Distraction Tracker

Several month ago, I heard Nir Eyal talk on a podcast about his book, Indistractable. I bought the book.

With his encouragement, I started a ‘distraction tracker.’ After I decide on a schedule, I make a note in the tracker if I schedule one activity but do another. I note the planned activity, the distraction, and what I'm feeling.

My email inbox is often the distraction. Time and time again, I plan to open a word document to write or plan a lesson, but click on my inbox, just for a minute: there might be something urgent. I click on one email, and then a Facebook notification, and then start a competition with myself to see how low can my unread inbox go, while sabotaging my plan.

The inbox is a frequent distraction, but the behavior is driven by anxiety. Fear of failure and the compounding fear that it will take a lot of time before failure is obvious: that I'll work several hours on a project and have nothing to show for it.

This isn't a new topic. Jim wrote about it in one of his "Family Letters" to our kids back in 2009. R'el calls them "Harry Potter Eggs": tasks that are "hanging over her, difficult, forbidding, and important." He identifies nine reasons a task may become an egg. My personal favorite is "Glorious Fantasy": imagining an unattainable perfection, it becomes impossible to start. Or the task may be out of my comfort zone, or I haven't planned enough time for the it. There often is an unresolved conflict: an unavoidable confrontation, trade-off, or unpleasant truth I don't want to face.

I expect I'll deal with Harry Potter Eggs for the rest of my life. I hope I do. The alternative is to never attempt anything of worth. I sure hope I get better at it.

In Eyal's talk at the 2018 Habit Summit, he suggests making time for distractions. Do I have the discipline to schedule and limit my distractions? I don't have any pithy solutions. Just keep on tracking.