to to imprint an image in someone's mind says when I have this problem here's the picture here attraction distraction internal external that's to me that's what's valuable when I read a book um so that's what I wanted to give my readers so that's that's the second stage and then the third stage is the cranking stage where okay now you you understand the outline you understand the the major uh uh points of the book you understand the big picture message that you want to get across that's where I find uh monk mode is quite helpful U monk mode is not helpful in stage one or two it's really helpful in stage three where you go away for you know full days at a time sometimes like uh wasn't it Tony Morris uh uh uh who was who the author who would like lock herself at a hotel Maya Angel May angelio that's right May Angel would do that that's that final stage right I think in the beginning stage I think it's very hard uh to force yourself uh I mean you could do it for you know that in those stages I would do in stage one it's more time boxing the research time right I need to read these studies I need to you know finish that book and take notes on it um uh that's more where you can time box but then when you when you just got a crank to me I I like having the big chunks of time okay so this is very reassuring cuz I've been I'm in stage one and I'm still not sure what book two will be but this like two or three ideas that I'm sort of intrigued by and when I am procrastinating I'll research them and occasionally just Tinker away on a notes file and over time they're just sort of slowly getting clashed out and I guess I've been thinking oh I don't have my time booked for writing but actually at this stage I don't really need it I'm just sort of exploring and assembling things together and maybe something will come of it but I'm in no rush in some ways the writing uh I think writing prematurely can be really demoralizing because if you start writing before you understand the big picture you're probably going to trash that right I can't tell you how many words I've tossed out probably 10 times as many words that have been tossed out versus what's been published because I thought it was going to go one way and then it was a dead end didn't work at all whereas if I had just collected tons of research tried to make a picture out of it tried to make something that that is is novel and is helpful then write about it that would be I think order than I wish I would have told myself that two books D same I wish wish have this four years AG um final thing is so I've just turned 30 thank you and you very kindly gave me uh one piece of Life advice which is going to feature in a video very soon uh any other tips any any other advice you would give uh a 30-year-old dude who is kind of doing a similar ish career than as you are and seem we have seem to have similar is values I mean I I feel like I need to take advice from you I I don't need to ask you that question um I think something that served me as an author uh and it's it's a real privilege to be an author right I think I think it's such a great job right we get paid to learn um so one thing that's always uh I've tried to follow is is follow my curiosity that whenever I don't do that whenever I worry too much about uh is this book going to sell and what are people going to think and uh I don't know like all the other stuff that all the insecurities that come from writing whereas if I just remind myself I I want to know the answer follow the Curiosity and the second thing I think a lot of people get impostor syndrome when they write thinking well who am I to say this thing um and I I I I um I took a class in college on Jazz and because this this teacher Dwight Andrews was just legendary teacher and I never like never paid attention to Jazz before what I really loved about jazz is that it's the mixing of these various genres right it's it's uh European instruments with African syncopation right it's like all this this mishmash this purely American uh amalgamation and I remember thinking much later on how how what a wonderful metaphor that is for overcoming impostor syndrome that yes the topic you're writing about may have been written about before but nobody's written about it in your way with your background with your experience you're making Jazz right you're taking maybe some stuff that's already been out there but in variably when it's mixed with your story and your perspective it has to be novel and so that helps me always when I'm like well who am I to say this so well it's it's going to be different it's going to be nice it's not going to be the same that's cool thank you and finally uh any fiction book recommendations fiction recommendations H or books TV shows movies I'm trying to I'm trying to more intentionally use some of my time for like down time and I'm like o like what recommendations can I get from friends for like interesting media well non non-fiction book that I always recommend that I think deserved more attention is uh Rory southerland's book Alchemy oh I started reading that great book I had him on the Pod a few years ago so I sort of skimmed through it to to do the research but should read it properly it's a great book I really like that book if you're interested in marketing and uh uh yeah he fantastic book trying to think what some favorite fiction books um oh what was that book I just finished that Derrick Thompson actually recommended in New York I just finished it Wellness it was a pretty good book it was okay I I don't know if it was a great book it's pretty good that was the last fiction book I read oh perfect nice great yeah sorry maybe that wasn't a great recommendation I don't read that much fiction I most read non-fiction breathe was really good you read breathe uh by James estor I think so yeah yeah yeah that was that was that was that was scary I've started taping my mouth since does it work uh yeah I think like my whoop sleep scores seem marginally higher when I do really uh I mean I don't have enough date cuz it when I take my mouth I'm also going to bed at a decent hour putting the phone away taking the freaking magnesium supplement cuz I'm like take care my sleep so I haven't isolated the variables particularly yeah but you try and do it every night to tape your mouth yeah did you snore before uh yes but also I would Breathe a lot through my mouth and so I'd wake up in the middle of the night with a very dry mouth and then I'd be I'd wake up and be like okay well I might as well use the bathroom now and it would just sort of interrupt as sleep so yeah for me it's been it's just been more about it's a thing that stops me from waking up at night with a dry mouth which is kind of nice that um there's a there's a actually insomnia was something that I I helped uh that the research I did for indistractable helped me overcome I used to have like get up in the middle of the night and have a really tough time falling asleep and it kind of brings up a point you brought up earlier of uh what do you do when you say you're going to do something and then doesn't go doesn't go the way you want so if I say I'm going to sleep I timebox sleep but I'm not sleeping what do I do and um I started repeating this Mantra that uh at night that the body gets what the body needs the body get gets what the body needs that I should I should with a postulate if you let it uh so because because it turns out the number one cause of insomnia is worry about having insomnia Y and so this you I would enter this rumination Loop of oh you know if I don't get to sleep soon then tomorrow's going to be wrecked and I gota go why am I not sleeping I'm not sleeping I would stay for hours as opposed to now whenever I can't sleep I say to myself the body gets what the body needs if you let it so as long as I went to bed on time and then repeated this Mantra whenever I would wake up turns out my body would relax I chill out and I fall back asleep fantastic yeah thank you so much my pleasure yeah thank you all right so that's it for this week's episode of Deep dive thank you so much for watching or listening all the links and resources that we mentioned in the podcast are going to be linked down in the video description or in the show notes depending on where you're watching or listening to this if you're listening to this on a podcast platform then do please leave us a review on the iTunes Store it really helps other people discover the podcast or if you're watching this in full HD or 4k on YouTube then you can leave a comment down below and ask any questions or any insights or any thoughts about the episode that would be awesome and if you enjoyed this episode you might like to check out this episode here as well which links in with some of the stuff that we talked about in the episode so thanks for watching uh do hit the Subscribe button if you aren't already and I'll see you next time bye-bye

Get the Black Friday offer for our Part-Time YouTuber Academy: https://go.lifestylebusiness.com/bf25-poddesc Subscribe to LifeNotes 👉 https://go.aliabdaal.com/lifenotes_deepdive Sponsored by YNAB - visit http://www.ynab.com/abdaal I’ve built a brand new community for like-minded people called Productivity Lab. We’ll have online classes, workshops, and coaching to help you double your productivity. You can find out more here 👉 www.productivitylab.com?utm_source=deep_dive&utm_medium=description&&utm_campaign=Nir_Eyal If you want to start or grow a channel, check out my Part-Time YouTuber Academy here 👉 https://www.ptya.com/part-time-youtuber-academy?utm_source=deep_dive&utm_medium=description&&utm_campaign=Nir_Eyal 📚 Check Out My New York Times Bestselling Book Feel-Good Productivity! 👉 https://go.feelgoodproductivity.com/ podcast 📧 Sign up for LifeNotes - my weekly newsletter where I share actionable productivity tips, practical life advice, and high-quality insights from across the web directly to your inbox. 👉 https://go.aliabdaal.com/lifenotes/podcast In today’s episode, I sit down with Nir Eyal to explore the nature of distraction and the journey to becoming "indistractable". We dive into understanding internal triggers, mastering them through practical techniques, and using commitment pacts to stay focused. Nir introduces concepts like the distraction notebook, the difference between traction and distraction, and how to align actions with personal goals. We also discuss managing external triggers, minimising tech and family distractions, and the idea of temptation bundling to combine rewards with tasks. Finally, we touch on the overdiagnosis of ADHD and the importance of following your curiosity. Enjoy 🙂 00:00 Understanding Distraction and the Human Condition 02:48 The Journey to Becoming Indistractable 06:06 The Role of Internal Triggers in Distraction 08:55 Mastering Internal Triggers: Techniques and Strategies 12:11 The Power of Commitment Pacts 15:04 Challenging the Concept of Willpower 17:51 The Distraction Notebook: Tracking Your Triggers 30:21 Understanding Distractions and Taking Action 36:58 The Concept of Traction vs. Distraction 47:39 Aligning Your Schedule with Your Values 53:48 Managing External Triggers and Productivity 01:00:33 Managing External Triggers 01:02:56 Hacking Distractions from Family 01:06:39 Understanding Temptation Bundling 01:08:35 The Power of Identity Packs 01:12:56 Overdiagnosis of ADHD 01:18:06 Finding Time for Writing 01:24:03 Embracing Curiosity in Writing 🔗 CONNECT WITH NIR 🎥 YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/user/nirandfar 🐦 X ( Twitter ) - https://x.com/nireyal 💻 Website - https://www.nirandfar.com/ 👥 Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nireyal/ 🔗 CONNECT WITH ALI 🎥 YouTube Channel - https://youtube.com/@UCoOae5nYA7VqaXzerajD0lg 🐦 X ( Twitter ) - https://twitter.com/aliabdaal 📸 Instagram - https://instagram.com/aliabdaal 💻 Website - https://aliabdaal.com/ 👥 Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-abdaal/ 📄SHOW NOTES & TRANSCRIPT Visit the website for the transcript and highlights from the conversation - https://aliabdaal.com/podcast/ 🎙️ ABOUT THE PODCAST Deep Dive is the podcast that delves into the minds of entrepreneurs, creators and other inspiring people to uncover the philosophies, strategies and tools that help us live happier, healthier and more productive lives.Want to start your own podcast? We use Transistor! https://go.aliabdaal.com/transistor 🎧 LISTEN FOR FREE Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/deep-dive-with-ali-abdaal/id1587142091 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7gZkflCpck1rTixj8M7yHt RSS: https://feeds.transistor.fm/deep-div 🙏 LEAVE A REVIEW If you enjoyed listening to the podcast, we’d love for you to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts to help others discover the show :) https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/deep-dive-with-ali-abdaal/ 👋 GET IN TOUCH You can also Tweet @aliabdaal with any feedback, ideas or thoughts about the lessons you’ve learnt from the episodes and we can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 PS: Some of the links in this description are affiliate links that I get a kickback from 😜