“You cannot call it a distraction unless you know what it is distracting you from” Nir Eyal

I’ve finished the book “Indistractable” and these are the key points I would take from the book

First one being the idea that a lot of distraction is a way of dealing with discomfort – see my other blog post that explains this further https://in-the-arena.net/?p=32

The other value I got from the book was the importance he put on Timeboxing. The author argues the to-do-list is NOT an effective way to get things done and manage your time. But migrating your to-do-list to a calendar where you assign tasks per hour – is much more powerful.

Knowing myself, timeboxing will not be successful immediately – I grossly underestimate how long it takes to do something (I’m working on it..). My job also has a lot of interruptions. I’m also a VERY adaptable person, I take pride in being fleexxibblllee haha. So timeboxing is going to be a challenge.

Reasons why to-do lists fail

• “Blank schedules and mile-long to-do-lists torment us with too many choices”

• Personally, I tend to first do the tasks that seem easy to accomplish. As a result, important tasks that require effort are left undone too long.

• Its stessfull! Seeing your to-do-list never ticked off, and simply get longer is disheartening to your beautiful soul.

• To do lists do not give you context of how much time you have left.

Benefits of Timeboxing

• Time boxing acts as an ‘implementation intention” (look it up – known method of improving goal attainment)

• Work expands to fill the time allocated to it, so having deadlines is a blessing in disguise.

• For someone like myself, who can spend hours daydreaming, having a task to get done in the next hour is a great way to get momentum and get shit done.

• If you are a perfectionist, and find it difficult to submit projects unless they are ‘perfect’ or ‘100% error-free’ time boxing will help in focusing on the important value-increasing tasks. And reduce time on over-processing and over-analyzing your work.

• Increased focus and forces you to ignore distractions

• You can schedule high priority or creative work during your peak productive period in the day.

• Helps you get an idea of how much time you have, so you don’t make commitments you cannot keep.

NOTES

Timeboxed tasks are not set in stone. If you are “in the flow” of work, it makes sense to keep going past the allocated time. If your job requires you to be reactive, timeboxing mat not always be appropriate.

Revise and review. Changes will need to be made. Take each day or week as a mini experiment, you will become a boss at it.

Well its working, I had to finish this post in one hour, I’m sure I spent 20 min getting distracted reading other articles (Did you know that Rihanna is now a billionaire?) but I’ve done it.

“Guard your time like the limited resource it is”

Go punch today in the face!