This book kept popping up for me in my recommendations and I kept seeing it in Audible so I decided to give it a shot. The author, Nir Eyal, is a well-known author of the book “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products” which is about how to make your product addictive. So, it’s a bit ironic that his next book would be about the complete opposite subject…
This book was a quick read and was light on delivering “How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life”. There are better books out there if you are trying to break bad habits or be more present in your life. As a millennial and someone who is constantly reading about self-improvement, I was excited about this book and was hoping that Nir would do more than simply describe the problem. A lot of the solutions presented were either obvious or lacked substance. For example, the author did a great job of discussing time management but then the solution was to use his time block template which probably took 30 seconds to make in excel. I was hoping for more guidance or tools to use.
Technology isn’t always the problem. At some level, you have to have self-control. If you need to lock your phone in a safe to prevent yourself from opening Facebook, then you need to understand the root cause of your distraction. It’s another example of how the author sets up a problem without going deep into the underlying causes
Solely blaming a smartphone for causing distraction is just as flawed as blaming a pedometer for making someone climb too many stairs.
Eyal, Nir. Indistractable (p. 23). BenBella Books, Inc.. Kindle Edition
The author will add anecdotes about being distracted that were sprinkled throughout the book I wasn’t sure if the author was trying to relate to the reader, trying to make you laugh, or just showing that he succumbed to the power of technology. I was hoping they would have followed with a hack or a tool that he discovered to help with the issue.
With my cell phone unavailable, I needed to find a new partner. To my relief, I felt the anxiety melt away as I pulled out my laptop and began to bang on the keyboard. My wife, seeing what I was doing, pounced on the opportunity to relieve her own stress, and we were back at it again.
Eyal, Nir. Indistractable (p. 224). BenBella Books, Inc.. Kindle Edition
I always like to look for the positives in a book and there were two things that stuck out for me
Liminal Moments
The first one was to take advantage of what he calls the Liminal Moments. This is the time we spend transitioning from one activity to the next. For example, it may be the time you are stopped at a red light or waiting for a page to load. What typically happens is that we get bored and find ourselves picking up our phones or opening up a tab to another site, for example. The problem is that sometimes you mean to only look at your phone for 30 seconds and by the time you know it, 10 minutes have passed.
The idea here is to be aware of these little urges that pop up during liminal moments. It’s easy to get derailed from the task at hand and loose focus on what’s important in the moment.
Time Management
The second thing was protecting your time. This quote sums it up for me:
The Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote, “People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time, they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.” Though Seneca was writing more than two thousand years ago, his words are just as applicable today. Think of all the locks, security systems, and storage units we use to protect our property and how little we do to protect our time.
Eyal, Nir. Indistractable (p. 53). BenBella Books, Inc.. Kindle Edition
Think about all the times that we are alerted to act now. This could take the form of a text, a social media notification, a slack message, a desktop notification, or a call. We are prompted to stop whatever we were doing act now. It’s easy to just get pulled in a million different directions and the result is that you don’t get anything done. To combat this, one needs to be more disciplined with their time. The author points to the importance of planning your day and sticking to it as much as possible. While you can’t ignore incoming notifications, you can be smarter about handling them. For example, you’ll be way more productive if you only check emails a few times a day rather than multiple times an hour. Constantly switching between tasks greatly reduces your focus and productivity. Another strategy is to mute all notifications while you are focused on a task at hand.
Finally, the biggest thing missing from this book in my opinion something about being present. I say this because you are not only distracted when you have a device in front of you. You are distracted any time you are not focused on what’s in front of you. Are you really “Indistractable” if you are having dinner with your kids but your mind is still at work thinking about your email response to your boss? In my view, you can’t be “Indistractable” unless you can focus on the on the people around you and enjoy the moment. I’m not talking about doing some meditation retreat. All it takes is a moment where you can take a few deep breaths and focus on your breathing.
In conclusion, it’s hard for me to recommend this book because I think there are better ones out there to manage bad habits.
Check out the book on Good Reads or Amazon