How to Manage Distractions and Become More Productive

You know how you strive to stay productive during the day…only to get sidetracked by the notifications on your phone or the donuts in your kitchen? If you’ve ever felt like you could be so much more productive if only those distractions would quiet down, then get ready to feel empowered.

I invited Nir Eyal – author of Indistractible: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life – to join me on the Modern Mentor podcast today. Nir's research has uncovered tons of actionable advice on how to take back the reins and stay in the zone of productivity. 

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 was dubbed “The Prophet of Habit-Forming Technology” by M.I.T. Technology Review and Bloomberg Businessweek wrote, “Nir Eyal is the habits guy. Want to understand how to get app users to come back again and again? Then Eyal is your man.” 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.

You’ll want to hear Nir’s story firsthand – in which case you’ll need to listen to our interview. But in summary, we talked about the importance of noting and managing our internal triggers (like boredom, anxiety, or loneliness) in order to manage our relationship with external triggers (like technology, food, drink, or anything that temps us away from our focus). And more importantly, he shares how he does this – and suggests how you might do the same.

Here are some of the big ideas we covered:

Begin by understanding distraction

“The best way to understand what distraction is is to understand what distraction is not…The opposite of the word ‘distraction’ is ‘traction.'” Traction is the thing that pulls us toward the action we want to be taking, and distraction is the thing that pulls us away.

Any action can be traction or distraction. The key is in your intent.

If you’re trying to stay focused on getting that report written but your fingers keep hitting that refresh button on your Insta feed, then technology has become a distraction. However, if your plan was to finish the report and then reward yourself with 20 minutes of scrolling, then your scrolling has become your traction. Because you set and intention and you executed it.

Technology isn’t always the enemy. It’s all about...

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