The Diary of a CEONo.1 Habit & Procrastination Expert: We've Got ADHD Wrong! Break Any Habit & Never Be Distracted!
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,471 words- 0:00 – 2:02
Intro
- SBSteven Bartlett
What's your thoughts on ADHD?
- NENir Eyal
Oof, this is a big topic, and I'm probably gonna get myself in trouble here, but there's something fishy going on. We can get to that. Near IL-
- SBSteven Bartlett
One of the world's leading experts in procrastination-
- NENir Eyal
... named the prophet of habit forming- Talking about how to keep focus, how to set the right goals.
- SBSteven Bartlett
This is a must listen.
- NENir Eyal
Avoiding distraction is the key to not living with regret. 90% of the time that we get distracted, it's not because of what's happening outside of us, it's because of what's happening inside of us. If you can't sit with a friend without looking at your phone every three minutes, it's not the phone. It's your inability to deal with the discomfort of silence or boredom. All human behavior is driven by a desire to escape discomfort. It's not hard to do something you enjoy, but it's how do I do the stuff that I really don't feel like doing it? I found this technique, and thousands of studies have shown this to be very effective. If you don't master that, everything else becomes much more difficult, if not impossible. So the first step is-
- SBSteven Bartlett
The number of people being diagnosed with ADHD has significantly risen. ADHD is a very real thing that can be debilitating for people that suffer with it.
- NENir Eyal
ADHD is real, but I have a lot of concerns. 10% of children in the United States are diagnosed with ADHD. In Europe, it's 1%. That's a big red flag. Training a generation to believe that solutions come in pill bottles. We do not weight how dangerous those pills can be. They have consequences. The whole chemical imbalance theory, no psychiatrist will tell you that's true. Scientifically false. Skills before pills. And what I hate about a lot of people in the ADHD community, they feel like it's an identity, and that is so dangerous. We need to look at ADHD as-
- SBSteven Bartlett
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- 2:02 – 10:21
Being indistractable
- SBSteven Bartlett
Near, it is very good to see you again, because I have to admit, you've changed my life. But you also changed my father's life. You're the reason my father quit smoking. I've told this story maybe once or twice before, but once upon a time, I came home from, for Christmas, and I left your first book, Hooked, in his bathroom. He picked that book up once I'd left, read it, understood habit loops, and from that moment, he took steps which led- led him to quit smoking. So I have to say thank you. But also, you've been on this podcast once before, a long, long time ago, when not many people were listening. And from that conversation, there were small nuggets which have stayed with me every day since. My first question to you, Near, for people that have just clicked onto this podcast and that are thinking about whether to listen or not, can you tell me who should listen, why they should listen, and yeah, what value they're going to gain from listening to the conversation we're about to have?
- NENir Eyal
Yeah. So first of all, thank you for having me. It's an honor to be back for the second episode. I think the reason to listen is because regret sucks. Having regret in your life is awful. And so what I want to minimize with the work I do, and frankly, I write for myself more than anyone else, I try and solve my own problems, is I don't want to look back on my life with regret, not for a day, not for a month, not for a y-, a year, not for a lifetime, certainly. And so avoiding distraction is the key to not living with regret. Because we all basically know what to do, right? We know we should exercise. We know we should eat right. We know we should spend quality time with our family. We know we should do the hard work that we have to do to move our careers forward. But many times, we don't do it, even though we know what to do. And if you don't know what to do, Google it. It's all out there, right? So the problem is not that we don't know what to do. The problem is, we keep getting in our own way. And so it's really about becoming indistractable. This is how we live the kind of lives we deserve.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You described becoming indistractable on Twitter as the single most important skill that anybody in the 21st century can adopt and learn.
- NENir Eyal
Yeah, and I- I think it's the macro skill, right? Because there's no facet of your life that is not affected by your ability to control your attention. So whether it's learning a new skill, whether it's getting into relationships, whether it's business, whether it's physical fitness, all of these things depend on your ability to follow through. And so that's why I think it's a skill of the century, that if you, if you don't master that skill, everything else becomes much more difficult, if not impossible. But if you do, if you can become indistractable, you know, I made up the word indistractable. It's meant to sound like indestructible. It's meant to be a superpower. It's meant to be, uh, a- a trait that we want in order to achieve our dreams. And so it's- it's, you know, my goal was not to tell people what to do, right? I'm not gonna say, "You need to exercise, you need to live right, you need to do this, you need to do that." That's not my goal at all. If you wanna play video games, uh, for your waking hours, that's fine with me. What I want to help people do is do the things that they themselves want to do. Whatever it is that you say you want to do with your time and attention, that's what I wanna help you do.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So why don't we do what we want to do? Because you- as you say, the information's all out there. We have Google, we have all of these books, we have podcasts like this. But regardless of, you know, we've had loads of health podcasts in a row on- on this show, where we've had the best health experts from all around the world. And I'm sure there's people that have listened to those episodes have heard, "Don't eat sugar. Don't do this, don't do this."
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
"Do this, do this, do this."
- NENir Eyal
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But they're still at home struggling now to turn that intention into behavior. What is standing in our way? What's getting in our way?
- NENir Eyal
Yeah, so I wish I could give you a- a one sentence answer, but let me back up and- and kind of frame this a bit. So the best way to understand what distraction is, is to understand what distraction is not. And to do that, we have to start with what the wo- where the word comes from. So the word distraction comes from this Latin root traharo, which means to pull. And, uh, if you notice that the- the- the opposite of- of distraction is not focus. Many people say, "I don't wanna be distracted, I wanna be focused," but that's not the opposite of the word. The opposite of distraction is traction.... that both words end in the same six letters, A-C-T-I-O-N. That spells action, reminding us that distraction is not something that happens to us, it is an action we ourselves take. So we have traction, we have distraction. Traction is any action that pulls us towards what we say we're going to do, things that move us closer to our values, help us become the kind of person we want to become. Those are acts of traction. The opposite of traction, distraction, is any action that pulls us away from what we plan to do, farther from our goals, farther from becoming the person we want to become. So, this is really important. This isn't just semantics, because I would argue that any action that you do with intent, anything that is planned ahead, anything that involves forethought, is traction. So there's a lot of talk today about how, you know, social media is melting our brains and video games are bad for you. I- I- I don't- I don't agree. I think that anything that you plan to do with your time and attention, as long as it's done with intent, is fine. That becomes an act of traction, as long as it's planned for with intent. As Dorothy Parker said, "The time you plan to waste is not wasted time." Now, just because something is a work-related task doesn't mean it's not a distraction. In fact, that's the worst kind of distraction, because these distractions trick you into not even realizing you're getting distracted. I'll- I'll give you a perfect example. For years, I would sit down at my desk, I would take out my to-do list... By the way, we can talk about later why to-do lists are one of the worst things you can do for your personal productivity. We can get to that. I would sit down at my desk and I would say, "Okay, I've got that big project that I need to work on right now. Nothing's gonna get in my way. I'm gonna stay focused. Here I go, I'm gonna get started. But first, let me check some email." Right? "Let me just scroll that Slack channel. Let me just do that, uh, one thing on my to-do list, that easy task, just to get started here, just to get the rhythm going," right? "I'm- I'm, you know, it's a work-related task." And what I didn't realize that that is the most pernicious form of distraction, the distraction that you don't even realize is happening. Because if it's not what you said you were going to do in advance with your time and attention, it is, by definition, a distraction, right? So, what we tend to do is we prioritize the easy work, we prioritize the urgent work, as opposed to the hard and important work we have to do to move our lives and careers forward. So, just because it's a work-related task doesn't mean it's a distraction. That's the most awful type of distraction. It's not the video games, it's not the social media, it's the distractions we don't even know are distracting us from what we said we would do with our time. So, now we've got traction, we've got distraction. Now, the other two parts of the model involve what we call triggers. Triggers are these things that prompt us to action. We have two kinds of triggers. External triggers are things in our outside environment. These are things that we tend to blame, like cellphones and, uh, uh, our computers and all the pings, dings and rings in our life. But studies find that those account for only 10% of our distractions. Only 10% are caused by these external triggers. So, what's the other 90%? 90% of the time that we get distracted is not because of what's happening outside of us, it's because of what's happening inside of us. These are called internal triggers. Internal triggers are these uncomfortable emotional states that we seek to escape. And so that's the first step to becoming indistractable and answers your question around why, by and large, even though despite knowing what to do, we don't do it. It's because all of these problems are an emotion regulation problem, that, in fact, time management is pain management. I would argue weight management is pain management. Money management is pain management. In fact, all human behavior, all human behavior, is about a desire to escape discomfort, and then answers your question around why don't we just do what we say we're going to do? It's because we don't realize that these are always emotion regulation problems. So, that's the first step to becoming indistractable, is mastering the internal triggers. Then, the second step, we talked about traction earlier, making time for traction. The third step, hacking back the external triggers, and then finally, preventing distraction with pacts. And so that's the- that's the model, th- these four steps. And then, of course, we can go in as much depth as you like. But if you understand these four fundamental steps, and this is what took me five years writing this book, namely because I kept getting distracted, right? I was very distractible myself when I wrote the book, for me, as I mentioned earlier. Uh, but it was when I boiled down the- the- the, you know, hundreds of studies and research, and you can see there's 35 pages of citations in the book. Uh, it wasn't until I- I could kind of solidify this model that I could make it practical enough to change lives. It certainly did mine.
- 10:21 – 17:37
4 steps to avoid distractions
- NENir Eyal
- SBSteven Bartlett
One of the things this podcast has taught me, from speaking to all these people across multiple fields, is that sometimes we can feel like our body, our wiring is against us.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Especially as it relates to health, right? So, you know, we know sugar is bad, so why does our brain send us these cravings to go and eat sugar? And in the case of distractions and sort of behavioral psychology, I know instinctively and intuitively that distractions, like hanging out on TikTok for an hour, is bad, but my brain is doing it. What does that tell us about how we should go about adopting behavior change?
- NENir Eyal
Yeah. So that's why it's- it's really about this holistic model. So like, that's what took me the most time to figure out was, what are the four mandatory components of living without regret-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- NENir Eyal
... of doing what you say you're going to do? So, the first step is mastering these internal triggers, figuring out why you feel this way, right? What is that underlying sensation? So, if you're trying to avoid that- that chocolate bar, well, it might be hunger, or it might not be hunger, right? So, I used to be clinically obese, and I'll tell you what, I did not eat, uh, to excess because I was hungry. I was eating to a excess because I was lonely. I was eating to a- excess because I was bored. I was eating to excess because I felt guilty about how much I had just eaten. It wasn't just about the hunger, right? Very few people who are obese are just hungry all the time. That's not what's going on. It's because we're eating our feelings. That's what's happening. So, that's the first step. We have to understand the deeper reason.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How did you understand that?
- NENir Eyal
Um, a- a lot of work (laughs) . A lot of, uh, figuring out stuff in my life to- to help me understand that. And I think actually that's where my fascination with what I do today in terms of, you know, it's the same exact reason that we would overdo, uh, our use of technology. It's...... and not the technology's fault, guys. I hate to tell you this. I wish I could blame Zuckerberg and TikTok, but these are just tools, right? And then before those, there were other tools. It was, they used to call our generation couch potatoes, and before that, it was the radio was the moral panic, and before that it was comic books. There's always some moral panic around, "Oh, this is melting our brains," because we don't want to face the facts that we are looking for escape-
- SBSteven Bartlett
From?
- NENir Eyal
... these internal triggers, right? Time management is pain management. All human behavior is driven by a desire to escape discomfort. So when you realize that, that, "You know what? I was just unable to deal with these sensations in a, in a healthful way that moved me towards traction, I was trying to escape them with distraction," it's not until you understand what sensations you're trying to escape from that you can deal with them. If you can't sit around the table with a friend without looking at your phone every three minutes, it's not the phone. It's your inability to deal with the discomfort of maybe having silence or boredom or whatever else is going on in your life. So that has to be the first step. It's not the only step, but that's the first step.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'm really compelled by, really interested in how you figured out the thing you were trying to escape from, because I think that's the starting point, which is a very difficult starting point for most people.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
They can see the sort of compulsive behavior that's maybe making them live outside of their values or causing them to excessively eat or excessively watch porn or-
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... whatever it might be, but diagnosing the root cause of that is a difficult thing to do. Most of us don't know what we don't know, and-
- NENir Eyal
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Uh, you know.
- NENir Eyal
A- it is and it isn't. It, I mean, I'm, I'm not... Uh, you don't have to go to therapy, not there's anything wrong with it. If it's helpful, please do it. But that's not a requirement. Something as simple as, you know, so whenever I work, uh, I have n- on my desk, I have a, a little Post-It note and a pen handy, and when I get distracted or when I even feel the sense of distraction, just noting down, down that sensation, just writing down what is it that I felt right before the distraction. So I write every day, and all I wanna do when I write, you know this, right? When you write, all you wanna do is go Google something or do some research or go check email for a quick sec, or let me just find that one thing that might be... And they're all distractions. They're all taking you away from the core thing you need to do, which you said you would do, which is write. And so if I can just pause for a second and reflect on what was that sensation that I was feeling right before? It was boredom, it was anxiety, it was fearfulness, it was uncertainty. Just writing it down is an incredible first step towards gaining power over that discomfort. Because then you can start to identify it, and so what I'll do many times is just pause to reflect on, wait a minute, w- w- what's going on there, right? What, what is that sensation? Because then you can begin to do what's called reframing the trigger. So now when I feel the sensation of wanting to get distracted, I say, "You know what? What's going on here? Okay, I'm, I'm feeling this sensation because I'm stressed. Why am I stressed? Because this is really important to me. I wanna get this right for my readers and for myself." And so reframing it as not a negative, but something that happens, uh, not to me, but for me, that that sensation is a sign that I can listen to. I think most of us, we think when we feel this discomfort, that's happening to us, right? But it's not. It's happening for us. It's a signal for us to listen to. Now, how we interpret it is up to us, and that's where the magic happens. If you interpret it as something that is harmful, as dangerous, that you need to escape, right? You don't wanna feel that uncomfortable sensation-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- NENir Eyal
... you look for distraction. But what we find is that high performers across every field, when you think about the arts, when you think about sports, business, high performers, when they feel those internal triggers, they experience the same internal triggers the rest of us do. They experience loneliness and stress and anxiety, just like everyone else does. But they deal with it by using it as rocket fuel to push them towards traction, whereas distractible people, as soon as they feel that discomfort, they try and escape it with distraction. That's the big difference.
- SBSteven Bartlett
That's one of the things that you said to me when we f- when we spoke last time that really has had a profound impact on my life, specifically around the area of procrastination.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You said about that which is like p- taking a moment to pause and ask yourself what the, which psychological discomfort you're trying to escape from in the moment, and then that second step. So now I'm clear. I'm trying not to do this book because this particular chapter, I just don't feel that competent on. I don't feel like I've researched it. It's making my brain feel a bit hot thinking about it. I reframe it and go, "Okay, so I've, I've understood it now." Then what do I do?
- NENir Eyal
Yeah. So step one is-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Understand it.
- NENir Eyal
... is, is, yeah, is, is, uh, under- master those internal triggers-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- NENir Eyal
... or they become your master.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- 17:37 – 27:40
10-minute rule to beat procrastination
- SBSteven Bartlett
So using-
- NENir Eyal
Start processing it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... using the book example.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I've hit chapter 12, and I just, I'm struggling with this chapter.
- NENir Eyal
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So-
- NENir Eyal
So you, step number one, you have these tools.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- NENir Eyal
Like f- or let me, maybe I can digress for a second. I'll tell you my favorite tool for mastering internal triggers. It's called the 10-minute rule. This comes from acceptance and commitment therapy. And the 10-minute rule says that you can give in to any distraction, any distraction, maybe it's smoking that cigarette if you're trying to quit, maybe it's eating that piece of chocolate cake if you're on a diet, maybe it's, uh, checking social media, whatever it is, whatever distraction, you can give in to that distraction, but not right now.You can give in in 10 minutes. Don't misunderstand, not for 10 minutes, sometimes people get it wrong. It's in 10 minutes, okay? So what does that do? What that does is we talked about psychological reactants earlier and you asked how do you, what, what do you do about psychological reactants? You're allowing yourself to acknowledge that you are in control, that you decide. What many people do is they have strict abstinence, right? Strict abstinence says, "No, I will not do it," right? "I won't eat sugar. I, I, I won't get distracted. I will do this, I will do that." As opposed to saying, "Hey, I'm an adult. I can do whatever I want. I choose not to go off track for the next 10 minutes." That's it. In 10 minutes, I can give into whatever I want. So now I'm in control. You know, the whole just say no technique turns out makes you ruminate and think about and have more discomfort around the thing you want, increasing these internal triggers, and that actually is what makes you give into that distraction. We know that with smoking actually, it's very interesting. We're finding that nicotine is less and less part of the reason people get addicted to cigarettes. It's more about the rumination around, "I, I, I want to smoke but I can't. I want to smoke but I shouldn't. I want to smoke, I want to smoke, I want to smoke. Fine. I'll finally smoke. (exhales) Now I get relief." How do we know this? If you ask smokers why do they smoke, the number one reason, it's relaxing. That makes no sense. Nicotine is a stimulant. Makes no sense, right? Why would it be relaxing? It's relaxing because finally I can stop telling myself I don't have to do it anymore. I don't have to fight with myself anymore, and that eases that psychological reactance. Ha, I can finally give in. So when you use this 10-minute rule and say, "Okay, I can give into that distraction in 10 minutes from now," what you're doing is you're establishing agency, right? Now you're in control. And we can do anything for 10 minutes, and if 10 minutes feels like too long, try the five-minute rule. The idea is that you're building that ability over time, so the 10-minute rule becomes the 12-minute rule becomes the 15-minute rule. And you're learning, wait a minute, I can actually delay gratification. Remember, all these problems of distraction are an impulse control issue. So when you teach yourself, wait a minute, okay, I can delay for five, 10 minutes, that's no big deal, you're proving to yourself, hey, I'm not addicted to these things. I'm not powerless. My brain isn't being hijacked. I do have control as long as I use these practices, right? So the 10-minute rule is a very, very effective technique. Now, when you, we were talking about budgeting that time later on.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- NENir Eyal
Okay, so when you use those techniques, that's step number one. By the way, there's a dozen other techniques that you can use. The 10-minute rule is just one of them. Later on in the day, you're going to put time in your schedule to come back to that feeling, right? I want you to literally put time in your calendar called worry time, and that's where you're going to look back at that Post-it note and worry about all the things that you thought would, that you thought you would normally have to get to throughout your day. Does that make sense? So, so I used to do this all the time. I would say, "Oh, I've got this worry. I need to wor- I need to take care of that worry right now," and that would derail me. As opposed to when I started writing down and planning for that worry time, you know what happened? Nine out of 10 of those worries and emotions and fears and thoughts melted away. They, when I, when I had a few minutes to think about them, saying, "You know what, actually, that wasn't that important. That didn't have to get done. That wasn't really a problem." Right? And the one out of 10 that really was an issue that I did need to think about, okay, now I have time to actually think about it. So one, it compartmentalizes that time so it doesn't pull you away and it lets your brain relax. Second thing it does is that it lets your brain say, "Okay, I don't have to worry about this problem right now. I can think about it later." We see this, by the way, with children. You know, many parents, there's a whole section in the book, Indistractable, on how to raise indistractable kids. And so many parents ask me about, you know, "What do I do with social media?" And this and that. And I, part of my advice is schedule time for your kids to play video games. Put it in their daily schedule. Like sit down with them and make a schedule for the day and have that time, because then they don't have to worry about all day, "When do I get to play Fortnite? When do I get to, you know, hang out with my friends online?" It's in their schedule, it's coming. They don't have to think about it all day long. And so it's the same with any of these potential distractions. We want to compartmentalize these times when we can think about them later in the day and work on them.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So what happens then? So I've compartmentalized it, I'm writing my book, I'm on chapter 12. I've got a bunch of worries pop in, I'm scheduling that for later.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, and I'm gonna crack on with the book.
- NENir Eyal
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
That's what I say to myself. That's section two of your four-step process, right?
- NENir Eyal
Right, making time for traction. So you're gonna finish that time box.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- NENir Eyal
Right? So if you said I'm gonna work on this book for 30 minutes, finish the time box. Even if you're just sitting there staring into space, right? Steven Pressfield talks about this in the War of Art, it's about putting your butt in the chair. That's what makes a professional, is you do the work.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- NENir Eyal
Right? And what you find is it's very boring for a few seconds. I had, this, this happens every time I sit down to write. There's that pause of, "You know what? Maybe I'm just not feeling it. Maybe I should just stop for a little bit." Right? You feel that?
- SBSteven Bartlett
All the time.
- NENir Eyal
All the time, right? If you just sit there, if you just stick with it, even if it's just putting your hands on the keyboard and just hanging out for a few seconds, it always comes back, right? Maybe a minute or two or 20 later, it'll come back. And if it doesn't, that's fine. Just finish that time box. That's the most important thing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Step three?
- NENir Eyal
So step three is hacking back the external triggers.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- NENir Eyal
So this is when we do talk about the usual suspects, the pings, the dings, the rings.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- NENir Eyal
That's where we, you know, very systematically go through what a lot of people complain about, but it's really only 10% of the problem, because 90% of our distractions begin from within. But people, you know, do have these issues. You know, we talk about the phone, the computer. What turns out to be a much bigger problem is not the technology, it's what the technology is attached to, right? So what if it's your boss that's the distraction? What if it's your kids that are a distraction? We love them to death, right? Our kids are great. But they can be a huge source of distraction. Meetings. Oh my God, how many stupid meetings do we have to attend that are nothing but a distraction? Especially now that Zoom makes it accessible so that wherever you are, you know, people can call meetings. Those are huge distractions. Of course, Slack channels, and that's what we get into more in the book in terms of, okay, systematically, what do you do about these various external triggers?
- 27:40 – 34:56
Prevent distraction & improve sex life
- NENir Eyal
- SBSteven Bartlett
On that point of priorities, you said that startup founders really only have one job-
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... which is to prioritize.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And that really did smack me in the face, because that's so unbelievably true.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, we have a finite amount of resources, founders. Um, we have a lot of things we wanna do. We have more things we wanna do than time in, time in a day. And creating systems, like you said, where we can sit down and reflect on our priorities is so important, because we might have an idea every day. Then we get to one month later, and there's... And our to-do list or our teams are overcome by doing the first things we said, not the most important things we've said.
- NENir Eyal
Exactly.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And a lot of the time, because of, I don't know, cognitive dissonance or pride or ego or whatever, you don't wanna throw something out that, A, people have started working on-
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... or, um, that you've, you've told them to work on.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Like, going up to your team and saying, "Okay, we're just gonna cancel that project we've just spent two weeks working on, because this is a new priority of ours," sometimes, um, sometimes can feel difficult.
- NENir Eyal
Absolutely. It's called the commitment bias, that when we commit to something... Or sunk cost fallacy.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Right.
- NENir Eyal
It's also called that. That when we have a sunk cost in something, we value it more. But of course, that's, that's silly, especially in business. I mean, this is... You know, th- I had a professor in, uh, at, at, at business school who said, um, "Every business dies for the same reason. Businesses only die for one reason: cash." They run out of cash. Cash is oxygen. Oxygen is life. And the number one cause of a business running out of cash is doing the wrong thing for too long. So being able to cut your losses and saying, "I know it feels wrong, but I know it's right in my head," that is an essential skill of every CEO, because again, you know, prioritization is your only job. And good priori- prioritiza- people who are good at prioritization make for good CEOs, and people who are bad at prioritization make for bad CEOs.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So we're on step three of the four steps.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What's step number four?
- NENir Eyal
So step four is, is preventing distraction with pacts. So pacts are these what's called a pre-commitment device. So this is what you do after the first three steps. So you, uh, master the internal triggers. You make time for traction. You hack back the external triggers. As the last line of defense, as the firewall against distraction, you're going to prevent distraction with a pact. Now, what are pacts? It's when you decide in advance what you will do to keep yourself in that task, and there's three types of pacts. We have what we call effort pacts, price pacts and identity pacts. Uh, an effort pact is when there's some bit of friction in between you and the thing you don't wanna do.So I'll, I'll... It, it's just us and your millions of, of viewers here, so I'll get a little personal, okay? Um, a few years ago, my wife and I... And again, we've been married for 22 years now. A few years ago, before I was writing this book, uh, we noticed that our sex life was suffering, that every night, we were going to bed, and I was fondling my iPhone and she was caressing her iPad, and-
- SBSteven Bartlett
You and me both.
- NENir Eyal
Right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- NENir Eyal
And we were going to bed later and later, and not only were we not getting proper sleep, we all know how important rest is, our sex life was suffering. So when I started this research, I came ac- across this, uh, the, the, the, this research around, um, the importance of these effort pacts. And I went to the hardware store and I bought us this $10 outlet timer. Now, this outlet timer, you plug into the wall, and whatever you plug into that outlet timer will turn on or off at any time of day and night. So what did we do with that? We plugged in our internet router into this timer. So every night in our household at 10:00 PM, the internet shuts off. Now, could I turn it back on? Of course I could, but I'd have to go under my desk, unplug this timer, reset it, and plug it back in. That would take effort. So I put some friction in between myself and the distraction, okay? And lo and behold, every night, we all knew, "Okay, the internet's gonna shut down at 10:00 PM, finish up whatever you need to do." And it gave me that bit of mindfulness to say, "Okay, do I really need to still, you know, check email or social media or whatever silly thing I was doing? Or is it time to do what I said I was going to do, which is get some rest, go to bed, and maybe be intimate with my wife?"
- SBSteven Bartlett
People might hear that and go, "You didn't need a s- timer to have sex with your wife."
- NENir Eyal
But I did.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- NENir Eyal
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- 34:56 – 47:33
How to become disciplined & have strong willpower
- NENir Eyal
- SBSteven Bartlett
There's a lot of... Well, just before we get into the two other pacts-
- NENir Eyal
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... um, a lot of debate over the years about this idea of willpower.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
All of... You know, just before we started recording, I said to you, I looked up all these time management techniques and I've looked at these diet fads, and there's so many of them because it appears that they... None of them really work without this-
- NENir Eyal
Mm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... underlying thing-
- NENir Eyal
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... called discipline. So you can have all the... You know, I can time box and I can... The one, two, three, four technique and the A, B, C, five technique, whatever.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But if I don't have the underlying discipline, then I'm not gonna do any of these things. Um, discipline is such an interesting word. It's-
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's... It, it kind of catches a lot of different things.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
A lot of psychological forces you've described. But... And this other theory of willpower that's sort of trundled on through the ages, that we have a limited amount of willpower-
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and if we try and do too many things at once, then we'll do none of them-
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and only take on one bad habit at once. Is there any truth to all of that stuff?
- NENir Eyal
No.
- SBSteven Bartlett
No?
- NENir Eyal
No. Willpower is not a limited resource, uh, at, at least from the latest research. You know, science isn't... Is never conclusive, but from what we know today, it seems... So a few years ago, there was this concept called ego depletion. Ego depletion is exactly what you mentioned, it's that, uh, we run out of willpower like someone would run out of battery charge on their phone, right? That... It's a depletable resource. And this concept was, was promoted and kind of widely circulated in the popular press, uh, and there were some fant- fantastical claims made that if you, uh, if you drank, uh, sugar-sweetened lemonade that you would boost your willpower, and it turns out, as often happens in the social sciences, when something sounds a little fishy, we replicate the study, we try and run the study again.And Carol Dweck, who you might know from, I- I, she's probably been on your show, um, from her book Mindset. She decided to replicate these studies. She decided to run them again, these ego depletion studies. And she found that the only people who experienced ego depletion, the only people who actually did run out of willpower, like someone w- run out of battery on their phone, the only people who experienced that were people who believed that willpower was a limited resource. That's it. So it turns out... I mean, this is, this is incredibly important because it has implications for all sorts of things in our life, right? When we believe that we are somehow deficient, that our brain is broken, that, uh, uh, the- that the world is conspiring against us to hijack our brains, when we believe these self-limiting thoughts, we act in accordance. And so it's very much the case with- with this ego depletion myth, that ego is, uh, that- that our willpower is not limited unless we believe it is.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And on this point of d- 'cause I think the word discipline is somewhat interchangeably used-
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... with, like, willpower. It's doing the thing you said you were gonna do, like, and you intended to do. I was trying to figure out what discipline is and where it comes from.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why in certain aspects of my life, like going to the gym now.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So for the last three years, I've gone to the gym about six days a week. Um, before then, I couldn't. DJing, I've started DJing, and I've done that for about 12 months. I've been disciplined with that.
- 47:33 – 53:33
The power of time allocation
- NENir Eyal
- SBSteven Bartlett
So I... You are my inspiration for starting time blocking, I've called it, but time boxing.
- NENir Eyal
Yeah, same thing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, and it's really, really been helpful specifically in times when I'm not in work.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So when I go away to write, for example, and I don't have meetings that are like, I have to do or that pop in and out, et cetera, it's been super helpful. And also, I'll be honest, it, during the pandemic was when I really, to the point that I started developing a time blocking app-
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... with a friend of mine-
- NENir Eyal
Oh, yeah?
- SBSteven Bartlett
... because it was that useful for me. The pandemic had happened. We weren't meeting anybody. We weren't having sort of in-person meetings. So I had long days, but that felt a bit more empty than usual.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So to sort of get a grasp on them and stop-
- NENir Eyal
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... them being whittled away with, by distraction, I started time blocking, and it was amazing for me. I guess one of the questions I want to ask before I, I get onto this is, do you even... So I, in my personal relationship with my girlfriend, we've been together for about four years, um, pretty much ever since we first met, me and you first met, um, it's the first time I've lived with someone. She's moved in, we live together. And one of the things that a busy lifestyle can do, and I think you've described it as well, is it can have an impact on your sex life and relationship.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Dates, date night, et cetera. So I proposed the idea to her...... because of you. (laughs)
- NENir Eyal
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
I said, "We should schedule these things, because I schedule everything else that's important to me."
- NENir Eyal
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
"So, we should schedule our date night and those kinds of things-
- NENir Eyal
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... because that's equally important to me too." And she was a bit resistant to the idea at first-
- NENir Eyal
Hm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... 'cause it- and h- her rebuttal was that it kind of takes the, you know, the spontaneity and the spice and the-
- NENir Eyal
Date night or scheduling sex? 'Cause some people schedule sex. I don't go that far. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
I wouldn't, I wouldn't go as far as scheduling sex-
- NENir Eyal
Okay.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... but it's really like, spending time together and doing stuff. She like, her- she was resistant to scheduling it because she felt that it took the, you know, the like...
- NENir Eyal
Yeah. But the, the- so there's an interesting concept. Okay. So, when I was, um... My wife and I met at university, and we met in economics class. And in this class, they discussed this concept of a residual beneficiary. A residual beneficiary in business is the person, the chump, who receives whatever's leftover when a business is sold. So, first debt holders get their share, then the equity holders. Whatever's leftover, the residual beneficiary gets, right? And after we'd been married for a few years, she sat me down, and she says, "Nir, you have turned me into the residual beneficiary."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Wow, what a thing to say. (laughs)
- 53:33 – 1:00:27
Stop burnout
- SBSteven Bartlett
(page turns) When we, um, when we do fall out of, quote-unquote, "balance" in some way, when we maybe don't have our priorities in order, or at least this is what people think, people diagnose themselves with this thing called burnout.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I've been quite intentional with my words there, 'cause I have my own opinions on burnout.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I don't really think burnout is what people think it is. People think of burnout as basically doing too much work.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I think most people, 90% of people would say that burnout is when you do too much work.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's a big topic in conversation now, this subject matter of burnout. What do you think burnout is?
- NENir Eyal
So, there's some amazing research done by, uh, two British researchers by the name of Stansfield and Candy, and they concluded that, um, a toxic work environment is not the work you do, it's the type of work you do. And so, they wanted to see... The, the, the study was, what kind of work correlates with, uh, increased rates of depression and anxiety disorders? And they found two conditions that raised the rates, the ki- uh, uh, of anxiety and depression. They're literally the kind of jobs that make you sick, psychologically. And those two conditions are high expectations, coupled with low control.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... coupled with.
- NENir Eyal
Exactly, low control. So high expectations and low control. If you have high expectations and high control, no problem. People rise to the occasion. But when you have a job with high expectations and low control, that's burnout. Why? Because it's a lack of agency. I'm expected to do all this, and I can't, right? I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying. But as much as I do, my- my- the- the- I don't have enough agency to meet these expectations.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So let's zoom in on both of those. I'm really compelled by this idea of low control.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, when people think of control, that could mean a number of things. I- i- is that the ability to make decisions for myself on how to accomplish the challenge?
- NENir Eyal
To affect the- the outcome.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- NENir Eyal
Right. So if you have, um, uh, you know, you're- you're a small cog in a big machine but you have these very high expectations, but it's- doesn't all depend on you. There are other people-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Bureaucracy.
- NENir Eyal
Exactly.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Low budgets. Decisions-
- NENir Eyal
Circumstances beyond your control that is hard- no matter how hard you work, you can't meet someone's expectations.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why? I'm trying to think from this- the psychological discomfort framework why-
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... that- that environment of high expectations, this being pulled this way, but then-
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... being suppressed on this end would cause burnout. And burnout, I guess we have to define it as that... What is it? It's the sort of psychological overwhelm which-
- NENir Eyal
It's giving up.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... which makes you give up.
- NENir Eyal
Yeah. It's, uh, I think it's because it's the- it's the definition of death, right? Schopenhauer describes life as anything that tries to affect its environment. Life is defined by something that affects its outside environment, changes where it is to its benefit in some way. That's what an- a- a live organism is. So if you cannot change your environment, you cannot change your circumstances, it feels like death, and eventually you give up. It's, uh, you- you learn helplessness, where eventually it's not worth continuing to try because you can't affect the outcomes.
- 1:00:27 – 1:10:17
Stop blaming social media
- NENir Eyal
- SBSteven Bartlett
This raises the point about responsibility, which is quite a-
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... controversial point for some reason.
- NENir Eyal
Yeah. Funny that that is, right? (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Like, why- why is it so controversial, do you think?
- NENir Eyal
I think it's this- this idea, rightfully so, of not victim-blaming. But I don't think that that is incongruous, that you don't have to blame victims, as well as saying that we should take as much responsibility as we possibly can.Um, so in, in my line of work, you know, I- I'm fairly controversial because I wrote Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. And then I wrote Indistractable about how to, uh, control your attention and choose your life. And many people see those as, as opposites, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- NENir Eyal
But I didn't write Hooked and Unhooked. I wrote Indistractable, uh, because it's about having our cake and eating it too. It's about having both. We can have the best of both worlds, uh, that we can build apps, we can build technologies that help us exercise and learn new languages and, and stay healthy. We can use these, these amazing technologies for good, but we can also find ways to not get distracted from the, from the devices or whatever the distraction might be that lead us away from what we really want. Um, but yeah, sometimes people will say, "Yeah, but that's, uh, you know, you're, you're, you're blaming the victim here. We're, that we're all victims of these technologies. The technology companies are doing it to us," right? The Social Dilemma movie tells us that our brains are being hijacked and, uh, they interviewed me for The Social Dilemma movie. Did you see it, by the way?
- SBSteven Bartlett
I did and I, yeah.
- NENir Eyal
Okay, so they interviewed me and I know you've had Johann Hari on the show, and I have big issues with, with his whole thesis because it's, it's a line around, it's not your fault. It's being done to you. And look, there is no doubt that these companies design their products to be engaging. That's the point, right? Do we want, "Hey, Netflix, stop making your show so interesting." Uh, uh, "Apple, your phones are too user-friendly," right? That's ridiculous. That's the point of these products. We want them to be engaging. We pay for the privilege of having them be engaging. So it's ridiculous to think that somehow they're gonna stop doing that. Uh, it's also ridiculous to think that the government, in all its brilliant wisdom, is going to figure out how to regulate these companies properly, right? We see every time I come to Europe-
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- NENir Eyal
... I can't use the internet because of these stupid GDPR rules that I have to constantly click Accept because I don't even know what I'm clicking on. They're so annoying. We see what happens when government tries to regulate these companies. Most of the time they're incredibly ham-fisted. So do we just sit here? I'm not, I'm not saying I'm anti-regulation, I'm for smart regulation, but in the meantime, what are we doing? We're just gonna sit here and wait, right? Please, Zuckerberg, stop addicting me. It's ridiculous. There's so much we can do, starting with not thinking we're powerless in all realms of our life. Again, even when circumstances are beyond your control, it benefits you, it behooves you to believe you do have agency, you do have control, you're going to be better off. As opposed to saying, "Well, there's nothing I can do," because what do people do when they believe they're powerless?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Quite true.
- NENir Eyal
Nothing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. It's so interesting because I had a conversation with a friend of mine last night who, um, is single.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Been single for a while.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And we were, we were huddled around, there was a couple of us, and everyone was single, um, in this circle (laughs) . I'm, I'm currently not single.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, and I saw some of that.
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I saw some of that, well, it's just, it's the nature of the modern dating world.
- NENir Eyal
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You know, like, you hear it all. "I don't want to be on these dating apps and social media doesn't work and I can't meet anybody, so it's just the way it is."
- NENir Eyal
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And you can see in that moment, like, the def- it's almost like declaring defeat.
- NENir Eyal
Well, there is agency in that as well. Remember, if, if life is defined by something that changes, is outside environment, that's a great way to say, "Well, I have agency. I decide to quit. It's in my control to, to say it's, it's impossible."
- SBSteven Bartlett
I guess so.
Episode duration: 1:41:06
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