If you read enough of productivity books by tech people (like these authors), you’ll quickly come to the conclusion that using tech is one of the things holding us back from leading fulfilling lives. Another similar book came out in 2019 – Indistractable by Nir Eyal – who became famous in previous years for his book advising tech workers on how to create habit-forming products called “Hooked.”
Make what you will of that, but there is no doubt that it is easy to lose control of our time and schedules. I do not think that busy adulthoods filled with responsibilities is an entirely modern phenomenon, but the always-on nature of our jobs and endless, novel information in our pockets is new.
Jake and John suggest creating a highlight every day – something you care about doing and that you actively schedule time for it. They suggest 60-90 minutes as an achievable timeframe even for a busy adult. In order to actually work on your highlight, or even your other tasks that you must do in order to have time for your highlight, you need to find focus. They have a range of good suggestions, but one that is somehow both provocative and obvious is to get rid of those distracting apps on your phone. Maps and Uber and your camera are great tools that won’t suck your time, but twitter and Instagram might. They suggest removing those ones, and if necessary schedule time on your computer to use them if it truly is important.
Like many people I feel I spend too much time on my phone and that it gets in the way of me living a better life. This book has suggestions to not just find focus but how to set goals that may actually motivate you. I highlighted a note from Jake, where he talked about becoming a writer. He wanted to try being a more serious writer, but found he had mixed motivation to actually get started, and trouble focusing. But the more he scheduled and forced himself to get started, the more he naturally became motivated and looked forward to this time. The shift took months to take hold and years to become truly natural.
This sounded counterintuitive to me at first – if he really wanted to write surely it would have been more natural to find that time and focus. But looking at my own life and habits, I know that’s not true. It’s really easy to be busy with work, mindlessly scroll instagram, chill out with Netflix, and call it a day, every day. I think the reasons that it’s so hard to break out of this cycle are more complex than the authors give credit, but I think the advice is generally good. Calendar blocking and taking Instagram off your phone sound like small things, but could have an outsize impact on your life.