On The Good Art of Fighting Distraction
Fear dies when it's concretized. Distraction dies when its trade-offs are clear.
I’ve written a few pieces on reading and writing here:
Some Notes on How to Read Important Books (August 4, 2024)
Personal libraries (June 19, 2023)
Some Opinions on How to Write Online (May 23, 2023)
After and since each of them, I’ve received consistent notes that could be summarized like this: “But how do I read/write when my phone is distracting me? How do I fight distraction generally?”
Actually finding the answer to that question is particular to each individual’s context, but I’ll tell you some of what I do. Caveat emptor, your mileage may vary, and all other good advice hedges.
I love social media
I have a wonderful time on social media; I love Instagram (especially Reels), Twitter, Substack, and LinkedIn (very underrated). They’ve brought so many great people into my life, they are engines of serendipity, and the content is brilliantly entertaining.
I also don’t have a problem being away from them for extended periods of time, and regularly read and write for hours without my phone.
This is mystifying to some people; they imagine the brute force they’d have to apply to overcome their own phone addiction, and then they project that onto me, imagining that I’m constantly blowing out a forehead vein keeping myself away from the glowy square in my pocket. And then they email or talk to me, asking how I have the endurance.
I then explain that their perception is wrong, usually through analogy to physical fitness. For example:
If you run regularly, your body is used to it. It is easier than it was when you started, for both your muscles and your lungs. And if you become well practiced at it, your body will come to massively enjoy it. From the perspective of the experienced runner, the activity is a joy.
But from the perspective of someone who is new to physical fitness, it might seem like the opposite. It might seem like the advanced runners are just gritting their teeth through massive pain and immolated lungs, and that the source of their strength is primarily their ability to torturously endure. Now, part of getting faster or stronger is in fact abjuring comfort to pursue strength. But it is not what the novice imagines.
The novice takes their own experience, which is that of untrained muscles and untested lungs, and extrapolates that experience into the future. For them, training might seem like a long future of unpleasantness. But like everyone who tries to predict the future by linearly projecting from the present, they would be wrong. They fail to take into account that their body will adapt, and that their experience will change accordingly.
In the same manner, people who witness my friendly, non-addictive relationship with social media need to realize: it has come from the cultivation of good habit over time. And you too can achieve such a relationship with the application of the proper training regimen!
But before I describe what I did specifically, I’ll explain how I overcome fear.
Dispel fear by making its worries concrete
Put simply: I write down what I’m afraid will happen.
When I worked in the corporate world, I had to get in touch with a ton of partners at a large law firm. They knew it, and I knew it—but the partners are always busy, and if I’m being honest, they thought I was wasting their time at least a little bit (even if they thought of our interactions as a necessary evil).
This means that when I wrote up a call sheet about 10 names long, I would immediately feel the bottom drop out of my stomach. I would want to put my head down on my desk and take a nap. I felt dread. A lot of people have these moments in their jobs: you have to do something you really don’t want to do, and this causes you to put off starting it, which causes you to start worring about your slow pace and mounting work.
So how do you dispel this? Write down what you’re afraid of. In my case:
They’ll yell at me for…doing my job?? No. And even if they did, that’s now a problem for them, not me.
I’ll get fired because…I’m wasting their time doing my job?? No, they understand that I’m doing my job, and even if they think I’m wasting their time, they’re not going to do anything about that.
My reputation will be damaged because the partners…will talk about how I wasted their time?? I mean, realistically everyone at the firm understands that we all have different jobs to do, and we all talk to our peers about how we have to do things we don’t like. This is fine.
Once you write your fears down, they are vulnerable to logical thinking. And usually the fears are either unrealistic, or they are deal-withable. OR! You realize they are absolutely beneath you. Every time I’ve done the exercise of writing my fears down, I wind up scoffing at the list a little bit. That’s what I was afraid of? I can deal with it!
I usually don’t have to write things down; most of the time I do the exercise of concretizing my fears in my head. But the result is the same every time: the fear dissipates, and I’m left with a simple set of realistic actions and consequences.
Dispel distraction by making its trade-offs concrete
Distraction can also be treated by being explicit. Instead of stating what your fears really are, you write down what happens if you indulge your distraction, and see if you’re OK with that.
When I was first coming to terms with my phone’s intrusions into my work time, I had the following conversation in my head over and over:
Daniel A (having just sat down to write): I want to go on Instagram.
Daniel B: That's a bad idea.
Daniel A: No it's not, I'll just do it real quick.
Daniel B: It's never real quick, be realistic. Isn't it correct that it could easily eat at least 5 minutes?
Daniel A: It is.
Daniel B: OK, well, do you want to be delayed by five minutes?
Daniel A: That seems fine--
Daniel B: --and do you also want to immediately start your work session by interrupting it? Isn't that the worst habit? Doesn't it make it easier to interrupt yourself later on too?
Daniel A: It does. I want to go on Instagram.
Daniel B: You are allowed to go on Instagram if you agree to making the following trade-off: you get to go on Instagram right now, but your work session will be damaged, and all future work sessions will be damaged by your reinforced bad habit. Do you want to make that trade-off?
Daniel A: I want to go on Instagram.
Daniel B: That is actually fine, but I'm asking if you want to make the trade-off. All you have to say is that you acknowledge it, and you're free to go on Instagram.
Daniel A: Well I don't want to make that trade-off. I only want to go on Instagram with no trade-offs.
Daniel B: Well Instagram only comes with the trade-offs.
Daniel A: Goddamn it.
Daniel B: I'm not telling you to stay away from Instagram! Just acknowledge the trade-offs. It's not your fault or anyone else's that they exist, they're kind of just a fact of reality. You can't avoid them. Only face them honestly or not. But you'll face them regardless.
Daniel A: I do not want to make the trade-off.
Daniel B: OK. You can go on Instagram after you write a few hundred words and work out that idea you had. But if you do it right now, you probably won't get started on that. So let's just do that for now. I would sit in silence for several minutes, wanting to grab my phone, but arguing with myself in this way. I always kept coming back to an explicit acknowledgement of the trade-offs.
The trade-offs make the decision to check the phone both straightforward and honest without conjuring a fight. I’m not trying to brute-force hold myself into the chair and ignore something I’m clearly somewhat addicted to; doing that sets up a contest between your novice will and the powerful addictive thing. Who do you think is going to win that?
I also don’t blame myself for the trade-offs. Phone usage in the middle of a writing session will interrupt my flow state, interrupt my thought, and generally slow down my work. It is incredibly bad strategy, and the tactics of someone who wants me to not write. This is true. I don’t get mad at myself for not being able to check my phone when I want, or view myself as weak. I would no more view myself as weak for being unable to run five miles with a stomach full of freshly chugged water.
Instead of engaging in a contest of will that I would lose, or berating myself for a perfectly regular fact of reality, I just repeated the explicit trade-offs of my actions until I could accept them. Trade-offs are easier to make when you concretize them, just like fear is easier to face in the same way.
Over time, this deliberate effort had crystalized into a habit. I don’t have to argue with myself anymore. I can swat away the desire to check my phone with a brief flash of emotion that doesn’t even consciously register as a full thought. Just like the seasoned runner who can easily put miles under his shoes.
The Midwestern track coach attitude
I’ll close with the general affect I go into fear, frustration, and other challenging emotions with: the attitude of the Midwestern track coach.
Stick-to-it-iveness: you can do it, but you’ll need to try multiple times over a consistent period of time. It will get better over time. Don’t extrapolate your first, worst try into the future.
Mental toughness: it might not be easy. Most good things aren’t. You aren’t owed them being easy—not because anyone is out to get you, but because that’s just how reality works. Embrace the work ahead, knowing you will have earned the result.
Positive attitude: what an opportunity to improve and cultivate good habits! Life will get better and easier tomorrow because of the work you put in today.
Final note: I wrote this essay in one shot in 47 minutes. It’s about 1,700 words. No phone usage. It’s not magic—it’s the good art of fighting distraction and not just winning the battle, but the war.