Nir Eyal
Appearances
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
But what we find is that high performers across every field, when you think about the arts, when you think about sports, business, high performers, when they feel those internal triggers, they experience the same internal triggers the rest of us do. They experience loneliness and stress and anxiety just like everyone else does.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
But they deal with it by using it as rocket fuel to push them towards traction. Whereas distractible people, as soon as they feel that discomfort, they try and escape it with distraction. That's the big difference.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
Yeah. So step one is- Understand it. Yeah. Is master those internal triggers. Yeah. Or they become your master. Yeah. That's step number one. There's a bunch of techniques. We're just covering the surface. There's over a dozen different techniques that you can use. Mm-hmm. to help you master those internal triggers. Now, the second step is to make time for traction.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
So when you have those doubts, one of these techniques that is really life-changing is scheduling time for worry. Scheduling time for worry. That what happens is in the moment, we feel these feelings, we think these thoughts, and a distractible person will say, well, I got to deal with that sensation right now. I have to work through whatever it is that I'm feeling right now.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
And they stop everything to do that. And that's not the right method. The right method is to write down that sensation and get back to the task at hand as quickly as possible using these four strategies. Then later on, right now that you've written down what that sensation is, you're going to make time in your calendar to think about that sensation.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
So step number one, you have these tools. Maybe I can digress for a second. I'll tell you my favorite tool for mastering internal triggers. It's called the 10-minute rule. This comes from acceptance and commitment therapy. And the 10-minute rule says that you can give in to any distraction Any distraction. Maybe it's smoking that cigarette if you're trying to quit.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
Maybe it's eating that piece of chocolate cake if you're on a diet. Maybe it's checking social media. Whatever it is. Whatever distraction. You can give in to that distraction, but not right now. You can give in in 10 minutes. Don't misunderstand. Not for 10 minutes. Sometimes people get it wrong. It's in 10 minutes. Okay? So what does that do?
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
What that does is we talked about psychological reactance earlier, and you asked what do you do about psychological reactance. You're allowing yourself to acknowledge that you are in control, that you decide. What many people do is they have strict abstinence, right? Strict abstinence says, no, I will not do it, right? I won't eat sugar. I won't get distracted. I will do this. I will do that.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
As opposed to saying, hey, I'm an adult. I can do whatever I want. I choose not to go off track for the next 10 minutes. That's it. In 10 minutes, I can give into whatever I want. So now I'm in control. You know, the whole just say no technique turns out makes you ruminate and think about and have more discomfort around the thing you want, increasing these internal triggers.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
And that actually is what makes you give into that distraction. We know that with smoking, actually, it's very interesting. We're finding that nicotine is less and less part of the reason people get addicted to cigarettes. It's more about the rumination around... I want to smoke, but I can't. I want to smoke, but I shouldn't. I want to smoke. I want to smoke. I want to smoke. Fine.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
I'll finally smoke. Now I get relief. How do we know this? If you ask smokers, why do they smoke? The number one reason, it's relaxing. That makes no sense. Nicotine is a stimulant. Makes no sense, right? Why would it be relaxing? It's relaxing because finally I can stop telling myself I don't have to do it anymore. I don't have to fight with myself anymore.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
And that eases that psychological reactance. Ha, I can finally give in. So when you use this 10-minute rule and say, okay, I can give into that distraction in 10 minutes from now, what you're doing is you're establishing agency. Right now you're in control and we can do anything for 10 minutes. And if 10 minutes feels like too long, try the five minute rule.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
The idea is that you're building that ability over time. So the 10 minute rule becomes a 12 minute rule, becomes a 15 minute rule. And you're learning, wait a minute, I can't actually delay gratification. Remember all these problems of distraction are an impulse control issue. So when you teach yourself, wait a minute, okay, I could delay for five, 10 minutes. That's no big deal.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
You're proving to yourself, hey, I'm not addicted to these things. I'm not powerless. My brain isn't being hijacked. I do have control as long as I use these practices, right? So the 10 minute rule is a very, very effective technique.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
So step three is hacking back the external triggers. So this is when we do talk about the usual suspects, the pings, the dings, the rings. That's where we...
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
you know very systematically go through what a lot of people complain about but it's really only 10 the problem because 90 of our distractions begin from within but people you know do have these issues you know we talk about the the phone the computer what turns out to be a much bigger problem is not the technology, it's what the technology is attached to, right? So what if it's your boss?
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
That's the distraction. What if it's your kids that are a distraction? We love them to death, right? Our kids are great, but they can be a huge source of distraction. Meetings, oh my God, how many stupid meetings do we have to attend that are nothing but a distraction, especially now that Zoom makes it accessible so that wherever you are, you know, people can call meetings.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
those are huge distractions of course uh slack channels and that's what we get into more in the book in terms of okay systematically what do you do about these various external triggers so we're on step three of the four steps what's step number four so step four is is preventing distraction with packs so packs are these what's called a pre-commitment device so this is what you do after the first three steps so you master the internal triggers you make time for traction you hack back the external triggers
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
As the last line of defense, as the firewall against distraction, you're going to prevent distraction with a pact. Now, what are pacts? It's when you decide in advance what you will do to keep yourself in that task. And there's three types of pacts. We have what we call effort pacts, price pacts, and identity pacts.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
Uh, an effort pact is when there's some bit of friction in between you and the thing you don't want to do. So I'll, I'll, it's just us and your millions of viewers here. So I'll get a little personal. Okay.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
Um, a few years ago, my wife and I, and again, we've been married for 22 years now, a few years ago before I was writing this book, uh, we noticed that our sex life was suffering that every night we were going to bed. And I was fondling my iPhone and she was caressing her iPad.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
Right? And we were going to bed later and later. And not only were we not getting proper sleep, we all know how important rest is. our sex life was suffering. So when I started this research, I came across this research around the importance of these effort packs. And I went to the hardware store and I bought us this $10 outlet timer.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
Now this outlet timer, you plug into the wall and whatever you plug into that outlet timer will turn on or off at any time of day and night. So what did we do with that? We plugged in our internet router into this timer. So every night in our household at 10 p.m., the internet shuts off. Now, could I turn it back on?
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
Of course I could, but I'd have to go under my desk, unplug this timer, reset it, and plug it back in. That would take effort. So I put some friction in between myself and the distraction. OK, and lo and behold, every night we all knew, OK, the Internet's going to shut down at 10 p.m., finish up whatever you need to do.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
And it gave me that bit of mindfulness to say, OK, do I really need to still, you know, check email or social media or whatever silly thing I was doing? Or is it time to do what I said I was going to do, which is get some rest, go to bed and maybe be intimate with my wife?
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
Again, but now it's effort, right? If I really wanted to lie to myself, of course I could. That's not the point, right? That there's always a way. The point is it adds a bit of friction, right? It's that bit of effort that now I have to take.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
Exactly. And now, by the way, it actually wouldn't even matter because we all know the Internet's going to shut off at 10. We all need to start getting ready to stop doing whatever we're doing because it's going to now we don't even need it anymore. It's become part of our nightly ritual. Right. And by the way, what I want to illustrate is the concept, not the practice, right?
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
Tactics are what you do. Strategy is why you do it. That's more important. You know, I think a lot of these books around similar topics around, you know, dealing with focus and productivity, it's a lot of life hacks. Right. But what I wanted was more the strategy, the psychological principles around why we get distracted. And then I'll let people come up with their own tactics.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
Yeah, so that's why it's really about this holistic model. So that's what took me the most time to figure out was what are the four mandatory components of living without regret, of doing what you say you're going to do? So the first step is mastering these internal triggers, figuring out why you feel this way, right? What is that underlying sensation?
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
So if you're trying to avoid that chocolate bar, it might be hunger. Or it might not be hunger, right? So I used to be clinically obese. And I'll tell you what, I did not eat to excess because I was hungry. I was eating to excess because I was lonely. I was eating to excess because I was bored. I was eating to excess because I felt guilty about how much I had just eaten.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
It wasn't just about the hunger, right? Very few people who are obese are just hungry all the time. That's not what's going on. It's because we're eating our feelings. That's what's happening. So that's the first step. We have to understand the deeper reason.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
It is and it isn't. I mean, I'm not... You don't have to go to therapy. No, there's nothing wrong with it. If it's helpful, please do it. But that's not a requirement. Something as simple as, you know, so whenever I work, I have on my desk, I have a little post-it note and a pen handy. And...
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
When I get distracted or when I even feel the sense of distraction, just noting down that sensation, just writing down what is it that I felt right before the distraction. So I write every day. And all I want to do when I write – you know this, right?
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
When you write, all you want to do is go Google something or do some research or go check email for a quick sec or let me just find that one thing that might be – And they're all distractions. They're all taking you away from the core thing you need to do, which you said you would do, which is right.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
And so if I can just pause for a second and reflect on what was that sensation that I was feeling right before. It was boredom. It was anxiety. It was fearfulness. It was uncertainty. just writing it down is an incredible first step towards gaining power over that discomfort because then you can start to identify it.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
And so what I'll do many times is just pause to reflect on, wait a minute, what's going on there, right? What is that sensation? Because then you can begin to do what's called reframing the trigger. So now when I feel the sensation of wanting to get distracted, I say, you know what? What's going on here? Okay, I'm feeling the sensation because I'm stressed. Why am I stressed?
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
Because this is really important to me. I want to get this right for my readers and for myself. And so reframing it as not a negative, but something that happens not to me, but for me, that that sensation is a sign that I can listen to. I think most of us, we think when we feel this discomfort, that's happening to us, right? But it's not, it's happening for us. It's a signal for us to listen to.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 197: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal
Now, how we interpret it is up to us. And that's where the magic happens. If you interpret it as something that is harmful, is dangerous, that you need to escape, right? You don't want to feel that uncomfortable sensation. You look for distraction.