From the archive: This episode was originally recorded and published in 2019. Our interviews on Entrepreneurs On Fire are meant to be evergreen, and we do our best to confirm that all offers and URL’s in these archive episodes are still relevant.
Nir Eyal lectured at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and his first book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, is an international bestseller and taught Silicon Valley how to design behavior. His next book, Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life, reveals the Achilles’ heel of distraction and provides a guidebook for getting the best of technology without letting it get the best of us. Nir blogs at: NirAndFar.com.
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Resources
Indistractable.com – Order your own copy of Nir’s next book today: Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life!
Nir’s Blog – Start designing habits.
3 Value Bombs
1) The antidote to impulsiveness is forethought. You can conquer destruction by planning ahead.
2) Everything you do is to escape physical or psychological discomfort, so when you procrastinate you’re always escaping an uncomfortable sensation
3) You have more power than you think, and you can become indistractable!
Sponsors
Thrivetime Show: Is this your year? Visit ThrivetimeShow.com/eofire to see how Clay Clark’s business coaching has helped thousands of entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability!
HubSpot: Learn how HubSpot can help your business grow better at HubSpot.com.
Show Notes
**Click the time stamp to jump directly to that point in the episode.
Today’s Audio MASTERCLASS: Being Indestractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life with Nir Eyal
[1:24] – Nir shares something interesting about himself that most people don’t know.
- He doesn’t have a lot of self discipline… That’s why he researches how to shape his own behavior: because he found out that self control has always been the problem for him.
[3:50] – What does indistractable mean, and what are the four steps?
- Nir describes it as the super power of the century; the macro skill that can help you accomplish whatever it is that you want in life.
- Mastering Internal Triggers
- Making time for Traction
- Hacking back the External Triggers
- Preventing Destruction with pacts
[9:03] – Nir talks about where he has found success when approaching these 4 steps.
- You will always get distracted by something unless you master Internal Triggers.
[11:23] – Nir talks about time management as pain management.
- Everything you do is to escape physical or psychological discomfort, so when you procrastinate you’re always escaping an uncomfortable sensation.
- If you don’t learn how to deal with it, then you will always get distracted by something.
[13:14] – How do today’s distractions feel different than distractions of the past, and what is the cost of all of these distractions?
- The Psychology of Distraction is not new, but what is new is that the opportunity to escape an uncomfortable reality has never been easier.
- Learn how to counteract technology, otherwise it will get you.
[15:38] – How do you use time boxing to effectively plan your day?
- Having a to-do list is the embodiment of the output, but most people do not consider the input. The key input is your time.
- If you do not plan your day, somebody else will.
- You have to block time on your calendar and synchronize it with your life.
[19:43]- A timeout to thank our sponsors!
- Thrivetime Show: Is this your year? Visit ThrivetimeShow.com/eofire to see how Clay Clark’s business coaching has helped thousands of entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability!
- HubSpot: Learn how HubSpot can help your business grow better at HubSpot.com.
[19:53] – What are pacts, and how can we use them to trick ourselves into accomplishing our most important goals?
- There are 3 types of pacts
- Effort Pact – when you put work in between you and the thing that you do not want to do.
- Price Pact – monetary disincentive to going off track.
- Identity Pact – long term behavior change is identity change; if you can crack a new identity for yourself, then it will help you stay in line with what you want or don’t want to do.
[26:49] – Nir talks about the pact he made with himself and with a friend when writing his book.
- They did an Effort Pact: for 45 minutes they would write.
- They also did the Price Pact: he will give his friend $10,000 if he doesn’t finish the first draft of his book by a certain date.
[30:01] – Nir’s parting piece of guidance
- You have more power than you think, and you can become indistractable; you can take steps to get the best of technology without letting it get the best of you.
[31:15] Nir’s call to action for Fire Nation
- Indistractable.com – Order your own copy of Nir’s next book today: Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life!
[35:40]- Thank you to our Sponsors!
- Thrivetime Show: Is this your year? Visit ThrivetimeShow.com/eofire to see how Clay Clark’s business coaching has helped thousands of entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability!
- HubSpot: Learn how HubSpot can help your business grow better at HubSpot.com.
Killer Resources!
1) The Common Path to Uncommon Success: JLD’s 1st traditionally published book! Over 3000 interviews with the world’s most successful Entrepreneurs compiled into a 17-step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment!
2) Free Podcast Course: Learn from JLD how to create and launch your podcast!
3) Podcasters’ Paradise: The #1 podcasting community in the world!
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