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Nir Eyal writes, consults, and teaches about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. The M.I.T. Technology Review dubbed Nir, “The Prophet of Habit-Forming Technology.” Nir founded two tech companies since 2003 and has taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. 

He is the author of the bestselling book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life.

In addition to blogging at NirAndFar.com, Nir’s writing has been featured in The Harvard Business Review, TechCrunch, and Psychology Today.

Podcast Highlights

• Who is Nir Eyal? 

Nir describes himself as a chubby immigrant from Israel. He moved from Israel with his family when he was 3 years old and always had a bit of a weight problem, which was actually how he started exploring the idea of how certain products can get us hooked and change our behaviours.

A phrase that authors like to repeat is “research is mesearch”, which is exactly why Nir likes to write. He wrote his first book because he couldn’t find a satisfactory answer out in the wild around how to use technology to build healthy habits in user’s lives, so he wrote it himself. It was the same with his second book, we all know what we need to do so the question was why don’t we do those things? It’s certainly not a lack of knowledge.

• Changing Behaviours

Unless we figure out why we are distracted on a psychological level, we will go back to our default behaviour and old habits. The opposite of distraction is not focus, it’s traction. Traction is any action that pulls you towards what you want and distraction is what pulls you away. 

The key is that it’s not the technology that’s the problem, it’s the idea that technology is the problem. As long as we have a scapegoat to blame the issue on, we don’t have to do anything ourselves.

Imagine how powerful you could become if you simple did everything you said you were going to do.

• Becoming Indistractable

Most people will tell you that motivation is about the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, but it’s not true. Neurologically speaking it’s pain all the way down. All products cater to uncomfortable sensations because wanting something is neurologically and fundamentally uncomfortable. This means that time management is also pain management.

We have to come to terms with the fact that our behaviour is driven by the desire to escape discomfort, and we only have two choices to deal with that. We can either learn techniques to cope with the discomfort, or fundamentally change the source of the discomfort.

There is nothing wrong with watching cat videos, it’s only when it distracts you from the things you value like being with your kids. Time you plan to waste is not wasted time.

• Living Your Values

When it comes to external triggers, there is nothing inherently bad about them. It comes down to whether they are helping you gain traction or pulling you into distraction. By far the most distraction comes from internal triggers like boredom and fatigue.

You have to make time for traction, put time into your