The Exchanges

Q as addicted to technology and apps as we think. And I think that's really important. I'm excited to chat about it. Before we get there, I wanted to chat and follow this thread essentially of becoming indistractable at work and building a company essentially that helps your teammates become less distractible. What advice would you give to leaders at companies to help employees at the company have better focus essentially?

A A lot of folks that, that, uh, I've worked with in the past have said, look, I can become indistractable. I'll follow these four steps. It's fantastic. I'm indistractable, but what if my company is not indistractable? How do I help other people become indistractable? Or what if my boss is not indistractable and they're constantly asking me and pinging and digging me for stuff and I'm not able to do my best work. So what do I do about that? So there's a whole section in the book on how to build an indistractable workplace. And what I discovered was in, in the research, uh, in writing this book is that indistractable companies have three traits. And so the first trait is that indistractable companies provide employees with With what's called psychological safety. This comes out of the research, uh, from Amy Edmondson at the Harvard business school. And what she discovered was that truly that, that companies have to provide employees with psychological safety. Meaning if you can't talk about a problem, if you can't raise your hand and say, Hey, you know what? I'm just not able to do my best work when I'm constantly expected to reply to every email, to every notification, every 30 seconds, I can't do my best work. If you can't talk about this problem. That is the problem. As I like to say, distraction is a symptom of dysfunction. Distraction is a symptom of dysfunction. And when it…

AI assessment note: “the first trait is that indistractable companies provide employees with With what's called psychological safety.”

Q I love that final question. You wrote a book about building habits. What's your best and worst habit these days?

A Ooh, this is, this is tricky. So, um, Uh, I think, I think, you know, I, I still, okay, so the reason I'm struggling answering this is because, uh, there's a difference between habits and routines. And a lot of things that people think are habits are not really habits. Uh, so like I was going to say, you know, exercise, I used to be clinically obese and now I exercise, but that's not technically a habit because it's not done with little or no conscious thought. It's a routine. Um, but I think that's probably one of my best routines is that I've, I've finally, for the first time in my life, really gotten into physical fitness. Uh, I have, Maybe not quite a six pack, but maybe like a four pack at 45 years old. I'm pretty proud of that. And I'm not saying that to brag. I'm saying it as a testimony to the fact that when you say you're going to do something and actually do it, how, how wonderful that feels to just live your life with intent. I'm not athletic. I've never was athletic. I still don't really like exercise, but I do it and I eat right because I say I will. So I think that's probably my best routine. And probably my worst habit is that I still feel these impulses. Uh, you know, if the definition of a habit is an impulse to do a behavior with little or no conscious thought, you better well damn believe that I feel the impulse to check Instagram for a quick minute or to loo…

AI assessment note: “probably my best routine is that I've, I've finally... gotten into physical fitness.”

Q Is this like a jumpstart for the day? And then you start like, I find out if I start a thing like this, it won't be 10 minutes. It'll be like an hour. Cause I'm like, okay, I did the hard thing. I'm into it. I'm just going to keep working. So is this like a jumpstart for the morning or do you come back to this throughout the day?

A So you can do it whenever you find yourself slipping off track. And so the, the, the Pomodoro is a version of this. I don't think it's complete enough because Pomodoro just says set the timer, do it. Okay, fine. And that's great. If it works for you, by the way, anything I'm saying right now, If the thing is working for you, if your life is awesome and you're doing what you said you're going to do, maybe this isn't the podcast. Maybe my book isn't the book for you, right? I'm talking to the people who, for whatever reason, you know, you're capable of more, you know, you're drifting off track. Maybe you, if like me, you said you were going to exercise, but you didn't, or you said you're going to eat right, but you don't, you said you were going to work on that big task, but you procrastinate. That's, that's really who I was. And that's who I wrote this book for. Uh, and, and so you can use that technique whenever you get distracted. It's not the whole picture. Ok, so it's super important. Remember we talked about those four steps. This is just step number one. There's about a dozen different things you can do. Maybe this particular 10 minute rule doesn't work for you, doesn't work for everyone. There might be other techniques you use. So there's dozens of different techniques just about this step around mastering internal triggers. But the next step to answer your question of, w…

AI assessment note: “So you can do it whenever you find yourself slipping off track.”

Q run their job search. If you're thinking of making a change in the new year, leverage Teal to grow your career on your own terms. Get started for free at tealhq.com slash Lenny. That's tealhq.com slash Lenny. For avoiding distractions, triggers, pushes, all that stuff. Is there any tools you recommend? I imagine this is a lot of people are thinking, is there like a way to block footer and.

A Yeah, absolutely. So that's a perfect lead into step number four. So we talked about step number one, master internal triggers, make time for traction, hack back the external triggers. We just talked about step number three. Step number four is preventing distraction with packs. And so with packs, there's three kinds of packs. We have a price pack where there's some kind of Financial disincentive to go off track. So this is where, you know, we talked about earlier, uh, uh, you're making some kind of bet. We could talk about how I got into shape, uh, for the first time in my life using something like this, how I finished the book using something like this. That's a price pact. Uh, there's an identity pact, which is very, very impactful, which is what, what you're doing is you're forming a personal identity. So, uh, this comes out of the psychology of religion, where we know that people who call themselves a certain moniker, Uh, for example, if you say you're a devout Muslim, you're not debating whether you should have a gin and tonic, right? Because devout Muslims don't drink. If you say I'm a vegan or vegetarian, a vegetarian doesn't wake up in the morning and say, hmm, I wonder if I should have a bacon sandwich for breakfast. No, they are vegetarian. That is who they are. So that's why the book is called Indistractable. Indistractable is meant to sound like indestructible. It …

AI assessment note: “that's a perfect lead into step number four. So we talked about step number”

Q this book Hooked is about teaching people how to get people hooked on their product. I know that you have this very contrarian perspective on Are we actually addicted to technology? Is it hurting mental health? All these things. So this is contrarian corner. I'd love to hear your kind of perspective on just why is it that we're not as hooked on social media and technology as people think.

A Yeah. Okay. So that's, there's a lot there. So let me explain what hook was for compared to indistractable. So hooked is about how do we build habit forming products for good? And so the idea there was that, you know, I think we need to use more of these techniques when it comes to healthy behaviors, right? We, we want people to get hooked to a language learning app, uh, Duolingo, one of my former clients, right? That's a great thing that they found ways to get people hooked to learning a new language compared to the way we used to learn languages. Uh, getting people hooked to exercise. One of the case studies in Hooked is FitBot, which is an app that helps people form these habits around exercise. Uh, getting hooked to a personal finance app to help you save money. Uh, getting hooked to enterprise software. That's all great, right? If it helps you become more productive, helps you live a happier, healthier life, that's wonderful. Uh, so, you know, nobody's worried about people getting addicted to, uh, enterprise SaaS. That's not an issue. So the vast majority of products out there They're not worried about addicting anyone. The real problem the vast majority of businesses out there have is that nobody cares, right? Like they have a wonderful product that could really improve people's lives, but people aren't using it. And so it's really about how do you get people to keep comi…

AI assessment note: “So let me explain what hook was for compared to indistractable.”

Q Well, now we got to hit them. Okay. So here's the question. I'll just start really broad and let's just see where this goes. My question is just how does one become less distractible slash how do I become less distractible?

A Okay. So there's a, there's a deeper motivation here is I need help, which is great. That's my favorite thing to do is to actually You know, get concrete with people about what their specific challenges are, but let me, let me back up here. So, uh, this is what I spent five years writing a book about, uh, because why did it take me five years to write a book? Because I was so distracted. So I wrote this book for me more than anyone else. So, you know, that that's the only reason I write books is not because of what I know, but because of what I want to know. And I discovered that there were so many myths and tropes and just flat out harmful things that I was doing. To hurt my own productivity and, ah, and when I really went down to first principles and looked at the research, ah, I found that there was so many things that I was, I was doing wrong, but since I've, I've changed my ways and adopted what, what the research literature says about distraction, it's improved my life in inconceivable ways. I mean, I, I'm in the best shape of my life at 45 years old. I have a better relationship with my family than ever. I'm more productive at work than ever before. Not because I didn't know what to do that. That's what I find is, is, uh, really emblematic of, of people in today's is not that we don't know what to do. It used to be maybe, okay, our grandparents, they didn't know what to …

AI assessment note: “let me back up here. So, uh, this is what I spent five years writing a book about”