Indistractable

Indistractable

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Highlights

Internal triggers cue us from within. When we feel our belly growl, we look for a snack. When we’re cold, we find a coat to warm up. And when we’re sad, lonely or stressed, we might call a friend or loved one for support. — location: 222

External triggers, on the other hand, are cues in our environment that tell us what to do next, like the pings, dings and rings that prompt us to check our email, answer a phone call or open a news alert. External triggers can also take the form of other people, such as a co-worker who stops by our desk. They can also be objects, like a television set whose mere presence urges us to turn it on. — location: 224

Though some of these things seem dull in comparison to today’s enticements, distractions are and always will be a fact of life. — location: 234

In 1971, the psychologist Herbert A. Simon wrote presciently, ‘the wealth of information means a dearth of something else … a poverty of attention’. — location: 238

Researchers tell us attention and focus are the raw materials of human creativity and flourishing. — location: 239

Tantalus’ curse was his blindness to the fact he didn’t need those things in the first place. That’s the real moral of the story. — location: 250

We want companies to innovate and solve our evolving needs, yet we must also ask whether better products bring out the best in us. — location: 255

It is any action that moves you away from what you really want. — location: 262

Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher, put it best: ‘By pleasure,’ he wrote, ‘we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul.’ — location: 319

We tend to blame things like television, junk food, social media, cigarettes and video games – but these are all proximate causes of our distraction. — location: 334

Solely blaming a smartphone for causing distraction is just as flawed as blaming a pedometer for making someone climb too many stairs. — location: 335

Distraction, it turns out, isn’t about the distraction itself; rather, it’s about how we respond to it. — location: 338

Distraction is about more than your devices. Separate proximate causes from the root cause. — location: 369

Anything that stops discomfort is potentially addictive, but that doesn’t make it irresistible. — location: 373

Why are we perpetually restless and unsatisfied? — location: 381

‘If satisfaction and pleasure were permanent, there might be little incentive to continue seeking further benefits or advances.’ — location: 391

If you’ve ever chewed over something in your mind that you did, or someone did to you, over and over again, seemingly unable to stop thinking about it, you’ve experienced rumination. — location: 415

Even selfless acts, like helping someone, are motivated by our need to escape feelings of guilt and injustice. — location: 436

It’s good to know that feeling bad isn’t actually bad; it’s exactly what survival of the fittest intended. — location: 441

Distractions cost us time, and, like all actions, they are spurred by the desire to escape discomfort. — location: 446

If we want to master distraction, we must learn to deal with discomfort. — location: 451

turns out mental abstinence can backfire. — location: 466

Resisting an urge can trigger rumination and make the desire grow stronger. — location: 503

Step 1: Look for the discomfort that precedes the distraction, focusing in on the internal trigger — location: 512

Step 2: Write down the trigger — location: 517

Step 3: Explore your sensations — location: 527

Do you get a flurry of butterflies in your stomach when you think about work when you’re with your family? — location: 529

Bricker encourages staying with the feeling before acting on the impulse. — location: 530

When feeling the uncomfortable internal trigger to do something you’d rather not, ‘imagine you are seated beside a gently flowing stream’, he says. ‘Then imagine there are leaves floating down that stream. Place each thought in your mind on each leaf. It could be a memory, a word, a worry, an image. And let each of those leaves float down that stream, swirling away, as you sit and just watch.’ — location: 534

Step 4: Beware of liminal moments — location: 537

Liminal moments are transitions from one thing to the other throughout our day. Have you ever picked up your phone while waiting for a traffic light to change, then found yourself still looking at your phone while driving? Or opened a tab in your web browser, got annoyed by how long it’s taking to load and opened up another page while you waited? Or looked at a social media app while walking from one meeting to the next, only to keep scrolling when you got back to your desk? There’s nothing wrong with any of these actions per se. Rather, what’s dangerous is the fact that by doing them ‘for just a second’ we’re likely to do things we later regret, like getting off-track for half an hour or getting into a car accident. — location: 537

This rule allows time to do what some behavioural psychologists call ‘surfing the urge’. — location: 548

When an urge takes hold, noticing the sensations and riding them like a wave – neither pushing them away nor acting on them – helps us cope until the feelings subside. — location: 549

If we still want to perform the action after ten minutes of urge surfing, we’re free to do it, — location: 552

Techniques like surfing the urge and thinking of our cravings as leaves on a stream are mental skill-building exercises that can help us stop impulsively giving in to distractions. — location: 554

They recondition our minds to seek relief from internal triggers in a reflective rather than a reactive way. — location: 555

Step 1. Look for the emotion preceding distraction. • Step 2. Write down the internal trigger. • Step 3. Explore the negative sensation with curiosity instead of contempt. • Step 4. Be extra cautious during liminal moments. — location: 562

Imagine how powerful you’d feel if you were able to transform the hard, focused work you have to do into something that felt like play. — location: 578

Instead of running away from our pain or using rewards like prizes and treats to help motivate us, the idea is to pay such close attention that you find new challenges you didn’t see before. — location: 586

We can use the same neural hardwiring that keeps us hooked to media to keep us engaged in an otherwise unpleasant task. — location: 591

Bogost gives the example of mowing his lawn. ‘It may seem ridiculous to call an activity like this “fun”, ’ he writes, yet he learned to love it. Here’s how: ‘First, pay close, foolish, even absurd attention to things.’ For Bogost, this meant soaking up as much information as he could about the way grass grows and how to treat it. Then, he created an ‘imaginary playground in which the limitations . . . produce[d]; meaningful experiences’. He learned about the constraints he had to operate under, including his local weather conditions and what different kinds of equipment can and can’t do. Operating under constraints, Bogost says, is the key to creativity and fun. Finding the optimal path for the mower or beating a record time are other ways to create an imaginary playground. — location: 592

‘The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.’ — location: 603

Fun is looking for the variability in something other people don’t notice. It’s breaking through the boredom and monotony to discover its hidden beauty. — location: 606

finding novelty is only possible when we give ourselves the time to focus intently on a task and look hard for the variability. — location: 609

Whether it’s uncertainty about our ability to do a task better or faster than last time or coming back to challenge the unknown day after day, the quest to solve these mysteries is what turns the discomfort we seek to escape with distraction into an activity we embrace. — location: 610

We can master internal triggers by reimagining an otherwise dreary task. — location: 615

The way we perceive our temperament, which is defined as ‘a person’s or animal’s nature, especially as it permanently affects their behaviour’,1 has a profound impact on how we behave. — location: 622