Book 13–14 Hooked and Indistractable by Nir Eyal

I read Hooked as it was recommended in my favorite book of 2019 “Make time”, and I followed with Indistractable because I enjoyed Nir writing style and the data and science base research behind every seemingly simple statement. I would recommend to read the two books together back to back. Hooked is focused on the art of building habit forming product (or how they are sometimes called in ‘Make Time’ distraction pools). Indistractable focuses on how adult, companies and children can create active shields against those distractions and be able to focus when and how much they need. Reading Hooked first, will give you a better understanding on what we are up against, thou it isn’t necessary,

Hooked reiterates the key concepts that for anything to become a habit (even a good one) it needs 3 main characteristics: a minimal starting effort (even having the smallest mindset change before attempting to start a new habit will make us more likely to stick to it), must be linked to triggers (initially external ones, ideally shifting to internal triggers later) and needs to be easy. Reducing the effort to do something will always be more effective than getting people to start something new.

The keys to keep people engaged are Progress and Rewards and Investment.

People increase their motivation as they believe they are nearing a goal, therefore showing progress is a powerful motivator to act (also showing some progress above zero at the beginning prevents people from giving up), and rewards draw us to act not for the reward itself (we may or may not win the lottery) but because we can temporary alleviate the need for that reward. As for investment? IKEA showed us that the more effort we put into something the more we tend to value the end product.

If this sounds familiar, it’s the theory behind the recent gamification of products and services. Indeed it works well, as long as we are indeed focusing on what the user wants to do and not forcing new models.

What I personally loved the most is the analysis on the ethic of manipulation. When is it wrong to manipulate the users? Nir offers a simple matrix to answer the key question: should we attempt to? I am not be able to recap it, but I encourage anyone in product or services to look it up on his blog NirAndFar.com/Hooked. As he says, today we have use data that companies should not only alert people that their service or product could be addictive, but actively inform and protect users that show unhealthy attachments.

After learning how much thought companies put into capturing my attention, I read Indistractable to see if I could add new tools (or Hack backs as they are called in the book) to my Make Time framework. These are the ones that either worked for me or I am going to add to my routine.

• Clarify my values. Quoting Nir ‘you can’t identify distraction unless you know what they are distracting you from’
• Keep my daily ‘focus’ and time boxing routine, and include social media family and relax / do nothing time in it. Time you plan to waste is not wasted.
• Get even more comfortable with discomfort. Distraction is a just way to escape something, be the discomfort or going to the gym, working or writing. Feeling bad isn’t bad, it’s what keeps us evolving.
• Cheat my ‘internal triggers’ by timeboxing my next distraction break. Knowing when it will happen it will get it out of my mind.
• Say goodbye to my perfectionism (another distraction), and focus not on the output of my time (which I can’t control) but on the inputs into it (which I can).
• Schedule time for my key relationships with friends and family. They are worth more than left overs.
• Apply all the tips to avoid external triggers in my laptop and phone (go to the website or buy the books to get the full list, but don’t be surprised if you receive a message from me saying I am indistractable and will get back to you later).
• Apply the same principles at work for myself and my team and make sure they understand their purpose, their value and feel psychological safety to openly discuss.
• Multitask in the only way science confirms it’s possible: across channels (e.g. walking and listening to a podcast).

It’s a long list, and extremely valuable. I am starting 2020 with the intent to master all of this before I reach the school and teenager years with my daughter, so I can apply the tips meant for teens and children.