TBU#41: How to Become Indistractable

TBU Episode 41 [00:00:00] Rowena: Hello friends, you're listening to Two Booked Up, the podcast where we give you our top takeaways from the business and personal development books we're reading. I'm Rowena Mabbott, joined as always by my bookish biz bestie, Shelley Tonkin Smith. Hi Shelley, how are you going? [00:00:20] Shelley: Hi Rowena, I am doing well. And right now I am indistractable. That's the name of the book we're featuring today. It's called Indistractable by Nia Eyal. And we've picked this book because friends, we know you have the best of intentions. You've got goals and aspirations. You might've even chosen a guiding word like we have. You can listen back to episode 38 for that, um, but more than anything, I'm willing to bet that you've got a to do list that's very long and very ambitious, but then you get distracted. And I'm just guessing here, of course, I know nothing about these things. [00:01:02] Rowena: Uh huh. Right. Yes, So let's be honest. We all have lots of plans and then life happens. And sure, there are the crises and the bigger unexpected events that life throws at us, but then there are the little distractions that seem little, at least initially, but they can completely derail a day, or at least that block of an hour or two that you'd set aside for some deep work that was really important to you. [00:01:29] Shelley: I hate when that happens, especially when it's at a time when my kids are taken care of and I realise, oh shucks, I just checked my email, replied to a few WhatsApps and wrote a LinkedIn post and now three hours have just gone. [00:01:44] Rowena: Oh, yes, I hear you. So now the subtitle of the book is How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. So let's dive into our top takeaways and aha moments to see just how you can do that. Control your attention and intentionally choose the life you want to live. [00:02:01] Shelley: Welcome to Two Booked Up, I'm Shelley Tonkin Smith. [00:02:09] Rowena: And I'm Rowena Mabbott. We're two well- read best friends. [00:02:14] Shelley: And now, you are an honorary member of our book club. We're going to fast forward you to the "mind blown" and "mic drop" parts of those business and personal development books that are probably on your must read list. [00:02:28] Rowena: Because, as busy, multi passionate working parents, we know how hard it is to find time to read, but we also know how much you love learning, growing and making a difference in the world. [00:02:40] Shelley: So treat yourself to a bit of bookish conversation, whether you've read the book or not. [00:02:46] Rowena: With your two friends on Two Booked Up. [00:02:48] Shelley: Okay, so right out of the gates, from this book Indistractable by Nir Eyal, I was presented with an aha moment, uh, when he asked the question, what does it actually mean to be indistractable? And he says, all right, well, what's the opposite of distraction? And if I had to pose that to you listeners, I reckon you'd probably say the opposite of distraction is focus. But if you had to come along to one of my son's reading classes, you would learn that if you remove the suffix dis from distraction, you're left with the root word traction, and really Nir Eyal is talking about the opposite of distraction being traction. Traction is something that moves you toward what you really want, while distraction moves you further away. So being indistractable means striving to do what you say you will do. In the pathway towards a goal that you said you wanted to achieve. [00:04:03] Rowena: Hmm, right, so, for me, I hear that and I think of reliability when you describe it like that. That's doing what you say you'll do. But I guess here the difference is that reliability often is how we are with others. Like when we commit to do something for someone else. But indistractibility feels like it's personal, striving to do what we say we will do for ourselves. Which if we reference the four tendencies, that can be hard for a lot of people. Obligers for sure, and rebels too. [00:04:35] Shelley: Yeah, I agree with that. I think that's a nice distinction to make, Ro, of the difference between reliability. And I think indistractability is really a very personal thing as we're gonna come to come to realize here in the episode. [00:04:49] Rowena: Yeah, so I think that personal element comes out in the structure of the book. So there are essentially four steps to becoming indistractable. The first one, master internal triggers. So again, that's that real personal focus. Number two, make time for traction. Number three, hack back external triggers. And number four, prevent distraction with pacts, pacts spelled P A C T S. Then, after that, the next parts of the book go into specific applications. So, he talks about the Indistractable Office, Indistractable Kids, Indistractable Relationships, and that includes Friendships and Partnerships. So, there's a lot of stuff in what's actually a relatively short book. So, all of that, Shelley, which part of the book for you was a highlight or key takeaway? [00:05:42] Shelley: Well, you mentioned that part about indistractable kids. That for me was an interesting one. I really enjoyed that section, that application of taking what you've learned and applying it to helping raise kids who are indistractable in this new world of ours. Uh, but I think my big takeaway came right at the beginning with step one, and that is to master Your internal triggers. And often when we talk about distractions, we blame all the external triggers. Um, what Nir Eyal calls the pings, dings, and rings. So the, the pings from our phones and our desktop notifications, and even other people come in and distracting us and disturbing us. But for me, This was an aha moment, that distraction actually first comes from within me, the kind of blame, if you can say, and we're not blaming anyone here, but I think the first port of call to go and look at is inside your own head. That's the first step to take. It's, it's on me and rather than the external distractions. [00:06:47] Rowena: I think he says somewhere that time management is pain management and that the human brain is in a constant state of discontent. And I'm like, that seems pretty bleak. I don't like that particular approach. That doesn't align with my Pollyanna view of the world, but he then goes on to say. Like the weird bit is that he goes, that's okay. We're wired to be unhappy. And in fact, it's one of those adaptive mechanisms we've developed to keep us striving for more and better. Um, but yes, I think maybe we need an example here, Shelley, because it's a bit of a complex idea so perhaps can I put you on the spot and ask you to share how an internal trigger shows up for you? [00:07:28] Shelley: Yeah, sure. I'll definitely share an example because since reading this book, I've become so much more aware of this. So for an example, I'll take you back to last week. So currently I'm leading a read along of this book Profit First by Mike Michalowicz and I'm doing a weekly meet up and I need to prepare slides for a presentation that I'm going to be doing on that book. Now, last week, it was after a very busy day. I'd had my kids at a place called Bounce, which is that trampolining thing, and they'd been jumping around. I was sitting there listening to all the very loud music, which really, like, exhausts me. But we got home sort of, like, late afternoon. I'm tired. But I've got a bit of time before I have to make supper and everything. So I get into it and I work for about 20 minutes and so I've done well, but then I think, Oh, I better send my friend those photos of the kids at Bounce. And without thinking, I hop onto my phone, onto WhatsApp, and I then type my friend a message. Thanks for having us at Bounce. And I choose the photos from all the different photos that I've got. So that like takes me like at least five minutes, right? And then, Ooh, I see like, Oh, there's a few badges on WhatsApp, you know, the little like pop up, the red number. Oh, so I've got these unread messages and I've been pretty good because I've put a lot of my WhatsApp groups on to mute, but it's now at this point because now I've gotten distracted and then that distraction and now it's leading to more distraction. So I say, oh, I haven't read these messages. Let me read them. Of course now. And so then I saw there's two voice messages, listen to those and people are very, um, long winded I find sometimes on voice messages. So that was about six minutes. And I watch a video from one of the homeschooling groups. Um, it's something that's very important in the big scheme of things, but it also didn't have to happen right there and then, because I committed to doing that presentation, right? And all of a sudden, my husband comes downstairs and he's ready to start supper. And I realized then that I've become distracted from the task that I said I was going to do. And that I had decided was important and I've wasted at least 20 minutes, maybe even 30 minutes. And yeah, it's at that point I'm going, ah, I had this time to do something important and I got distracted. Like, you know, At that point I can go, oh, I could blame WhatsApp or I could get cross with myself. But Nir says to consider that distraction just with a bit of curiosity and compassion, rather than this, I've screwed up kind of mentality. Yeah, so at that point I had to ask myself, alright, why did I get distracted in the first place? And it would be easy to go, ooh, it was WhatsApp's fault. But in this case, WhatsApp didn't even ping. I went, ooh, I must go to WhatsApp. So it wasn't WhatsApp's fault. It wasn't my friend's fault for texting me. And even if she did text me, um, I could have ignored it for two minutes. That time and come back to it, um, but I was tired and I was doing a task that was mentally challenging. I had to think, I had to go and check the book, I had to design slides in Canva, um, I had to think about the audience I was presenting to. So the task was starting to get a little bit hard, right? Um, And then particularly in my tired state, I'd had a long and like sensorily busy day. And so I gravitated towards something easy. I got distracted. That was my internal trigger. So that's the root cause of the distraction. I was doing something hard. And it was feeling uncomfortable and Nir talks about this idea of discomfort that we feel, that's the root of our distraction. And really I could have gone into my email inbox, I could have opened another tab on my browser, I could have opened social media, all of those are excellent candidates for the distraction to land. Those are the distractions, but they're not the root cause. The root cause in this case was I was tired, my work felt hard, that didn't feel good, and I felt uncomfortable. So name that, you know, and I would encourage listeners, if you are finding yourself getting distracted, Just stop and then think about what was happening and what were you feeling inside of you before that distraction happened? Like, was the task too difficult? Um, was it unclear? Were you tired, trying to do a difficult task? Was it unrealistic timing? Like for me, that also was a case. Were you also feeling a bit of FOMO? I often find that's when we get distracted like, Ooh, I need to check this. I have to do this now. FOMO. Um, also was the task boring? And then you're like, Oh, I don't feel like this now. I want the more interesting distraction. So there's many reasons and feelings that can come up, but it all comes down to this feeling of discomfort in the task that you're busy doing. Now, Ro, there's my example. Now, I've come to think of you as quite a focused and indistractable person. But I'd like to know, do you relate to those internal triggers? [00:12:53] Rowena: Ah, well, yes, I am very familiar with internal triggers. I think I've probably got, a lot better at managing them over, last few years, but every time I had a big project to work on or like a big uni assignment, my sock draw would get exceptionally well organized. I don't know why it was always my sock draw. I think it was because it was quite satisfying and I could make it all pretty quite quickly. But yes, definitely internal triggers around distraction. But I do just want to also add something here, distraction is a little different from procrastination because tidying up my sock drawer could be perceived as procrastination if I should have been studying, right? But the studying was hard and so I chose to do something else. Is that procrastination or is it distraction? So distraction is a thing that prevents you from concentrating on something else, which is what Shelley's talked about. Whereas procrastination is what your distraction causes. So the procrastination is the action of delaying or postponing something. So the distraction happens first. And then what you've done as a result of your distraction is you've procrastinated. [00:14:02] Shelley: And push the important thing into the future? [00:14:05] Rowena: Correct. So that's the postponing. By being distracted, you have effectively procrastinated on your task. So it's kind of, one has to happen before the other, [00:14:15] Shelley: Yeah. And we've, we've chatted procrastination. [00:14:18] Rowena: Yes. Yep. In episode 26. So if you want to learn a bit more about procrastination, go back and listen to that. Shelley talks a lot in that about how you can learn to procrastinate better. So now I do like the idea about getting curious about your triggers or the trigger of what makes you distracted, rather than blaming yourself for getting distracted. And this is the first strategy that Nia suggests. Reimagine the internal trigger. Just get curious about it. Remember that what you're feeling is a completely normal human emotion. We're all prone to distraction. Now one of the things he suggests is keeping a distraction tracker if you really want to get to the bottom of your internal triggers. And if you want to do that, my tip for doing that would be just to stick something in your notes app in your phone or a piece of paper. So how about you, Shelley? What other practical ideas did you like? [00:15:09] Shelley: Yeah, so he goes then into like, okay, now that you've recognized these internal triggers, what can you actually do about them? The one I liked was what he calls surf the urge or the 10 minute rule. So if I did go in that example that I shared, if I did go, "Oh, I need to send those photos." It's like, "Oh, wait, I'm busy on my presentation. I will send those photos in 10 minutes time. So let me just work on the presentation for another 10 minutes." So you surf the urge, cause I think sometimes especially for rebels, this resistance can come up against distractions and you don't want that kind of energy. You're like, Oh no, it's fine. I can do that. But in 10 minutes time, and, and usually by then you've gotten into the important task that you're doing. Do we, or you might've finished it even, and then it's an appropriate time to then go and do the next thing that you wanted to and that was a distraction, but now it's not even a distraction anymore, it's actually an intentional thing that you're doing. [00:16:04] Rowena: Yeah, so I was just gonna say about the surf the urge one, the 10 minute rule. I think that there are different distractions that we sometimes need to juggle with that. So the other tip I would add for that one is Write it down, so don't stop what you're doing but just capture whatever it is that gave you the idea. Like you know, if you've got a little of a ping of an idea that you think, I've got to do that, and that's your distraction. Um, I like to write them down on a separate bit of paper, and then know that I can come back to it. Maybe not in ten minutes, but at least I don't forget. Because often the distraction is I think, Oh gosh, I've thought of that now. I was meant to do that yesterday. I better do it now. And then I go down the rabbit warren of distraction that way. So I find that writing it down, even on a post it note or something next to where I'm working makes a big difference. And then I don't even need to worry about the 10 minute rule because I've, I've captured it. It's out of my head. I'll get to it. [00:16:54] Shelley: And then also, of course, I love the idea of Reimagining the task. So for those tasks that you're maybe bored about, or, or that are maybe a little too difficult as well, turn it into play, make it fun. And fun doesn't have to look like getting dressed up in a clown suit. Um, it's just make it novel and make it somehow different. Like standing up and writing on a whiteboard rather than typing on your computer. Or changing you're working could actually just make the task more fun. And then the other thing is to re imagine, I love all of these re imagination things. Reimagine your temperament. Self talk here is really important. So don't keep saying, Oh, I'm so easily distracted. Oh, I've got squirrel brain or, Oh, I'm so bad at focusing. Just change your own self talk to phrases like, I'm in charge of my time, or the big phrase of the book is to say, I'm indistractable right now. So you can say just, I'm distractable, full stop. Or you can just say, I'm indistractable. I'm indistractable right now. So right now, Rowena and I are recording this podcast. We're indistractable from other things we're focused in on this podcast. So yeah, my biggest takeaway was that distraction starts inside, not outside. And then there are ways to deal with that. So Ro, what was your big takeaway from indistractable? [00:18:20] Rowena: So my key takeaway was around the importance of planning, but not in the way you'd think. I loved the focus on why we want to be indistractable, not only to be more productive, Which of course is great, but more so that we can get our work done and have the time with people who matter to us. And we also have time to follow our passions. And importantly, and I really loved that Nir Eyal talks about this, have time just for ourselves too, because basically, Being indestructible is a tool that we can use as we live a meaningful life. So it's just another tool in our toolkit about how we can ensure we live a purposeful, meaningful life. Now there was a quote that I'm going to share because I thought this was kind of captured the essence of this quite nicely. He says, and I quote from the book, "If you were to walk around Slack's company headquarters in San Francisco, you'd notice a peculiar slogan on the hallway walls. White letters on a bright pink background blare, work hard and go home." Now, I love this. It's so good, [00:19:27] Shelley: So good. [00:19:28] Rowena: work hard and go home. Like, it's telling you, it's not, it's a little bit different from the whole just do it thing like Nike does. This is saying, do your work and then get out of here. Go do the important stuff, right? And I love that. It is such a good reminder about what's actually important. That was kind of my key takeaway. And that's where it then flows into the next bit, which is the planning. So I loved this big why part, but then the nitty gritty of the plan is what I loved. So he recommends we plan our time so we have maximum opportunity to spend as much time as possible doing what we love with the people we most want to hang out with, which for most of us is like our friends and family. So to get started, he suggests we plan quality time with and for ourselves. So he says, start with yourself to do something that lights you up. And I am all for that because I often get my clients to do that when I'm coaching. I'll go, go and work out what you love. Do some of that before you do anything else. And so the way you plan your week, Varies, obviously, everybody has their own style. But Nir Eyal likes the idea of time boxing, or allocating certain hours for certain tasks. So for example, let's say Monday from 10am to 12noon might be when you work on a key project. And Wednesday, let's say, a slightly longer morning, 9 till 1, might be writing reports. [00:20:51] Shelley: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. I'm glad you're highlighting this key takeaway of timeboxing because it dovetails so nicely with what we did in our last episode. That book was Tranquility by Tuesday by Laura Vanderkam. And so that's episode 40. And Laura Vanderkam is a big proponent of planning your week so that you can waste less time and make the good things happen in your, in your week as you plan it. [00:21:17] Rowena: Yes. I think that's really valuable that both these books, Tranquility by Tuesday and Indistractable complement each other. Um, and I like that you mentioned making time for good things, because that is pretty much my key takeaway from Tranquility by Tuesday, and it was also my key takeaway from Indistractable, because the key reminder was to plan the fun stuff too. Because I'm actually really good at getting all the productive stuff done. That's the whole upholder in me. By the way, check out our early episodes one through four for more about What we're talking about with the upholder Four Tendencies. But so for me, even with great intentions and a heap of planning, I have been known to forget to build in time for fun. I've been known to just be very focused on getting stuff done and then get to the end of the week and feel kind of tired and cranky and realize it's because I forgot to have fun. So that was my biggest practical thing I took away from the book. It was to, remember to actively build in downtime for fun, to do the things that light me up, to be creative and of course to hang out with my friends and family. So now, Shelley, you gave an example, so I'm going to just do a quick example too, because I think it's all nice and well and good for me to talk about it. Maybe an example helps. So for a high level of week planning, I intentionally keep Fridays for fun. So after 12 o'clock, there are no more work activities. And I, by intentionally, I don't allow clients to book in there, and I keep that section of my diary clear, and I mark it out. I time box it, saying, you know, this is my time. But then, on a Sunday afternoon when I plan my week ahead and I check what's in my diary and juggle all the kids stuff around my work and vice versa, I look at my entire week and if there isn't something social or fun already booked in, either for Friday or another time, that's my call to action. So I either reach out to friends to organise a catch up or I might book something for myself like a massage or maybe a haircut if it's, you know, that kind of time. Or, and this is the really kind of novel one, I just keep it clear but I protect it and guard it like anything so that I can go with the flow on the day. Which for me, more often than not, means reading a book in the daytime, which feels like a very Lovely guilty pleasure. I mostly read before bed so reading in the daytime is like oh such a treat. So um that's my key takeaway to remember the why we want to be indistractable and then use the planning to help you enjoy that why so you can go out and actually enjoy and live your life which is pretty good. [00:23:52] Shelley: Yeah, absolutely. I think ultimately that joy is the traction that we're all looking for in life. And Nir Eyal points out that the traction could be something seemingly frivolous, like reading a book, like you said, or even watching Netflix or even Scrolling social media can be part of your traction, as long as it's part of the plan, of part of the goal of where you're getting to, part of what you said you are going to do. Not just something that you've defaulted to or sort of slipped into as a distraction. To escape the discomfort of doing the important kind of traction work. And sometimes the important traction work is to give yourself some down time, make like make a spontaneous block of time so that you can choose to do something fun. So yeah, I love that. That's a key takeaway. And I think that example is really helpful for everyone. You know, I think so often we've planned our schedules and we've packed our schedules too much in our plans and I think planning for a bit of white space and planning for a bit of fun time is, is really great, Ro. [00:25:00] Rowena: I will say reading a book is always excellent. And I, it's always a good idea. No one ever says, I regret choosing to read a book. It's like, no one ever says, I regret choosing to have a walk outside, or I regret choosing to have a swim. No one says get, no, I really regret that I read so many books. [00:25:16] Shelley: And it, and it doesn't even matter what kinds of books. I think that's also the thing, like go and read the fluff, go and read you know, like Yeah, read whatever makes you happy. [00:25:24] Rowena: Read what makes you happy. So look, I think that's important. There is a key distinction there around. Distraction to escape the discomfort versus activities that are part of your traction approach. And so the next steps in the book actually build on that and we won't go into them a lot, but we'll give you the very one sentence version. So step three, which is to hack back all the external triggers. So that's the notifications, the email newsletter subscriptions, the social media feeds, and so on. And you get yourself some good tips on that, but I would recommend turning off notifications. That has been a game changer for me. And then step four is to prevent distraction with PACTS, which are, it's like setting up guardrails to help you when you know you're more prone to distraction. Now he uses examples of like burning money in the book, which I think is probably, Not cool, really? Yes, completely illegal and also like way stressful. You could probably make that a little bit, uh, less illegal and a little bit more, motivating. I would, I would do it more like a, um, when I do this, then I get to do that. [00:26:32] Shelley: Like a bit of a in built reward. [00:26:35] Rowena: Yeah, an inbuilt reward, so when I have finished this, um, report or whatever you've got to do, then I'll take a break and look at social media for five minutes. Or when I get, I don't know, finish the laundry, [00:26:47] Shelley: You can [00:26:48] Rowena: a cup of tea. Yeah, or read a book. Oh, but see, I think, yes, correct. Always [00:26:53] Shelley: Well, reading a book, as you say, is part of your process and part of your, part of your traction. It's, it's been time boxed in there. Yeah, I think that's so cool. And you know what? I'm going to share a happy ending to the example I gave in the beginning, because, as I was preparing the talking points for this podcast today, I had received a few phone notifications, a few pings were pinging at me, but I was like, no, I'm indisractable. I'm not going to check them. And I didn't, I didn't check them because I'd set myself a 45 minute timer to stay focused just on this podcast. And I had the little time in the corner of my screen and as I was typing this, the 45 minute timer was on 43 minutes. And so I'm so proud of myself for being indistractable and committing to do what I said I was going to do in the allotted time. So that's a win for this book for me. [00:27:43] Rowena: Oh, definitely. Well done, Shelley. So, look, overall, my take is that Indistractable is a good read. It's also a fairly quick read. I am glad I read it, but I will say, honestly, it's not one I refer back to often. I think it's valuable, but it's not one of my, core stable of books. And I would also add that if you are time pressed, Listening to a podcast interview, he's pretty prolific, he's been interviewed a lot, or even searching for a relevant YouTube video will probably give you the key highlights. [00:28:12] Shelley: Yes, that's our little whispered secret to you. I actually recently listened to a podcast interview with Nir Eyal on Lenny's Podcast. And Nir he gives you a whole whirlwind run through of his process in about an hour. So if you'd like to listen to that one, I would recommend it. And we'll leave a link to that Lenny's Podcast episode in the show notes. And Nir even says, he's like, I just want you to become indistractable. I think it's his mission to help people to become indistractable. So as we said, the book's a great read. And if you finding distractions are a real problem, I think you're going to get a lot out of the book. But yeah, there's some quick hacks if you want to as well. So it's now time for our listeners to choose their own adventure. So Ro, can you give us two options for actions that listeners could choose to take after this episode. [00:29:02] Rowena: Yes. So listeners, you can choose option number one, which is get curious about your distractions. Even just for an hour or a day, if you're feeling particularly courageous, notice what and when you get triggered. That is, when you start feeling the itch to be distracted. And I would suggest jotting them down just so that you've actually got the hard data there. And option two. Now this is a super practical one because I'm a practical kind of girl and it relates to hacking back your distractions, which as we said, we didn't really talk about, but it's pretty simple. Try switching off notifications on your phone. Or, if that feels just a little too hard, try using the Do Not Disturb function for a set period, and see if it makes a difference to your ability to be indistractable. And Shelley, what have you been reading? [00:29:53] Shelley: Today, I want to give a shout out to the book I've been reading by Clara Conrad. It is called Coffee and Eclairs. It's her debut novel and it's a short, sweet romance novel. Now, Clara is a New Zealand based author who grew up in South Africa. A fact I know because she happens to be my cousin. So I am very happy to be adding to the list of authors in my circle of friends, because of course, listeners, you can also get Rowena's novel, Avoiding the Friend Zone, on Amazon too. [00:30:24] Rowena: Thanks so much Shelley, and congratulations to Clara on publishing. Listeners, that is where we're going to wrap things up today. Let's continue the conversation. You can find me at Rowena Mabbott on Instagram and visit RowenaMabbott. com for everything about my coaching services and my books. And where can listeners find you, Shelley? [00:30:44] Shelley: Well, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm Shelley Tonkin Smith, and you can learn more about my copywriting business at shelleysmithcreative.com. And I will just also shout out your newsletter Ro, because you are also sharing what you've been reading for that month. So if listeners are looking for more reading recommendations, go and sign up for Rowena's Newsletter. You will get all of her many books that she's reading, so there's plenty more reading recommendations here from Two Booked Up and from Rowena particularly. [00:31:12] Rowena: Thank you. And of course, whilst you're thinking about books, remember to visit TwoBookedUp. com for the show notes and make sure whilst you're there, you download the 24 for 2024 Reading Challenge PDF. I'm Rowena Mabbott, wishing you luck on your quest to become Indistractable. [00:31:32] Shelley: and I'm Shelley Tonkin Smith. We'll see you in two weeks time for another episode of Two Booked Up.