Introduction
After limiting machine interruptions, especially by removing all your notifications, there is another problem, more sneaky.
The distractions you go looking for yourself.
Nobody "interrupted" you, no pop-up attacked you, and yet you find yourself scrolling, reading headlines you didn't ask for, or clicking red badges "just for a second."
Temptations are everywhere, and they love boredom
Temptations call you mostly when the task is a bit unpleasant, a bit fuzzy, or a bit long.
You're writing a proposal, you need to find a visual, and without noticing you end up on a social network. You open your internal chat tool "just to check," and you stay there for ten minutes.
The important point is that most of these platforms are not neutral. Their goal is to keep you as long as possible.
That's why autoplay exists, why headlines are more and more clickbaity, and why interfaces are built to reward reactivity.
Dopamine, autopilot, and the illusion of control
On paper, you tell yourself, "I can stop whenever I want."
In reality, you're facing a mechanism of immediate gratification. Your brain prefers a small reward now, even if it costs you attention.
Over time, it's not a temptation anymore. It's an automatic reflex. At the first tiny dip in attention, you look for an exit door.
The key strategy: add as much friction as possible
Pure self-discipline is heroic, but it's a fragile strategy.
The most reliable method is to make distractions harder to access, so every detour becomes a conscious choice.
The simplest image is the Nutella jar.
Resisting a jar sitting in the cabinet is possible, but the most effective way is not buying it.
For digital distractions, it's the same logic.
1) Make apps less accessible
Moving an app into a folder, putting it on a far-away screen is a start, but you might learn the path by heart.
The more radical version, often more effective, is deleting the app from your phone.
If you truly need access, use the browser. The tool stays available, but it breaks reflex access.
2) Block reflexes on your computer
The trap is that habits come back fast, especially on a computer, with shortcuts, history, and tabs.
In those cases, blocking tools can be useful, not to "ban" but to slow you down. Friction gives you a window of choice.
There are also extensions that hide feeds (news feed) and keep only useful functions, like replying to a message, without sucking you into an endless scroll.
3) Remove temptation from the table
Avoid leaving your phone in front of you when you're with someone, or even when you're working.
Just seeing it increases temptation.
Same battle with smartwatches, which turn your wrist into an interruption dispenser.
"Parking tools": your antidote to links that suck you in
Another classic trap is when someone sends you an article or a video "to watch" and you want to consume it immediately.
You need a clear place to park those pieces of content, to handle them later, at a chosen moment.
The idea is simple: capture the link, tag it if needed, and review it in a dedicated slot. Not while you're trying to move forward on an important task.
Resisting isn't deprivation, it's regaining control
The goal isn't to become a digital monk.
The goal is for you to decide, and for distraction to become a chosen break again, not a reflex you suffer.
Next in this chapter, we'll see how to complement that by protecting your attention from outside requests with create your bubble, and more broadly how to preserve continuous work sequences, as explained by Carlson's law.
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