Strategies for becoming less distracted and improving focus | Nir Eyal (author of Indistractable and Hooked)

**Nir Eyal** (0:00)
I went to Alibaba and I bought myself one of these flip phones from China, like we used to have in the 1990s, with no apps, no internet connection. And then I got myself a word processor off of eBay so that I could just sit down and write and do the important stuff.
And even when I stopped using all the technology, even when I got rid of all the apps, I would sit down at my desk and I'd say, oh, you know what, there's that book that I've been meaning to do some research in, or let me just clean off my desk real quick, or you know what, I should take out the trash. And I kept getting distracted because the problem is not our technology. The problem is our inability to deal with discomfort.
So what I have adopted for myself and what I'd advise anyone who finds themselves in this situation is to always identify what is that internal trigger? What is that itch that you are looking to escape when you get distracted? Because that is the source of 90% of our distractions. It's not the pings, dings and rings, it's the feelings. But to me, that's incredibly empowering because once you realize, wait a minute, just a feeling, that's all it is. It's just an emotion. Then you can have tools ready to go. You can have arrows in your quiver ready to take out as soon as you feel that discomfort.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (1:10)
Today, my guest is Nir Eyal. Nir 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.
Nir spends his time teaching and consulting at the intersection of psychology, technology and business. His books have sold over one million copies in over 30 languages. In our conversation, we get very tactical about how to become less distractible and how to get better at focusing on doing the work that you know you need to do. Nir shares at least a dozen tools and tricks that you can put into place today to help you stay focused and avoid getting distracted.
After this conversation, I've already implemented some of these tactics and they're actually working. If you find these helpful or you want to go deeper, definitely check out Nir's book, Indistractable. With that, here is Nir Eyal after a short word from our sponsors.
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Nir, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.

**Nir Eyal** (4:27)
Thanks so much, Lenny. Great to be here.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (4:28)
I feel like we have a chance to record the most valuable hour in podcast history because it could give people more time to do the things they wanna do.