SPEAKERS

Greg McKeown, Nir Eyal


Greg McKeown     

I’m absolutely thrilled to have Nir Eyal, who really, among other things, it is my life’s mission just to keep up with. The best-selling author of books well worth everybody’s time to read, Hooked and Indistractible, we’ll get into both of these important pieces of work and I’m sure many other important interesting insights and they are and I go back way back to unbelievable how far now that we now the years add up, and we find ourselves older than we once were. But way back to business school friends from there and instead stayed in touch all these years and it’s absolutely wonderful to have you on the water central podcast. Welcome there.

Nir Eyal     

Oh, thank you so much for having me and thank you also for blurbing Indistractible, you are the blurb on the cover of the book. And so thank you for that. I want to publicly recognize you and thank you again for for that wonderful blurbs. It meant a lot to me and I sincerely appreciate a huge debt of gratitude.

Greg McKeown     

Well, listen what I said I meant, which is that being in distractible is the most important skill of the 21st century. I meant it when I said it and I feel it now. And in fact, let’s why don’t we just get into this. Tell us what is in distractible and why does it matter so much now?

Nir Eyal     

Yeah. So being in distractible is about being as honest with yourself as you are with others, that we all know that we don’t want to be liars to people we love in our life, we don’t want to, you know, to be called a liar is one of the worst put downs anyone could call someone, right? It’s, we would never want to lie to our children or friends or family. We know that’s bad. And yet we lie to ourselves every day. Right? And this, this really came to a head for me in my life, one particular instance, when I really had to reassess my own relationship with distraction. One afternoon, my daughter and I had this beautiful day plan, which is going to spend some quality time together. And we had this book of activities that daddies and daughters could play together. And I remember in this book, there was this question, if you could have any superpower, what superpower would you want? And I can tell you the question verbatim, but I can’t tell you what she said. Because in that moment, for whatever reason, I started looking at my phone, because I got distracted. And when I looked up, she had left the room, because I was sending a very clear message that whatever was on my phone was more important than she was, and she went to go, you know, do something else. And if I’m really honest with you, Greg, it wasn’t just with her. It was when I would say, Okay, I’m going to get to work. And I’m not going to get distracted. I’m going to do what I said, I’m going to do them to work on that big project. And then yet somehow, 10,15, 20 minutes later, I’m doing everything but that big project I know I need to work on. It would happen when I would say okay, now I’m going to exercise and eat right. Finally, I’m going to do those things. And I didn’t, and I wouldn’t. And I constantly told these lies to myself, saying I was going to do one thing. And then I did something else. And so that’s why becoming in distractible is, is I believe the skill of the century because there are so many demands on our time and attention these days. And it’s only going to get worse, right? If you think the world is distracting now, just wait a few years, it’s going to become only more distracting, we know where this trend is going. And there is no facet of your life, your physical health, your mental health, your career, any of these things, all of them require us to be able to sustain our attention. This is truly how we control our attention. we control our life.

Greg McKeown   

As I’m listening to you there I think two things. One is about somebody that came up to talk to me after a conference, and I was just waiting to jump in the Uber and he just ran up to me and he said, he said look, he said, I really need to talk to you. He said, my marriage is on the rocks. And the reason is because I get home and you know, at a reasonable time. But then my wife get so frustrated with me for being still hooked to the office that she just says Look, I would rather you didn’t come home, then you come home, and you are so distracted that you’re so somewhere else. So I think a lot of people know that pain that physically they are with the people they care about the most. But they’re not there mentally. They’re not there emotionally. And that’s got to become much worse in the pandemic where we’re physically together, but emotionally mentally somewhere else.

Nir Eyal   

Maybe it’s a good place to start in terms of defining what is distraction. It’s one of those words that everybody thinks they understand. But really when you dig deeper, they don’t understand and that and that actually harms us I certainly didn’t understand what that term really, really meant.

Greg McKeown     

It’s such a broad term, we use it for almost everything, give us a great definition.

Nir Eyal     

The best way to test whether you understand what a word means is to be able to know the antonym of that word. Most people will tell you obviously, the opposite of distraction is focus. But that’s not actually the case, that if you dig a little deeper, and you look at the origin of the word, the opposite of distraction is not focus. The opposite of distraction is traction, that both words come from the same Latin root Trahareh, which means to pull, and they both end in the same six letters, action, that spells action. So traction, by definition is any action that pulls you towards things that you do with intent, things that you do, according to your values that move you closer to the person you want to become, those are acts of traction. The opposite of traction is of course, dis traction. Distraction is any action that pulls you further away from what you plan to do things that you are not doing with intent, things that move you farther away from your values and farther away from becoming the kind of person you want to become. So this isn’t just semantics, this is really important. Because anything can be traction or distraction. Let me look at my to do list. Here’s the things I need to do. Here’s the most important task, I’m going to work on that task, I’m going to get started. I’m not going to get distracted. I’m not going to let anything get in my way. Here I go. I’m not going to procrastinate right now. I’m going to get started. Here I go. But first, let me check some email. Right, first, let me do that one easy thing on my to do list real quick. Let me scroll that Slack channel. Why? Because those are work related tasks, right? I’m still being productive. I’m still doing stuff that I need to do for work, right. So I’ll wait a few minutes. And what I didn’t realize is that that is the most dangerous and pernicious form of distraction, the distraction that tricks you that fools you into prioritizing the easy and the urgent at the expense of the important because we justify it with pseudo productivity. It feels like I’m getting work done because I’m checking little things off my to do list. And we can talk about a little later why to do lists are the worst thing you can do for your personal productivity. We can talk about that in a bit. But that pseudo productivity of justifying? Well, I’m just checking email because that’s a work-related task. Know, if it’s not what you plan to do with your time it is by definition, a distraction. Conversely, anything can be traction. So you know, these days, we hear a lot in the media about how technology is hijacking your brain, how it’s addicting you how it’s melting your mind, rubbish, rubbish. It’s not scientific, it’s not true. It’s totally self-defeating. Because there is nothing wrong with going on Facebook or YouTube or playing a video game or whatever it is you want to do with your time. As long as it’s done with intent, the time you plan to waste is not wasted time. So don’t listen to these tech critics who are in a moral panic about how technology is so bad for you know, if it’s what you want to do with your time. And according to your values, it is an act of traction. And in fact, anything else would be a distraction, if that’s not what you plan to do with your time. So now we have traction, and we have distraction. That’s the two points of the model.

Greg McKeown     

I loved that I just thought that was such a great thing in the model that you put together. I just thought the language contrast of distraction versus traction reframes the whole problem of distraction in just the way you articulated I love that.

Nir Eyal     

Now the question is what prompts us to take these actions either traction or distraction here, you can think of two arrows bisecting the horizontal line. And we have what we call external triggers and internal triggers. External triggers are what we tend to blame. These are the usual suspects, the pings, the dings, the rings, anything in our outside environment, that leads us towards traction or distraction. Now, even though that’s what we tend to blame all these things outside of us, and we look for life hacks, and we look for all these ways to you know, to turn off notifications, or grayscale your phone all that stuff. Turns out studies find that external triggers are only 10% of the reason we get distracted. 10% studies have found that only 10% of the time that you check your phone, you’re checking it because of an external trigger, a ring ping dang thing.

Greg McKeown     

I want to get to the second but I just love that distinction. Because I’ve noticed it in teaching Essentialism that where people’s minds go when I’m saying look, let’s be more selective. Let’s be more thoughtful. Yo, let’s figure out what’s essential. People tend to go not everyone but a lot of people go Oh, hold on, are you really telling me that I need to say no to my boss’s boss, you know, just like that. And first of all, I’m always like, Well, no, I mean, I wouldn’t start there. If I were you. You know that doesn’t seem like a good strategy. But it’s an interesting tendency to look to the external distraction, rather than. Yeah, but what about the low hanging fruit? What about the things you have some sway over some control over? Why not start there go, that’s where I think you’re headed.

Nir Eyal     

Exactly. And those are. So this is the other 90% of the time, the internal triggers only 10% of time. It’s the external triggers. And the studies have found this 10% of the time you check your phone because of an external trigger, because a ping a notification, the other 90% of the time you’re checking your phone because of an internal trigger. What is an internal trigger? An internal trigger is an uncomfortable emotional state that we seek to escape from. loneliness, fearfulness, fatigue, uncertainty, stress, anxiety, boredom, you name it. This is why we get distracted. And this is what we have to understand that procrastination distraction. It’s not a character flaw. There’s nothing broken about your brain. We all want to think that we have some kind of syndrome. No, the vast majority of us there’s nothing wrong with your brain. It’s simply that we have not learned how to deal with discomfort, emotional discomfort, in a healthy way that leads us towards traction. Rather than getting habituated into escaping it with distraction. This is what’s so important. None of the life hacks none of the Guru’s techniques. None of the other techniques in my book either will help you unless you realize this Cardinal truth, which is time management requires pain management. Time management requires pain management. Why? Because everything we do the seed of all human motivation, we used to think it’s about the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. That’s not true. neurologically speaking, all motivation comes from the desire to escape discomfort.

Greg McKeown   

When I read that in in distractible, first of all, I was like, oh, my goodness, that is so true. You have named something. We think it’s pleasure. So often, it’s like, I want to achieve this. So I don’t feel so frustrated at not having achieved it. I think that’s totally true. And it’s a little bit depressing. It doesn’t have is it or is it to you? Is it it seems a little depressing. But like everything underneath it is just pain management. There’s something about that, that feels a little dark.

Nir Eyal   

The reason it’s it sounds dark is because I think it’s easy to interpret it as saying, Well, if there’s carrots and sticks, and now Nero is telling me there’s no such thing really as parent, well, then there’s only sticks. It’s almost exactly right. That there is of course, obviously the pursuit of pleasure. But when we dive a layer deeper around, why do those things get us to do these actions, it’s about the wanting, it’s about the craving, the desire, the lusting, that even the pursuit of pleasure is itself psychologically destabilizing, right? The way the brain gets us to do things, is by enacting this little bit of discomfort that we seek to escape. And that can be a very good thing. One of my beefs with the self-help industry these days, is that people are sold this myth that the goal should always be to be happy. That’s if for some reason, you’re not constantly contented and satisfied and happy, then something must be wrong with you and you need to fix it. And nothing could be further from the truth. That in fact, our species perpetual disquietude is what drives us forward. We need that discontent. We need this disequilibrium to make things better. That’s the drive to invent, to create to improve our lot in life comes from this desire, this discomfort that is something that we can use as rocket fuel. Now, what do we do with it? Do we escape it with another glass of booze? Do we escape it by turning on the news? Do we escape it by watching football? By watching it by scrolling Facebook, there’s a million ways you can escape that discomfort through distraction? Or can we use it to make our life better? Can we harness that power selectively to lead us towards traction rather than distraction?

Greg McKeown     

I love that there’s a story that you shared in distractible of a woman who’s a she’s an executive at the time and she gets into now I’m now I’m fluffing on this it wasn’t it wasn’t Fitbit. But it was something like that. There was some app which was what what was it? What was the app?

Nir Eyal     

It was a pedometer.

Greg McKeown     

and tell us that story and and how it illustrates to what you’re saying about we’ve got to learn to manage these internal pain triggers, I

Nir Eyal     

guess. Right. Right. So you know, there’s a, an argument that it’s the technology that is distracting us, and I actually bought that line for a while because I was so frustrated with what I thought was the cause of distraction. That I said, Fine, I’ll do it. I’ll get rid of the technology, right? Oh, so I went on Alibaba and I bought a flip phone a $12 flip phone, I had to have it imported from China. And because they don’t make them in the states anymore, with no apps, no internet connection just to calls and SMS text. And then that wasn’t good enough. So I got myself a word processor from the 1990s that I found eBay, again, no internet connection, all I could do is type on it. And I still got distracted, right? Because I would sit down at my desk. And even though I said, Okay, no internet, no apps, no modern technology, I’m just going to write, I would look behind me on the bookcase and say, oh, there’s that. There’s that book I’ve been meaning to read, or, oh, my desk is really cluttered, I should clean it up. Or let me take out the trash or, you know, I bet the laundry needs doing. And I would find these reasons to take my mind off of the hard work that I knew I needed to do of writing. I mean, you know, how hard is to write, people say, Oh, I want to get into the habit of writing. That’s an oxymoron. You cannot get into a habit of writing habits or behaviors done with little or no conscious thought. Unless you’re doing stream of consciousness. You can’t write with little or no conscious thought. It’s hard frickin work. And all I want to do when I write is something else. I want to go check email, I want to go do some research on Google. I want to escape somehow, because writing is hard. But look, I’ve written two books, two bestsellers, countless articles. It never gets easier what it does. However, what I have learned over time is I’ve learned how to master those internal triggers so that they don’t master me. Because you will always find distraction somewhere.

Greg McKeown     

I mean, it’s just a funny line anyway, like, whenever I’m writing, I just want to be doing something else. Right. Anyway, now so how did you do that, tell me concretely?

Nir Eyal     

Sure. So it’s really about these four steps. So now that we understand the four points on this compass, it starts with number one mastering the internal triggers. And there’s a whole set of tools that we can go into around these arrows in your quiver that you can use whatever you feel is internal discomfort and this isn’t stuff I made up I you know, I’m really into looking at the research the reason it took me five years to write Indistractible. Number one, I kept getting distracted before I wrote the book because I needed this knowledge. So before I coalesced, this model took me a long time to stop getting distracted. Thankfully, today, I am Indistractible. But the second reason was that I really wanted it based in good research. So there’s over 30 pages of citations to two scientific peer reviewed journals. And so there’s lots of techniques we can do to master those internal triggers. The next step, step number two is to make time for traction. One of the most important lessons of the book is that you cannot call something a distraction unless you know what it distracted you from. So you know, I worked with countless people who tell me how distracted the world is today and how they can’t seem to get anything done. And they went from this and that and the world is so crazy. Ah, you know, it’s, and then I say, well, what did you plan to do with your time today, can I see what it was you got distracted from? And they show me their calendars sheepishly. And typically, there ain’t much on them. Most people don’t keep a schedule, they don’t keep a calendar. And there’s a reason that we use the same language around time that we do with money, right? We pay attention, right. We pay attention. Why? Because very much how we pay with dollars and cents. You wouldn’t go on a street corner and open your wall and say, hey, everybody, come take my money. No, because that has value you have to be judicious about how you spend your money. But with time and attention, somehow it’s Yeah, take however much you want. No problem, take as much of it as you want. And if we don’t account for it, if we don’t decide in advance how we want to spend our time, we can’t tell the difference between traction and distraction. So I tell you all about that. I tell you how to do what we call a schedule sync, this will be very interesting to your audience. because I’m a I’m a big advocate of actually not telling your boss No, I know that’s kind of productivity advice, gospel of well tell people no, but I find that that’s a very risky proposition. Because they’re likely to fire you. And that’s scary for a lot of people. So instead of that, what you do instead is you show them a time box calendar and you do what’s called a schedule sync. Where you synchronize your schedules, and you show them, hey, here’s my schedule. Here’s how I plan to spend my time. Now you see this list of other stuff that I don’t know where to put on that schedule, help me prioritize, so you’re not telling them no, you’re asking for them to do their job as your manager to help you prioritize the tasks. So that’s a little bit just a tip of the iceberg around making time for traction.

Greg McKeown  

So I completely agree with that. You know, one of the things that I have experienced with teaching essentialism is that is that people can be so drawn to the idea of No, it’s so, so compelling and so emotive, that people can sometimes simplify it. Oh, yes, this is this is about saying no to everyone, and every without really thinking about it. Yeah. And I’m always like, well, that won’t be a book called no ism. And I didn’t write that book. Yeah, this is this is about exactly what you just said, which is, which is like, how do we negotiate what is essential? And have the conversation be about that so that you can figure out and align together and communicate? Well, what really, what can we agree is most important? What can we agree should be, you know, you know, what trade off can we make in order to make sure that we give the right attention to that?

Nir Eyal     

All kinds of terrible things happen when people read the cover of a book and think they know what’s in it. socialism is all about just telling people No, you didn’t get it. Same thing with David Allen’s books, you know, with Getting Things Done. When I say to do lists are terrible for your productivity. I’m not saying writing things down and neither does he, you know, the, we do need to get things onto a page out of our head and onto a page I love that. What I don’t think is very productive and has been borne out in studies is running your life on a to do list. Right? That it needs to be in your schedule. The problem is that most people, when they put things on a to do list, there’s no constraint. Right? This is essentially the problem you talk about, right? That when there is no constraint when I’m just going to do everything. One, I get less done. And two, it feels horrible, because I’m running around my life, worried about all the things I still have not done. I mean, very few people have experienced what real leisure feels like, Why, because they come home from work, and they’re still thinking about work. So even when they’re with their kids, when they all they want to do is watch a show on Netflix and just relax. They always feel like they should be being somewhere else or doing something else. And so they don’t know what leisure feels like. Whereas when you use a time box calendar. That’s all you should be doing. Right? Everything else becomes a distraction if it’s not what you plan to do with your time in advance.

Greg McKeown     

I think there’s lots of people who struggle with distraction. They’re hot otherwise high achievers, they’re driven. They’re capable. They’re hard working. But when they get distracted, they just beat themselves up.

Nir Eyal 

Yeah, yeah. And that makes things worse.

Greg McKeown     

Yeah. So what can they concretely do, you’re about to share?

Nir Eyal     

Here’s what you can do right now. And again, this is a one of many, many techniques in in distractible, one of the most powerful techniques that that that I use almost on a daily basis is called the 10-minute rule. And the 10-minute rule goes like this. So here’s what happens. So when you feel the urge to get distracted, okay, so we’ve gone through the first few steps of noting this sensation, recognizing why that’s happening, and pausing for a minute. And instead of giving into that distraction, by the way, that distraction, I’m not just talking about, you know, tech distraction, any distraction is defined as something I did not plan to do with my time, whether it’s, I don’t want to smoke that cigarette. I don’t want to eat that piece of chocolate cake. Because I’m dieting. I don’t want to check email right now. Because I want to stay focused on my writing whatever the case might be. Whenever you feel that urge to get distracted to go off track. You’re going to tell yourself, I can do that thing I can give in to that distraction. I can I can go ahead in 10 minutes. Not right now in 10 minutes. Why? Because we know that abstinence oftentimes backfires, right? Why would we just tell ourselves no, don’t do it. Okay. Why would just tell yourself that stop it don’t do it. The problem is when it comes to that type of language, that internal dialogue, absence backfires, why? It’s almost like a rubber band. Okay? If you were to hold the rubber band and pull on that rubber band, you could pull it, pull it, pull it, pull it, pull it until eventually, you’d have to snap it and let it go. It wouldn’t just go back to where it started. No ricochet across the room. And there’s this fascinating research that shows that telling yourself not to do something makes you want it more. We see this with cigarette smokers. We used to think that people are addicted to cigarettes just because of the nicotine. Turns out it’s far more complicated and interesting than just some chemical hook. It turns out, the main reason people keep smoking, even though when you survey smokers and you ask them do you actually like smoking? The vast majority of smokers hate smoking. They think they say it stinks. It doesn’t taste good. It’s a waste of money. They don’t actually enjoy the experience. They don’t even feel the buzz of the nicotine anymore. Why do they keep smoking? They keep smoking because it’s the only way to satiate that uncomfortable internal trigger of telling themselves not to smoke. Right? It’s that discomfort of telling yourself Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t okay, fine. I’ll do it. That’s registered in the brain that relief of discomfort of telling yourself no is in fact registered in the brain as pleasure, as relief and that feels good. So instead of telling yourself No, I’m terrible, don’t do it. Stop it. You’re weak. Instead what you want Tell yourself it’s not No, it’s not yet. So here’s what you do you take me so many times when I’m writing, I’ll set a timer for 10 minutes, just 10 minutes. And now I have a choice to make, I can either get back to the task at hand, right get back to writing whatever it is you plan to do with your time, whatever you’ve decided in advance you wanted to do, which is about step two of making time for attraction. Or, or you can surf the urge surfing the urge acknowledges that these internal triggers are transient, they’re temporary. All feelings are even though in the moment when we feel stress, anxiety, loneliness, fatigue, whatever that internal trigger might be. When we feel we feel like it’s gonna last forever, but that’s never the case. So your job just like how these feelings are like waves, right? They crest and subside, your job is to ride that sensation, like a surfer on a surfboard. And if you actually track how much time it takes to overcome that urge, it’s minutes, sometimes seconds. So if you can just set that timer for 10 minutes and say, Yep, I can give it I’m not saying No, I’m saying not yet. And what you’re doing is essentially building that capacity to say, Oh, you know, what, 10 minutes, 10 minutes, okay, I can wait 10 minutes till I smoke that cigarette, I can wait 10 min, 10 minutes till I eat that chocolate cake. I can wait 10 minutes before I check email. And if I still have the urge, okay, I’ll give in, what you will find is 90% of the time, by the time those 10 minutes are up, you don’t have that urge anymore that internal triggers gone, and you’ve mastered it, you’re going to build that skill over time with some of the other techniques we described as well.

Greg McKeown     

And that surfing the urge, that’s the 10 minutes is you saying, hey, I’m just going to allow that urge to exist. I’m going to satisfy that in 10 minutes, but 10 minutes from now, the wave has crashed, so to speak. And you don’t actually feel the urge anymore, because it was just intense for a short period of time. That’s what you’re saying?

Nir Eyal     

Exactly. And there’s some things that you do in terms of surfing the urge in terms of that inner dialogue that you have with yourself of what do you actually do for those 10 minutes, if it’s not working on that task? There are some techniques I talked about in the book around about okay, what do you actually what kind of conversation should you have with yourself for those 10 minutes? So I talked about reimagining your temperament. So many people have this dialogue with themselves where they become shamers. They talk about all this, that with themselves about how they’re somehow deficient and broken. That’s where their mind tends to go. That’s the habit that they’ve that they tend to create for themselves. And there’s some reasons why people do that. Instead, we change that dialogue, we change that dialogue into one where it’s about self-compassion. We know that self-compassion is one of these psychology hacks that is way underutilized, that people who are more self-compassionate with themselves are much more likely to accomplish their long term goals. So even the way we talk to ourselves, I advise people, don’t talk to you talk to yourself, you would talk the way you would talk to a good friend makes a big difference. When you talk to yourself, you tend to beat yourself up because you’re your own worst critic. But when you think, Okay, how would I talk to a friend right now who’s struggling with this? Right? Completely different, completely different dialogue you would have if it was, you know, the two of us if I told you, you know, Greg, I really struggle when I’m writing. I constantly feel anxious. I’m not sure if anybody’s going to read my stuff. Is it going to be any good? Did I review all the scientific literature? Like if I told you that we would have a conversation that would be completely different than how I would have that conversation to myself?  

Greg McKeown     

No you’re absolutely right, you know, there would be so much more encouragement so much more. Not. It’s not that when you take that role of a friend or as a coach to yourself that you ignore the challenge is that you also have perspective and humanity to it. And I do think there’s a there’s an interesting problem, especially with overachievers, that somehow and for some reason, they talk to themselves in in really harsh terms, very black and white statements. Very self-critical. I think. I think it then somehow sometimes comes out in ugly ways with other people to where they can become very critical about other people and judgmental of other people because they’re trying to, again, alleviate the pain inside. So give me an example of how self-compassion, you know, would sound if you are doing it yourself.

Nir Eyal     

Yeah, so it would be okay. So let’s say I’m sitting down to write and I find that I have this urge to go check email or Google something or whatever it is that’s not what I said I was going to do with my time. So take a deep breath, right. I set the timer, right. I set a timer for 10 minutes I sit down, say, okay, close my eyes. Okay, let me feel what I’m experiencing right now. Okay, where is this sensation coming from? Where do I feel it in my body? Where is this tension? Okay, let’s see. It’s, it feels like it’s a stress. It’s anxiety. All right, well, why? Where’s that anxiety coming from? Well, you know, I really want this to be a great piece that I’m working on right now. I really want this to turn out well, okay, well, I’m going to change that dialogue as opposed to saying, well, you shouldn’t be feeling it. or real what I used to tell myself? Well, if I was a real author, if I was really good at this, then I wouldn’t feel this feeling no rubbish. I don’t tell myself that anymore. Instead, I’ve reimagined that temperament to say to myself, we actually, this is part of the struggle, right? This was a huge revelation for me that to get better at something requires discomfort.

Greg McKeown     

How would you respond to someone who’s, you know, maybe they’re the mother of young children, they’ve got the pandemic world going on. They are dealing with enormous levels of inputs, challenges, multiple contradictory inputs all of the time. I mean, it’s not just technology. Of course, it is external, but it’s young children. I mean, I worked with somebody recently, we had an event and so the person we did a sort of little coaching session with live was vulnerable. She said, look, I mean, I literally have no time to myself, she has six children at home. She’s working as well. It’s completely shut down where she lives. I mean, how does being in distractible apply in that situation where somebody, I think, would feel quite desperate, could easily be deeply burned out. And lacks support they used to have, feels isolated and all these challenges.

Nir Eyal     

Sure. So the first step we talked about is mastering the internal triggers super, super important to know what you will do when you feel those urges towards distraction. That’s the first step. The second step is to make time for traction. So where does that start? You know, we talked about how you can’t call something a distraction unless you know what it distracted you from. So what I would advise for someone like this, who’s really struggling with just too many commitments is to sit down and start with our values. What are values are defined, my definition of values are attributes of the person you want to become. values are defined as attributes of the person you want to become. So what you must do is to ask yourself, how would the person I want to become spend their time in the three following life domains and the three life domains are you your relationships, and then finally, your work? And you have to operate under the constraint of your calendar. Okay, the current system of I want to do everything all the time. So let me put it on to do list and sometime someday will get done does not work. Okay, we know where that leads us. The alternative is to sit down with something where there is a constraint, namely the constraint of the same 24 hours in a day that everyone on the face of the earth gets. So when you sit down with that open calendar, and you see okay, the you domain, how would the person I want to become spend their time taking care of themselves, whether that’s prayer, meditation, sleep, exercise, I’m not saying how you should spend your time it’s not up to me or anybody else to tell you what your value should be. But whatever it is you defined for yourself for your values? Put that time on your calendar, how many of us tell our children, you need a bedtime? But we’re hypocrites? Do we have a bedtime, we all know how important sleep is how many of us actually have a bedtime on our calendar on our schedule, put it in there if reading is important to you of personal growth, prayer, whatever it might be, put it on your calendar, okay? Then the relationship domain, right? So how much time should I invest in the important people in our life, and this might take up your entire day, it has to be decided with intent how you plan to spend your time, because if you plan to do everything, you’ll accomplish nothing. So every week in my household, Julie and I sit down together. And we look at our schedules, we do a schedule sync. So now, so the first step, of course, was figuring out what all needs to get done. You have you can’t you can’t bypass that product. This is exactly what I recommend to the lady, the single mother with six kids, as hard as that is. And I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s really hard. I only have one kid. We have that assessment of what needs to get done working with the finite resource of time. So every week, Julie and I sit down now that we’ve gotten into the groove of this, by the way, it takes all of 10 minutes, never takes more than 10 minutes, and we do a schedule sync.

Greg McKeown     

What do you do in that schedule sync? I want to know exactly what you do.

Nir Eyal   

When who’s cooking what days, what who needs the car? Where do we need to go on this day versus that day? Which kid needs to go, you know, what, where does our daughter need to go during certain times of the day? You know, knowing all the responsibilities not just what needs to get done. That’s not good enough. Why isn’t it good enough? Because there are contingencies, right? If the trash hasn’t been taken out. It doesn’t make sense to clean the kitchen. Right? There are contingencies if the if the food hasn’t been cut for the week. You can’t cook the meal.

Greg McKeown  

Okay, so I want you to walk me through it then. So when do you do this?

Nir Eyal     

Every Sunday night. It’s under nine

Greg McKeown     

It’s on your calendar. When’s it scheduled for?

Nir Eyal   

Right after dinner. So at the dinner table tonight.

Greg McKeown 

So seven o’clock?

Nir Eyal     

we do it with my daughter as well. Now to now that she’s old enough, she’s actually she takes out her calendar.

Greg McKeown     

She’s part of it. So you look at your calendar. So do you pull up, you pull up your Google Calendar, she pulls up, Julie pulls up her Google Calendar, you both got your Google calendars open. So you can see each other’s schedules. Right. So you’re doing the first thing you’re doing, I’m guessing is a review of the week is that right? You’re looking at what’s already on the account.

Nir Eyal     

We go Okay, today’s Sunday, what is Monday look like? Flip what is Tuesday look like flip, and we make sure that we’re on the same. Okay, so

Greg McKeown   

you’re flipping through each page? Then what what what do you do other than just reviewing what’s already on there

Nir Eyal     

And we make changes accordingly. So almost every time, there will be a surprise, there will be a future family fight averted.

Greg McKeown     

You mean like something where it’s simultaneously you have something scheduled, she has something scheduled, you didn’t realize that wasn’t somehow it’s gone on the calendar.

Nir Eyal     

A dropping of a ball, there’s always something that a schedule sync will will prevent us from arguing about that we used to argue about because we took the time to do that schedule sync on Sunday nights. But just to get people started, you can use any tool you want, I use Google Calendar, you can use a pen and paper, the best tool is the one you use. The point is that you’ve made this schedule for yourself. And then you can synchronize that schedule with the stakeholders in your life, the people who you owe time to.

Greg McKeown     

Two challenges get in the way for me, one is my own, you know, my own habits of saying, Okay, well, just last thing at night, it’s nice to have a bit of break from things. A good night would be okay, I’m going through writing by journaling and using that time for that. And I do that, but only I would say about 50% of the time is that when I’m actually doing that. And then and then the other 50% of the time, I mean, there’s lots of habits, but part of it has been okay, I watch something, you know, something that kind of, for me, relaxes me. You know, I get that there’s other things I ought to be doing. But that’s an example of something that would get in the way. So that’s category one. And category two, is that now I have 4 teenagers, they will have their own impulses to talk, typically at night. So we’re together all the time. In theory, it could be done at any time. But that’s not when they suddenly feel like chatting. So it’s, of course it’s inconvenient. But in that moment, yes, I’m going and of course I can say hey, let’s schedule this time and do it some other time. But actually, the moment is where it’s happening when it’s happening. So I struggle with that. And you know, and so it’s typically then pushes it later,

Nir Eyal     

Let’s talk about you. This is this is Yeah, this is wonderful. So the number one reason was, was you start watching something that’s relaxing that you get into and then watching that show on Netflix or whatever, it kind of goes a little over time, or you have that one last email or whatever. This is why timeboxing is so important. There’s nothing wrong with watching that TV show. Nothing wrong with it. But you can’t watch the TV show and be available to your kids and go to bed on time all at the same time. You have to make a choice based on your constraints, you only have so many dollars in your bank account to spend, you only have so many minutes in the day. So there’s nothing wrong with watching Netflix. But schedule it, schedule it know when it’s going to happen. If you say to yourself, Look, my values, the promise I’m making to myself is that I will get to bed on time at 10pm. It has to be scheduled. Okay. You also need to do by the way we skipped step one, which is mastering those internal triggers. And what do I do when I don’t feel like it? By the way, that’s the number one reason we don’t do what we say we’re going to do. I don’t feel like exercising, I don’t feel like going to bed on time. I don’t feel like working on that project. I don’t feel like it. It’s feeling so that’s super important. We can talk more about that. Next, we’re going to schedule that time. Third, we’re going to hack back the external triggers. We didn’t get to talk about this much super important. removing those external triggers, making sure we hack back whether the external trigger is your phone notifications. Your kids can be external triggers. There’s a million different external triggers and we have to go systematically to remove them. Finally is a packed right there are many different packs we can make price packed and effort packed and an identity pack which we talked about a little bit earlier. One of the things we did in my household was an effort packed because I had this exact same problem. I would just want to check one more email or just watch a few minutes more of one show. And so you know we did my household. We got ourselves and an outlet. timer. And anything you plug into this outlet timer will turn on or off anything you plug into it a certain time of day or night. What do we plug into it? Our internet router. So every night at 10pm, our internet shuts off. Automatically, it’s a pact. It’s a promise we made for ourselves. Now this by the way is the fourth and final step, you have to do the other steps. First, you have to master internal triggers make time for traction hack back external triggers first. But as that last line of defense of You know what, I’m going to make myself a promise right now, and I’m of sound body and mind, I don’t want to watch TV shows past 10 o’clock, that is against my values. It’s against my values. So I want you Greg to put in after dinner in your calendar available for my kids. That’s what I want that heading to be from, you know, 830 till 10 or 930 until you start brushing your teeth or whatever available for my children. It’s held.

Greg McKeown     

So you are saying in summary, that what I need to do is be clear, so clear about my values that I have a routine, a schedule, a dream routine, a time block schedule, that I have carefully considered the tradeoffs involved. And in this case, I am putting onto the schedule buffer for my teenagers to come and talk to me. So I say hey listen I am going to be available from this time to this time for you. You want to come and talk, you want to debrief, this is when to do it. We’re going to put it on the calendar, I am going to be there for you and we are going to hold to that commitment. Instead of you coming in at 11 at 1130 at midnight, whatever to come and just because this is when you, you know spontaneously a feeling like it. I am totally willing to try the experiment. And I am optimistic that it could really help. What is your guidance for when you’ve scheduled that time. Maybe you’ve talked about it, you get to the 10 o’clock, there’s still a lot more they need to talk about or want to talk about. They’re trying to process things that are important things. Do I say it’s 10 o’clock, we can talk about tomorrow in the time slot that we have available for this. You know, you get to bed, I’m gonna get to bed. They don’t go to bed. What do I do, in either those scenarios?

Nir Eyal     

Not only is this good for you, it’s very good for them. To do exactly what you described Why? And this it’s amazing how analogous this situation is to the workplace. Because remember the reason that your kids are coming to you at 11 and not at nine. The reason your boss is tapping you on the shoulder disturbing you when you need to focus on your work is for this very same reasons. They have their own internal triggers. So this is a conversation we have with our kids and saying, look, this is really important for my physiological and psychological well-being, I need proper rest, my brain requires time to sleep. Your brain as a teenager requires even more sleep. I do not want to cheat you out of that time. So we have to stick to a schedule. Now, tomorrow, let me take out my calendar real quick. And let’s talk about tomorrow. Okay, tomorrow, I would love to make time to continue this conversation. But right now, it’s not the time because there’s a higher priority that I’ve committed to already. If you don’t teach them this skill, Greg, they will find something or another to always put as more important, right, in this minute, oh, this conversation is super important.

Greg McKeown   

The piece that I like, and I’m going to take the commitment to go and do is that actually scheduling it the next day? It’s not that hey, listen, let’s talk about it tomorrow. Because it’s such a vague commitment. And you know, through experience that, that I know from experience, they know from experience, that doesn’t always happen just because you say hey, we’re gonna get to them tomorrow. It’s just one of many commitments will have many things that are going on. So so being more calendar intentional, and actually blocking that time so that you are grappling with those tradeoffs right now. Yeah, rather than in the moment. I’m highly optimistic will be helpful. And I’m going to do this. And I’m going to report back to see how it how it goes. Please do I would love that.

Nir Eyal     

I really, truly think that that you can do this that your listeners can do this. And it’s even more important that we teach our kids to do this, right. Because, you know, as I mentioned earlier, the world is becoming a more distracting place and is bifurcating into people, especially in their generation, who will float around and say I want to do this and I wonder that I wonder this and they don’t live the kind of life they want according to their values. So it’s absolutely essential. We teach them how to be in distractible as well. Yeah,

Greg McKeown     

we have we have if we had another hour would put the world astrides It’s been a pleasure to talk to you and thank you for being on the Watson central podcast.

Nir Eyal    My pleasure, Greg. Thanks for having me.


Greg McKeown

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