Book Review – indistractable by Nir Eyal

This was the first book I’ve read by Nir Eyal and I have to say I’m impressed! The book is indistractable, How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life.

Main Idea

Eyal’s premise of course is how to avoid distractions in your personal and professional life to better control what you do. The first part of the book focuses on internal triggers. His idea is that we are motivated to do things that distract us because we’re trying to escape discomfort. For example, surfing the internet is a welcome escape from the discomfort of writing that report that’s due in the morning. Eyal provides many actionable and easy tools to deal with these distractions both by thinking about them in different ways and by better managing your day through time blocking on your calendar for those things that are important while still providing time for the activities you enjoy such as spending time with family or surfing the internet.

The next part of the book discusses external triggers such as meetings, email, smartphone, etc. Again, he gives practical suggestions and tools to “hack back” as he calls it these external distractions to keep you focused on the task at hand. And finally the last part of the book talks about specific areas of your life in which distractions need to be hacked back including your workplace, your children and your relationships.

The think I loved about this book is the many, many tools both technological and psychological that Eyal provides. And if the dozens of suggestions he makes in the book aren’t enough for you, he’s completely open to readers contacting him to discuss further great “Hacks”

Who’s this book for?

This book is great for anyone who’s prone to distraction and can’t resist the constant call of smartphones, internet, emails, chatty colleagues and everything else that vies for our attention every minute.

 When should you read this book in your small business journey?

As your business grows you tend to get more mired down by the small daily details of running the business and spend less time on the actions that really make a difference. When you get to that point, this book is for you!

My 3 big takeaways from this book.

1. The realization that I’m giving into distractions as a method of pain management allows me to recognize the behavior and mentally adjust.
2. You can’t control what you get out of the time you spend on a task but you can control the amount of time you put into a task. And more often than not if you spend focused allocated time on a task, you will make progress.
3. The key to receiving fewer emails is sending fewer emails. Excess emails are created when you respond immediately to items that don’t need an immediate response. This creates a ping pong effect with increased numbers or trivial or polite responses with no real substance. You can write the emails whenever you want to but send them in batches later to group and control when you get bundles of emails.