
Being ‘Indistractable’ - kiyanwang
https://onezero.medium.com/being-indistractable-will-be-the-skill-of-the-future-a07780cf36f4
======
playing_colours
In my opinion, based on my personal observations, reading and listening to
smart people of the past and present, the most important skill, even meta-
skill, for every time and epoch is self-discipline - the ability to do things
you need to do tolerating discomfort and suffering. Suffer now to thrive
later.

The epoch one lives in and their social position will dictate critical skills
an individual requires to survive and move up - be it martial prowess,
persuasion, focus. People with strong discipline can grow those skills quicker
and farther.

A good inspirational example for me was in David Goggins’ book “Can’t Hurt
Me”, where he vividly describes his inner fight against his mind that always
wants comfort now; he shares that the main reason he tortures himself with
physical challenges is not to become physically strong, but to grow an armored
mind, one that is prepared for real life struggles.

~~~
gexla
Self discipline is one of the psychology things which might not actually be a
thing though. Often cited in this sort of discussion is the "marshmallow test"
which has been found to be BS. Maybe there's something to willpower, but the
discussion is stinky right now because of the replication issues. Same for
"flow" which is another smell this article and related discussions have.

I find that I can be incredibly self disciplined when I setup my environment
so that I don't have to fight myself. How do I fight distractions from my
phone when I'm out with friends? I don't bring my phone. And yet somehow I
always manage to meet with people at the time and place we decide on. I know
not everyone can do this, I'm just using it as an example.

A feeling of a lack of self discipline is a symptom, much like
procrastination. It's a mess of things all clumped together like a rats nest
of wires. Everyone has their answer to procrastination (the book is in
progress!) but beating procrastination isn't a skill because it isn't the root
problem. Much like a headache could mean that you are going to die from cancer
or you might just need some rest. If you feel you have procrastination
problems, it's because something broke upstream and now you are blaming it on
procrastination.

ETA: Herding my own actions is about preparation and personal story telling.
If I setup a clear path for the next day and get good sleep, then it will
work. If I get a bad night of sleep and I'm unorganized, then it's going to be
a disaster and I'm going to complain about procrastination. If I see a cake
which looks good and I have a weak reason not to eat it, I'm going to eat the
thing. If I manage to convince myself to join the cult of low-carbs, then I
wouldn't be caught dead with a piece of cake. If I'm working with people who
are laid back, then I become laid back. If I'm working with people who are
ultra-competitive, then I become competitive. It's all about pouring the kool-
aid and then convincing myself to drink it. ;)

~~~
iopq
The root of the problem is not enough caffeine. I don't have the energy to
discipline myself until I have enough of it. I tried quitting caffeine. It
resulted in three months of staying in bed.

It's just too easy to play music and read stuff all day when you don't have
the energy to get out of bed.

~~~
playing_colours
A usual advice here on HN is to check on ADHD with a good doctor. You can
decide then if you want to jump on medications, but I can share that it
improves the lives of many people.

~~~
mial
Medications can help temporarily, but then tolerance appears and you need to
up the dose. I think they are mostly helpful in the range of a few months up
to a year, as a crutch to help someone sort their life out (professionally
and/or academically), and also in terms of setting up efficient organizational
techniques, developing helpful practices for focusing (meditation, exercising,
diet). It helped me a lot in this way, I was then able to quit ADHD meds while
retaining a much improved focus ability.

~~~
Bjartr
I'll throw my own anecdote into the ring here. As a person who's been on ADHD
meds for 20+ years I've noticed that although tolerance does build up, it
doesn't build up to the point that medication is ineffective, just less
effective. Also, fairly short periods of no medication (a few days) can go a
long way towards resetting tolerance to a meaningful degree. Despite being on
these medications for decades, being on or off them continues to be huge
factory in my day-to-day ability to execute tasks of any kind.

~~~
playing_colours
In your experience, do ADHD meds improve your brain functioning in a long
term? I heard that amphetamine can stimulate and heal some deficiencies in the
brain of people with ADHD. Did you notice something like that considering your
20+ years of med.

~~~
hoorayimhelping
I'm 36, got diagnosed with ADHD when I was 25 or so. I took meds when I first
got diagnosed but hated them and went off after a couple of weeks. Since then,
I've never taken any amphetamines for ADHD.

I've also noticed an increase in functioning and ability to succeed and manage
the symptoms of ADHD as time has gone on. I'm less inclined to think it's the
drugs and more leaning towards it being the person learning to manage their
symptoms more effectively as they get older.

You sort of just learn to live with how your brain works and processes things.
No idea if uppers help that process or not. It wasn't necessary for me.

~~~
Bjartr
> I'm 36, got diagnosed with ADHD when I was 25 or so.

I was diagnosed at 7, and am currently 30.

> I'm less inclined to think it's the drugs and more leaning towards it being
> the person learning to manage their symptoms more effectively as they get
> older.

Why do you say that if you were only ever on those drugs for a couple of
weeks? Moreover, while your ADHD wasn't severe enough that your life wasn't
negatively impacted in a significant way by not medicating it, why do you
think that experience is likely to align with others' experiences? What if
others stay on those drugs because the quality of life impact is greater than
the downsides of those drugs?

I don't enjoy taking drugs for ADHD. I take them because my ability to be a
functioning and productive member of society is greatly impacted if I don't.
Perhaps I could learn to live without them, but that's not something that
would happen in a day, or a week, or even a month or more, and during that
time my ability to perform at my job and take care of my own well-being would
go out the window.

> No idea if uppers help that process or not.

My understanding of the neurological underpinnings of ADHD (or at least some
varieties of it) is that it is caused by poor operation of the "executive
function" system of the brain. This is the system that allocates cognitive
resources to tasks and the difficulty encountered by those with ADHD getting
and staying on task is due to the system failing to allocate the necessary
resources. So stimulants work because they ramp up that system. Note that the
"hyper-focus" that many with ADHD experience is also a result of poor
performing executive function in that it is an over-allocation of cognitive
resources.

Do note that what I've written is a medical knowledge informed, but ultimately
still layperson, understanding of the brain.

> You sort of just learn to live with how your brain works and processes
> things.

I agree in the sense that you can learn to accept any chronic condition,
including its detrimental effects. However I see that as giving up, at least
as far as my own quality of life is concerned.

------
huntertwo
Does anybody feel like these kinds of posts over-rationalize life? I feel like
these complex logical guides can be replaced with a simple “put your phone
away while spending time with your daughter”. Life should be simpler than
having to think about all this stuff so hard. Life shouldn’t be an
optimization of resources problem.

~~~
eswat
Part of the problem that I realized after hearing the author promotin this
book in a podcast is that many people not only want to solve problems but also
put their own spin/branding on it, even if it’s not actually much different
from existing solutions.

But that slight difference in the new solution being promoted taps into our
brains just in the right ways that it makes existing solutions seem inferior,
thus the productive porn.

~~~
Torwald
> Part of the problem that I realized after hearing the author promotin this
> book in a podcast is that many people not only want to solve problems but
> also put their own spin/branding on it, even if it’s not actually much
> different from existing solutions.

Yes, but they also have to do it in order to have a branding. You cannot "non-
brand." Take for example Microsoft. Thy wrote a version of CP/M and called it
PC-DOS. So what? Would it have been better to call it MS-CP/M?

------
arethuza
This made me think of "focus" from Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky" where
individuals are converted to narrow their entire life down to a particular
subject area so that they can be used as components in distributed systems.

Edit: One of the reasons for requiring this kind of approach is that they
don't have "real" AI for reasons that would only be apparent if you have read
the earlier novel.

~~~
bitwize
Literally, weaponized autism.

~~~
arethuza
I seem to remember that there is a discussion at the end of the book where
characters discuss whether focus is worth it as a tool for society and perhaps
even something that individuals would choose willingly.

I suspect if focus was available as a medical procedure there are people who
would choose it - not something that you would be able to regret.

Edit: Greg Egan's excellent _Quarantine_ also has the protagonist using
"neural mods" to prime him into a state where he was a more effective
policeman - but at least they could be turned on/off rather than being semi-
permanent like focus.

~~~
manigandham
> “I suspect if focus was available as a _medical people_ ”

What does this mean?

~~~
arethuza
Apologies - I wasn't focusing enough on my comment and wrote nonsense! ;-)
Fixed now.

------
gexla
Gets distracted. Thinks long and hard about distraction. Has an insight on how
not to get distracted. Writes a book about it. Writes a blog post to market
the book. Future book reviews complain that you could have just read the blog
post.

Some of this seems to be a rehash of GTD. Sometimes your distractions are
something which you really need to do. Write it down so that you can feel at
ease forgetting about it again. Then when you are doing your GTD thing, you
can take care of your list.

The rest just doesn't sit easy for me. It seems like he's over-rationalizing a
certain slice of life and it feels strange, like a bad aesthetic.

There's work time and then there's personal time. In each case, distraction is
okay, it's just that you need to herd the distractions so that you are seeing
more of X distractions and less of Y. A client walking in the door may be a
valuable distraction. Getting a FB notification while working may be a costly
distraction.

Personal time is also all about the right distractions. Interesting things are
distractions. In the author's example, the child asking a question is a
distraction. We can argue semantics, maybe an interesting thing which captures
your attention is called something other than a distraction, but it's still
the same thing. Your brain is pointed in one direction and something comes
along to redirect that attention to something else.

This is just more productivity porn. Schedule fun time. Look, it's fun time on
my calendar. I will enjoy it. I'm having fun... for 20 minutes.

~~~
deepGem
"Sometimes your distractions are something which you really need to do"

The key is to be able to determine the validity of the distraction, without
getting distracted, meaning without even diverting your mind a bit to think
about the distraction. I don't think you can. You need to context switch a
bit, examine what the distraction is and then switch back. Easier said than
done. It leads to a trail of IFTTTs since every distraction has it's own
context and lifespan. If someone has ways of accomplishing this, I'm all ears.

~~~
gexla
I'm getting into personal anecdote territory which I hate because it likely
only works for me, but here I go...

When I'm working in front of my computer, I manage this stream by keeping a
log of what I'm doing in an editor. When I step into something, I make a quick
note of what I'm about to do. I may annotate it with what I DID rather than
what I'm about to do. It's fully shooting from the hip. The point of it is
that I can always bring it up and see the last thing my brain was on and the
stream leading up to that point. I call that section "stream."

I'll add other "sections" for other items I need to take down. Maybe I think
of a todo, then I'll make a section for "Todo" and maybe even multiple lists
for multiple projects. This document is only meant for things which collect in
my head as I'm trying to do this other thing. It's not meant to be storage
space for project management.

The starting of a disaster day is finding myself getting bogged down in
reading a pile of browser tabs in the morning during my "putter" time. In that
case I'll open a blank editor tab to start the "stream" and create a section
for reading. I'll jot down the items which interest me the most, bookmark
those items, then clear all tabs. I'll NEVER get back to reading those things,
but I took care of the problem in my head and then I get back to "streaming."

It's all about one of the core GTD ideas of clearing your space and writing
things down to comfort your brain. The main stream section then keeps me on
task. I have also trained myself that this is the most important rule and if I
don't have this document open in an editor, then I'm asking for trouble.

------
ohduran
And yet, here we are, posting comments on HN.

By the way is not being able to hear your daughter screaming for attention
because you're deeply focused on your phone being distracted, or not?

Sounds like laser focusing to me. Which means that it's not a matter of being
'indistractable', but one of prioritising what's worth your attention.

On a side note, I don't like when people make up words like 'indistractable',
but that's personal taste.

~~~
gniv
> On a side note, I don't like when people make up words like
> 'indistractable', but that's personal taste.

It's likely that the success of this book will rely entirely on this word.
After all, Cal Newport wrote recently on the same subject, so I'm not sure
what this book brings new, other than the catchy/annoying word.

~~~
ohduran
I loved Cal Newport's book. It's insightful, and full of takeaways, drawing
from years of writing about the topic on his blog. While reading it, I was
constantly looking on the Internet for the references and pieces of research
that he was mentioning, the kind of reading you are meant to do when you are
doing research on a certain topic, and him being a researcher has that kind of
style that for the interested reader is full of depth.

On the other hand, you have an annoying, made up word and the work of someone
whose sole purpose at work is, and I quote, "help tech companies build
products to keep you clicking".

Now if I skip the mumble jumble of #likes4likes that you usually find on
Amazon five star reviews, I can find a 3 star review that weighs the pros and
cons. Pros: He knows a lot about distraction. Which makes sense; he does that
for a living. Cons: the solutions.

> Make a contract with yourself, he says. Make a money contract. If you fail
> to keep the contract you have to set fire to a hundred dollar bill.

That's it.

I'm choosing Cal Newport's "Deep Work" every single time.

------
knob
Eliminate all notifications from your phone with a 1-second 'empty' .mp3

I set this empty.mp3 as my notification (android) for emails, texts,
applications, etc etc. The only thing that makes a sound in my phone is phone-
calls and alarms. Eliminate the "top bar" notifications too. If you want to
find out about emails, open the app. To find out about instant messages, open
the app.

For me this has been absolutely great. I don't have social media installed
(reddit, facebook, twitter, etc), so that helps.

Yet the phone doesn't "suck me into it". I hope somebody finds this useful!

------
onion2k
When I'm doing something that's both interesting and challenging I can happily
ignore literally everything else until I'm done. I think most people are very
similar; phones and games and Slack messages are only a distraction if you're
just not that into what you're supposed to be doing. If it happens a lot you
might need to address _that_ problem.

~~~
vegardx
This sounds similar to what people on the spectrum of autism or adhd call
"hyper-focus". The problem with hyper-focus is that you rarely have control
over it. It's heavily skewed towards the interesting part, not what you need
to be doing or how challenging it is. You'll often see absurd levels of
complexity for the sake of making it challenging, only to support working on
something interesting.

------
m_ke
It's ironic that the author who introduced a ton of tech people to
psychologically manipulative product design with his book "Hooked: How to
Build Habit-Forming Products" is now selling the solution to the problem that
he helped create.

Here's how he described his last book:

\---

How do successful companies create products people can't put down?

Why do some products capture widespread attention while others flop? What
makes us engage with certain products out of sheer habit? Is there a pattern
underlying how technologies hook us?

Nir Eyal answers these questions (and many more) by explaining the "Hook
Model" \-- a four steps process embedded into the products of many successful
companies to subtly encourage customer behavior. Through consecutive “hook
cycles,” these products reach their ultimate goal of bringing users back over
and over again, without depending on costly advertising or aggressive
messaging.

Hooked is based on Eyal’s years of research, consulting, and practical
experience. He wrote the book he wished had been available to him as a startup
founder – not abstract theory, but a how-to guide for building better
products. Hooked is written for product managers, designers, marketers,
startup founders, and anyone who seeks to understand how products influence
our behavior.

\---

To top it off he's trying to growth hack his new book by putting a branded red
"do not disturb" sign in the book, that he expects you to put up on your desk
for all of your stressed out colleagues in your open office to see.
([https://youtu.be/XVbH_TkJW9s?t=906](https://youtu.be/XVbH_TkJW9s?t=906))

~~~
fortran77
In fact he notes this "irony" in the first paragraph of the linked article!

> or over a decade, I’ve helped tech companies build products to keep you
> clicking. In fact, I wrote the book on it. Hooked: How to Build Habit-
> Forming Products, which came out in 2014, was written to help companies
> build healthy habits in their customers, like regularly going to the gym and
> eating right. But in the process of researching the book, I found that some
> products drew some people in too much. Including me.

~~~
m_ke
He always claims it's for "healthy habits" but we all know that it's mostly
used for gaming, social media and marketing products. It's equivalent to Juul
claiming that they're selling a product to treat smoking addiction.

Here's his bio from the book:

\---

Nir Eyal spent years in the video gaming and advertising industries where he
learned, applied, and at times rejected, techniques described in Hooked to
motivate and influence users. He has taught courses on applied consumer
psychology at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Hasso Plattner
Institute of Design, and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and at
Fortune 500 companies.

\---

------
ukj
I am a master at being 'indistractable' \- my brain-CPU does not support
interrupts.

P.S my manager calls me 'uncooperative'.

------
psychoslave
Just skimming the post, it seems to be highly convergent with what is used in
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)[1], or more generally of Cognitive
Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

The article doesn't seem to point to such a connection, but people interested
with the topic might like to have a look at these well documented
methodologies. Analyzes and critics of these methods and their claimed results
are also widely available.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_and_commitment_ther...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_and_commitment_therapy)

------
bencoder
See also: Cal Newport's Deep Work [0]

[0] [http://www.calnewport.com/books/deep-
work/](http://www.calnewport.com/books/deep-work/)

------
baxtr
Right now, I am being distracted by reading the comments to this blog post on
HN...

------
shortbunny
As someone with attention defecit disorder, I can only applaud the further
development of attention-as-a-skill, be it by introspection (e.g. meditation)
or technological (e.g. parmacological) enhancement!

------
jankotek
I hope not. Many people in open-space offices with smart phones have attention
span of a chipmunk. That makes it possible for remote workers to compete :-)

------
sytelus
I think this would be the single most important differentiator for wealth
creation. The world would be divided between creators and consumers. The
consumers are increasingly trained for only consuming with a singular goal of
generating wealth for the creators.

~~~
lopmotr
I'd say that title goes to intelligence, which can't be trained so people are
going to consistently have either a lot or a little their whole working life.
Technology is progressively taking away the ability of low IQ people to do
anything productive at all and giving it to a shrinking pool of people smart
enough to do the remaining not-yet-automated things.

------
mosselman
Off topic to the article, because I can't read it. I blocked Medium's annoying
pop-up and now there is no way for me to click somewhere to open the article.
Ah well, I'll just see this as a step towards being indistractable by medium
articles.

------
ptah
weird, he literally wrote the book about making websites and apps addictive
through grabbing as much attention as possible. now he's got a book on how to
avoid getting distracted by those sites/apps

~~~
tonyarkles
Meh, people are allowed to change their minds about things they've done once
they've seen the effects of their prior work. At the start of this post he
uses that as evidence that he's qualified to write this book; I don't
disagree.

------
atrilumen
I know it's off-topic, but fuck Medium. No, I don't want to join. From now on,
I will not click links to Medium!

(I'm tired of deleting their stupid cookies just to read a goddamned blog
post.)

------
mapcars
TLDR: a guy can't just turn off his phone for a couple of hours and creates a
whole new philosophy out of it.

~~~
thefz
While shamelessly self plugging his book.

~~~
Hoasi
Don't let that distract you.

------
glaberficken
I was distracted by this headline. now.

------
abacadaba
:closes HN tab:

------
godelmachine
Is “indistractable” a proper word?

~~~
crispyporkbites
what's a proper word?

~~~
godelmachine
A word recognized in the English lexicon

------
chesneyc
The Pomodoro Technique has helped me a lot staying focused on my work and
studies. Sure, it's not a silver bullet solution to manage distractions but
it's a good starting point.

~~~
ExtremisAndy
This. The Pomodoro Technique has revolutionized my life. I set it for 30
minutes and tell myself "You just need to make a little progress on task X for
30 minutes... You can do it!"

What very often happens, however, is that since I have focused so well during
that period, I actually end up _completing_ the task, usually with a few
minutes to spare. Feels a bit ridiculous, but, at least in my case (anecdotal,
for sure), just giving my brain the 'peace' in knowing that it will only have
to focus deeply for 30 minutes seems to help it immensely. Human beings are so
strange.

