How to Beat Distraction and Still Enjoy Life (ft. Nir Eyal)
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Podcast
Mark Manson
4.8 • 3.8K Ratings
🗓️ 9 October 2024
⏱️ 63 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why can’t we just do the things we know we should do? It’s a simple question with a very complex answer.
To help us answer it, I sat down with my old friend, Nir Eyal, a behavioral design expert and author of the best-selling book, Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life.
I love Nir’s approach because he doesn’t linger on the surface of the problem of distraction by hocking the latest app or hack or fancy new time management method. Instead, he dives right into the thorny emotional realities we all face in trying to lead productive, meaningful lives.
In this episode, we talk about what it means to be “indistractable” and how it’s probably the most important skill of the 21st century. We also get Nir’s take on the role of social media in our lives (his views on this might surprise you). And finally, he answers that timeless question: Why don’t we just do what we know we should do?
Enjoy.
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About Nir Eyal
Nir Eyal writes, consults, and teaches about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. Nir previously taught as a Lecturer in Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford.
He is the author of two bestselling books, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. His books have resonated with readers worldwide, selling over 1 million copies in over 30 languages.
Nir’s book, Indistractable: http://geni.us/indistractable
Nir on time boxing: https://www.nirandfar.com/timeboxing/
Nir on values: https://www.nirandfar.com/common-values/
Nir’s free schedule maker: https://www.nirandfar.com/schedule-maker/
More articles by Nir: https://www.nirandfar.com/best-articles/
Follow Nir on social media:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nireyal/
https://www.youtube.com/user/nirandfar
https://www.facebook.com/nirandfar/
2:02 The F*ck of the Week: Becoming Indistractable
23:04 Brilliant or Bullsh*t: The Social Dilemma
44:20 Q&A: How do I get myself to do the things I know I should do?
Theme music: “Icarus Lives” by Periphery, used with permission from Periphery.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So most people don't know this writing a book is almost impossibly hard like it just |
| 0:06.5 | requires an insane amount of focus over such a long period of time like you're |
| 0:11.3 | literally spending months and months and months by yourself, |
| 0:14.9 | struggling, sitting by yourself, nothing keeping you in that chair other than your desire to |
| 0:20.5 | finish this impossible project. So as you would expect, |
| 0:24.4 | distraction plays a really big role in book writing. |
| 0:27.3 | And it just so happens. |
| 0:29.3 | I was having such a hard time with my second book that a friend of mine who was also writing a book |
| 0:36.4 | and struggling with distraction we decided to start getting together and |
| 0:40.6 | co-writing together and holding each other accountable. |
| 0:42.8 | And so it turns out my accountability buddy who got me through my second book, |
| 0:47.4 | near I-all, is here. |
| 0:49.7 | And irony of ironies, the book he was writing when we were writing together is called |
| 0:55.0 | Indestractable and it's about how to resist distraction so near I noticed in |
| 1:01.0 | your book there was nothing about me and I I clearly you know as as the |
| 1:09.5 | person who cured your distractions I was a little bit hurt by that. That's actually not true. No, you need to give another pass. Actually in the section on PACT. We talk about price packs. He got you. |
| 1:22.0 | Where you make this pre-commitment where you decide in advance what the consequences |
| 1:26.2 | will be if you don't do what you say you're going to do. |
| 1:28.6 | It's the last step, very important you don't do that first, but as the last line of defense, you can do these packs, there's different kinds of packs. |
| 1:35.4 | And one of those packs is a price pack, and I actually talk about in the book, |
| 1:38.1 | how we made that $10,000 bet that if I didn't finish my book by January 1st, I was going to have to pay you $10,000. |
| 1:45.0 | Damn it, near, you're making me look like an asshole. |
... |
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