Article Archives
Here you’ll find all of our articles on topics on personal behavior design and consumer psychology. Whether designing customer behaviors or your own habits, you’ll benefit from understanding the research I share from user experience design, behavioral economics, and neuroscience.
Skip the Digital Detox—Abstinence Won’t Work (But This Does)
I once tried a digital detox. It failed miserably. When I realized I was distracted during quality time with my daughter, I blamed my smartphone and made some extreme changes. I replaced my smartphone with an old-school flip phone so I couldn't be tempted to use...
The Surprising Science of “Manifestation”
Manifesting is bull. There, I said it. According to Oprah, manifesting is bringing something tangible into your life through attraction and belief—i.e. if you think it, it will come. It encourages people to bring a goal to life by making vision boards, writing in...
Best Productivity Tools: 6 That Stuck With Me
Since writing Indistractable, I’m often asked what tools and apps I personally use to get the most out of my day. But after years of research into the psychology of productivity, focus, and the causes of distraction, I’ve learned that there is no one magic, best...
Schedule Maker: a Google Sheet to Plan Your Week
Get my free and customizable to create your own timeboxed weekly calendar in an easy-to-use Google Sheet. Build a printable weekly schedule for college classes or work. You can...
A Fail-Safe Trick in your Search for the Right Productivity Apps
The internet is inundated with articles that have titles like “The Best Productivity Tools of the Year” and “Productivity Apps That Will Make Your Life Easier.” Dozens if not hundreds of apps claim to help people focus, manage their time, and stick to healthy habits....
You’re Not Addicted to Technology. Here’s What’s Happening Instead.
This essay is adapted from the book Build For Tomorrow, in which Entrepreneur magazine editor in chief Jason Feifer shows how to thrive by harnessing the power of change.Are You Addicted to Technology?The loudest voices in our culture today say yes. During a...
Locus of Control: How It Affects Your Life and How To Manage It
My daughter had just pulled the caramel corn out of the oven, and the sticky-sweet smell was almost irresistible. Despite knowing it wasn’t going to help my diet, I was gnawing for a taste. But instead of kindly asking for a small bite, as I should have, I barked,...
Distraction at Work Is a Symptom of Dysfunction
If we can’t focus, we can’t do our best work.It seems we’re all checking our phones constantly these days. But all that time spent on our phones leaves little time for anything else. We need time to think in order to come up with novel solutions to our business...
8 Productivity Hacks You Can Do in 30 Minutes
They’re part of the secret of becoming Indistractable.Got a few minutes? Then why not use them to implement these quick fixes that cut distraction and aid productivity? I uncovered these productivity fixes while researching how to combat distraction and increase...
Why Values In a Relationship Are What Make It Last (Or Not)
You don’t have to agree on everything, but you do have to align values in a relationship.Divorce sucks. My friend is going through one right now. The worst part is that he saw it coming. And he’s not the first of my friends to tell me they ignored the warning signs of...
Why People See Problems Where There Are None
Our baseline dissatisfaction is what motivates us, but we must harness it correctly. Do you often experience a strange malaise, that feeling of blah-ness you can’t quite explain? The good news is you’re not alone. You may be surprised to learn that, although people...
3 Ways to Filter Your Friends
When it comes to friendships, quality matters more than quantity.Thirty-six percent of Americans say they are “seriously lonely.” For many people, the solution may seem to be to go out and get more friends. Yet one study shows that when it comes to friendships, less...
How Products Shape Our Mindsets and Change Our Reality
When I first started using Strava (Android / iOS), my weekly running mileage skyrocketed. Nothing had changed other than my perception of how much running was “enough.” Lots of people in my feed were clocking 40 to 60 miles a week, and suddenly my 20-mile weekly...
How to Prevent Burnout Using Timeboxing
We’re facing a burnout epidemic that goes beyond work. Understanding its causes can help us fix it.A 2021 Indeed survey shows 52% of 1,500 American respondents say they feel burned out, compared with 43% the year prior; 67% believe that burnout worsened during the...
How to Embrace, Not Fear, Being Alone
Are you afraid of being alone? Well, you’re not alone in that. In a 2014 survey of 2,000 adults, one in three said they fear being alone: 40% of women and 35% of men. The world is riddled with distractions that prevent us from having to feel alone even when we aren’t...
Get Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable
Stepping outside your comfort zone seriously improves your life.Humans have an evolutionary need to be challenged—to feel discomfort. That’s the main revelation of journalist Michael Easter’s The Comfort Crisis, a book about embracing discomfort to “reclaim your wild,...
Surprise! There’s a Right Way to Multitask
Here’s how to get more out of your day without overtaxing your brain.Everyone knows that multitasking destroys productivity, right? Haven’t we all seen studies and read articles telling us that it’s impossible to do two things at once? In some ways, that’s true. The...
Can Someone with ADHD be ‘Indistractable’?
Anyone can use the Indistractable Model, and it can be especially helpful for those with ADHDDoes my book Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life work for the ADHD brain? It’s a question I’ve been getting a lot lately. Though I didn’t...
Planning a Vacation Is Practice for a Great Life
Get the most out of your vacation—and life—with just a little planning.When I was 13, my parents and I went to Europe on vacation. It was miserable. My father wanted to hit all the major sites, while my mother just wanted to relax. Because they couldn’t agree on what...
Why It’s So Hard to Shake the Way People Make You Feel
Good or bad, our feelings color how we see people.In psychology, a “trapped prior” is a perception of reality that’s colored, or trapped, by past experiences. If not treated, trapped priors can turn into debilitating phobias. For instance, someone might have an...
Don’t Write About What You Already Know — Instead, I’m “Writing To Learn”
Many authors write what they know. I don’t. I am writing to learn about what I don't know.For me, writing is a wonderful way to go deep on a problem I’m struggling with. As my friend and fellow author, Gretchen Rubin told me, “Research is me search.” When I’m...
Are We Really Having Fun at Bars or Just Escaping Reality?
Taking a hard look at how we socialize helps us spend time the way we truly want.The coronavirus pandemic gave us a pause to ask ourselves if we really should go back to the old way of doing things. For example, many people ditched their traffic-snarled commutes for...
The 6 Behavioral Design Books That Paved My Career
The best books are like stepping stones through a stream — they can help us through obstacles on our path. However, it’s only in retrospect that we realize which books were critical and which were superfluous. I’m surprised I ended up an author. I’m dyslexic, English...
The 4 Steps to Becoming Indistractable
Overcoming distraction is the struggle of our time. Here’s how to manage your wandering mind. From “Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life”Every building needs a sturdy foundation. Your daily habits are a foundation on which you are...
Why You’re Never Going to Be Satisfied With Life
The surprising psychology of why dissatisfaction is hardwired … a good thing!Why are we perpetually restless and unsatisfied? We live in the safest, healthiest, most well-educated, most democratic time in history—and yet, some part of the human psyche causes us to...
How a Morning Brain Dump Helps You Stay on Track All Day
Even when something is weighing on your mind, taking a minute to write it out can help you get the most out of your day. Here’s how… Though we may strive in vain to be productive machines all day every day, unexpected life events inevitably get in our way. Maybe you...
The Key to Behavior Change is Identity Change
Use the psychology of self-image to transform your habits for good.One of the most effective ways to change your behavior is to change your identity. I don’t mean joining the CIA or a witness protection program, or adopting an alter ego. I mean, rather, changing the...
How to Make Sure Working From Home Doesn’t Mean You’re Always Working
To keep the workday from consuming your life, learn to become “Indistractable.” When large swaths of the U.S. population transitioned to work from home in March 2020, they lost that critical physical boundary between their work domain and other life domains. As a...
Planning Ahead Is the Key to Living With More Spontaneity
It may seem counterintuitive, but spontaneity often can’t happen without a bit of advanced planning In a 2020 study, 72% of people said they feel happier after a spontaneous act. Those who described themselves as a “spontaneous person” were 40% more likely to consider...
To Fix Your Problems, Find the Root Cause
It’s much too easy to deflect responsibilityDo you play pool? I sure don’t. But I know enough about the game to use it as a metaphor for the hidden reasons we don’t do what we say we will. The object is to get balls into pockets using a big stick. However, you can’t...
One Question to Help You Get More Done
Struggling to stay focused? Knowing which external triggers serve you—and which ones don’t—can help you get back on track.It was 9 a.m. and Wendy, a freelance marketing consultant, knew exactly what she needed to do for the next hour: be in her office chair to write...
The Pursuit of ‘Flow’ Is Overrated
That magical zone is great when you can find it. But what happens when you can’t?The idea of flow is considered by many to be the epitome of productivity. Also known as “being in the zone” or “hitting your stride,” flow captivates us with its promise of becoming so...
How to Survive in a World of Information Overload
Pursuing knowledge is great until it becomes a distractionWe live in a world of too much information, and it’s nothing less than a blessing. Throughout most of human history, access to knowledge was limited. Power equated to how much information you had access to....
How to Get a Friend to Put Away Their Phone Without Being a Jerk
Digital distractions can get in the way of being fully present with the people we love. Here’s how to (politely) do something about it.Are we ever exclusively in our friends’ company? Our phones are almost assuredly present and ready to interrupt us with a poorly...
How to Tame Your Wandering Mind and Actually Get Some Work Done
Researchers believe that when a task isn’t sufficiently rewarding, our brains search for something more interesting to think aboutYou have a big deadline looming, and it’s time to hunker down. But every time you start working, you find that, for some reason, your mind...
If You Don’t Plan Your Time, Someone Else Will
Most people are stingy with their money and generous with their time. Here’s why that’s backward.Have you noticed how we use the same words to describe our relationship to time as we do our relationship to money? We spend time, just as we spend money. We make time,...
You Don’t Need a Mentor. You Need a Buddy.
Finding an accountability buddy is a simple and highly effective way to keep yourself going.When you’re struggling to achieve your personal or professional goals, do you ever wish you could speak with a famous mentor? If only you could connect with a super successful...
Would You Rather Give Up Sex or Your Phone?
How I Stopped Letting Tech Ruin My Love LifeEvery night, my wife and I engaged in the same routine: She put our daughter to bed, brushed her teeth, and freshened up. We both slipped under the covers, exchanged knowing glances, and started doing what comes naturally to...
Habit Tracker in Google Sheets – Free Template
Habit Trackers: How They Work and How to Use the TemplateBy Annie GrahamMany people strive to improve themselves in one way or another. Whether it’s getting more sleep and exercise, or spending more time doing the things we love, our ideal selves drive us to be...
Here’s How to Ensure Your Kids Don’t Spend the Entire Break Staring at Screens
There’s nothing wrong with some device time. Just use these tips to make sure your kids don’t overdo it.It’s that time of year when kids have a long break from school and parents and guardians likely have some time off work. What will we do with all that free time?...
