How To Remove Distractions
In Irresistible, Adam Alter breaks down the science behind online distractions. The strategy involves keeping a person engaged, which involves two main processes. The first is establishing a state of flow. People's skill matches the challenge they face on a website well, so they lose track of time. Games like Farmville and Crossy Road are notorious for this. The second is using social approval to keep people active. People enjoy collecting likes on Instagram or Facebook, so they will check how many they get. Alter then shows how to flip these tactics to make you more productive. Reframing a challenge as a game adds an element of fun. Another approach is removing behavioral triggers from people's environments. This gives them no choice but to take care of the intended task.
Takeaways:
Focus on what to do, instead of what not to do. It's one thing to remove distractions; it's another to encourage productivity. Don't settle for removing the bad. Shape your surroundings to reward the good. In doing so, you deter the bad behavior by default. If I focus on not picking up my phone while editing a blog post, I set myself up to fail. A better approach is to keep my phone out of my room. Then, I can reward myself with chocolate after finishing a blog post. I have higher degrees of success with the latter.
Develop awareness. Now that you know what the tactics are, how well can you spot and stop them? Try setting an alarm to go off after you've spent fifteen minutes browsing Pinterest. You can then decide if you want to continue for another fifteen minutes or move on to another task. Recognizing what triggers derail you is a great first step. And figuring out ways to counter them is how you get over the hump. In other words, knowing you have weaknesses shouldn't make you feel helpless. Rather, it's an opportunity for you to get creative in how to press on.
Find the fun. To finish lengthy, tedious tasks, start by breaking them down into manageable chunks. But making a task doable doesn't make it more desirable. For instance, I had to clean out my backyard of tree limbs my roommate had cut down. The branches were too big to throw away as they were. This meant I had to buy a saw to cut them into pieces small enough to fit in trash bags. Feeling overwhelmed, I imagined the task as an adventure. I had to "rescue" my friend by cutting away a few evil tree branches. I gained momentum by cutting away at the smaller bits first. What I intended to work on for half an hour turned into an entire evening. I was having that much fun.
Reading Alter's book informs you of the disturbing range of distractions out there. When I was younger, video games were my world. All my words, actions, and intake were about the next fun technology. The only game I play now is Duolingo, which is as much about the learning as the fun. Social media is another one. I loved Facebook when it first started. Since then, I've deleted my account - twice, and I know I can't afford to get back on. I hope people realize that distractions do nothing to improve their lives. May we all develop the discipline to remove them when necessary. As Covey said in his seven habits, technology is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. If you apply Alter's principles, you can use technology to help you rather than sabotage you.
