Indistractable

Metadata

• Author: Nir Eyal
• Full Title:: Indistractable
• Category:: 📚Books
• Finished date:: 2023-02-02

Highlights

Somehow, I kept getting distracted, even without the tech that I thought was the source of the problem. (Location 158)

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)

Simply put, the drive to relieve discomfort is the root cause of all our behaviour, while everything else is a proximate cause. (Location 321)

knew that even my best efforts couldn’t guarantee a good outcome for either my marriage or the job market, and in hindsight, I can see that Striiv (Location 350)

gave me something I could control and succeed at.’ (Location 351)

without dealing with the discomfort driving the desire for escape, we’ll continue to resort to one distraction or another. (Location 358)

Anything that stops discomfort is potentially addictive, (Location 373)

the only way to handle distraction is by learning to handle discomfort. (Location 379)

we can take solace in knowing we are hardwired for this sort of dissatisfaction. Sorry to say, but the odds are that you and I are never going to be fully satisfied with our lives. (Location 385)

Hedonic adaptation – the tendency to return quickly to a baseline level of satisfaction no matter what happens to us in life (Location 422)

To harness its power, we must disavow the misguided idea that if we’re not happy we’re not normal – exactly the opposite is true. (Location 439)

it’s exactly what survival of the fittest intended. (Location 441)

From that place of acceptance, we stand a chance of avoiding the pitfalls of our psyches. We can recognise pain and rise above it, (Location 442)

The ‘ironic’ part of the ironic process theory is the fact that relief of the tension of wanting makes relieving it all the more rewarding, and therefore habit-forming. (Location 475)

By relinquishing our notions about what fun should feel like, we open ourselves up to seeing tasks in a new way. (Location 574)

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)

Play doesn’t have to be pleasurable. It just has to hold our attention. (Location 617)

signs of ego depletion were observed only in those test subjects who believed willpower was a limited resource. (Location 647)

wasn’t the sugar in the lemonade but the belief in its impact that gave participants an extra boost. (Location 649)

Just as we don’t ‘run out’ of joy or anger, willpower ebbs and flows based on what’s happening to us and how we feel. (Location 656)

Rather than telling ourselves we failed because we’re somehow deficient, we should offer self-compassion by speaking to ourselves with kindness when we experience setbacks. (Location 678)

An individual’s level of self-compassion had a greater effect on whether they would develop anxiety and depression than all the usual things that tend to screw up people’s lives, (Location 685)

we can change the way we talk to ourselves in order to harness the power of self-compassion. (Location 687)

Telling yourself, ‘This is what it’s like to get better at something’ and ‘You’re on your way’ is a healthier way to handle self-doubt. (Location 696)

We unintentionally spend too much time in one area of our life at the expense of others. (Location 742)

mile-long to-do list torment us with too many choices. (Location 761)

Just as you wouldn’t blow off a meeting with your boss, so you should never bail on appointments you make with yourself. After all, who’s more critical to helping you live the kind of life you want than you yourself? (Location 812)

if I woke up I’d repeat a simple mantra: ‘The body gets what the body needs.’ (Location 836)

The takeaway is that, when it comes to our time, we should stop worrying about outcomes we can’t control and instead focus on the inputs we can. The positive results of the time we spend doing something is a hope, not a certainty. The one thing we control is the time we put into a task. (Location 843)

Not showing up guarantees failure. (Location 848)

the real problem is more often not giving ourselves time to do what we say we will. (Location 849)

satisfying friendships need three things: ‘Somebody to talk to, someone to depend on, and someone to enjoy.’ (Location 922)

‘the mere presence of one’s smartphone may impose a “brain drain” as limited-capacity attentional resources are recruited to inhibit automatic attention to one’s phone, (Location 1097)

people schedule a meeting to save themselves from having to make the effort of solving a problem for themselves. (Location 1368)

I never read articles in my web browser. (Location 1580)

Every time I go to the gym or take a long walk, I get to listen to articles read to me through the Pocket app’s text-to-speech capabilities. (Location 1624)

While Taylor was away, I signed up at FocusMate.com and was paired with a Czech medical school student named Martin. (Location 1795)

They did, however, find two particular conditions that predicted a higher likelihood of developing depression at work. ‘It doesn’t so much matter what you do, but rather the work environment you do it in,’ (Location 2023)

single generation? According to Graham’s theory, people adopted social antibodies to protect themselves, (Location 2697)

‘I see you’re on your phone. Is everything OK?’ (Location 2707)