The Ryan Hanley Show
Build Distraction-Free Habits for Maximum Productivity - Ryan Hanley
Thu, 30 Jan 2025
In this episode, Ryan Hanley dives deep into the hidden cost of distractions and how they rob you of productivity, creativity, and even happiness. Backed by research from Harvard, the University of Texas, and the University of California, this episode uncovers the science behind attention residue, cognitive decline, and how distractions impact your ability to perform at your highest level. Learn how to reclaim your focus, build distraction-free habits, and take back control of your life. 🎯 Takeaways: Every time you switch tasks, you lose up to 23 minutes of full focus—adding up to 19 hours per week. Your phone isn’t just distracting you—it’s rewiring your brain to crave shallow dopamine hits over deep, meaningful work. The key to focus isn’t just blocking distractions—it’s addressing the root cause: avoiding discomfort. 💬 Sound Bites: "Every time you check your phone, you’re not just losing seconds—you’re losing pieces of your life. And you don’t even realize it." "Multitasking is a myth. It’s a productivity killer, reducing efficiency by up to 40%." "What you focus on is who you become. Reclaiming your attention means reclaiming your future." 📖 Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction: The Hidden Cost of Distraction 02:47 - The Science Behind Attention Residue 05:56 - Why Multitasking Is a Productivity Killer 09:58 - The Dopamine Trap: Why Your Brain Craves Distractions 13:44 - The Root Cause: Avoiding Discomfort 18:50 - How to Break Free: 5 Powerful Strategies to Reclaim Focus 25:40 - Tools & Techniques: Time Blocking, Deep Work & Distraction-Free Environments 32:40 - Final Thoughts: What You Focus on Is Who You Become 📌 𝗙𝗢𝗟𝗟𝗢𝗪 𝗠𝗘 𝗢𝗡: Website: https://go.ryanhanley.com/ Course Page: https://masteroftheclose.com/ Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ryan-hanley-show/id1480262657 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5AZFuTiQsgS9hMQDDdtlOr?si=98432b7806534486 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryan_hanley
Chapter 1: What is the hidden cost of distractions?
I opened up the screen time app on my phone for the very first time about a month ago. And I was sitting next to my girlfriend and it said three hours and 27 minutes. Three hours and 27 minutes was my daily average screen time. That's 91 days a year spent staring at my phone. That's 17 years of my life at that pace would be spent staring at my stupid phone.
Now, I'm the type of person that considers himself and holds as a point of pride my productivity level, right? I focus on energy. I work on tough tasks. I get things out the door. I complete projects, right? And I hold that as a point of pride. And here I am wasting a massive amount of time staring at my stupid phone. And when I dug into it, you know what it was?
Chapter 2: What is attention residue and why does it matter?
Social media apps, particularly LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. I'm mindlessly scrolling, watching motivational videos or looking at news on Twitter or X and then doing the same exact thing on LinkedIn. Three hours and 27 minutes and more than half of that time was spent on social media apps. And here's the crazy part. I immediately start justifying that action as well.
Social media is a big part of how I grow my business and build my brand and connect with prospects and customers and other thought leaders in the industries that I work in and the spaces that I work in. And this is how I grow my business. It's bullshit. It's absolute bullshit.
I'm scrolling those apps as a way to distract myself from whatever it is in those moments that I needed to be distracted from or wanted to be distracted from or didn't want to be distracted from but allowed myself to be distracted from anyways. And I have to be self-aware. And I have to acknowledge and I'm telling you up front that this is a problem and it's something that I'm going to fix.
Chapter 3: Why is multitasking a productivity killer?
And it's something I've been working on for over a month. We're going to talk about the research that I found, why this happens, what the impact is to us. And then by the end of this video, we are going to dive into tactics that I've been using for over a month to now get my screen time down below three hours. Because here's the rub on this.
it's not just about the wasted time when we're mindlessly scrolling through social media in particular and our eyes are focused on this small screen with small letters with blue light radiating off of it going directly into our brain it's not just the lost time your body produces
Negative chemicals, cortisol in particular, anxiety, stress-related chemicals flood into your body as you're death-scrolling these social media apps. So not only are you losing time, but you're also drastically impacting your ability to perform at your highest level when you do put the phone down and try to get back to that important work, which is why you're here. It's why I do these videos.
These are diary entries to myself because I know if these are things I'm struggling with, I know they're things you're struggling with. And I want to have honest conversations with you. So that's why I share how despite being someone who holds himself in high regard as being so productive and getting things done, I have a problem and I am fixing that problem. We're going to discuss it today.
Chapter 4: How does the dopamine trap affect our focus?
Let's get after it.
in a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the show. Today, we're talking about distractions. And before we get into that topic, just a couple quick notes. If you enjoy this show, if this is something that brings you value, subscribe. Like if you're on YouTube. Leave a rating and review on Apple and Spotify if you're listening to the podcast.
If you have questions about the apps that we're going to talk about, the research we're going to talk about, Leave them in the comments. Leave them in the reviews. I look at every single one. I answer every single one because, guys, I love you for being here, and I want you to find your own peak performance.
Chapter 5: What is the root cause of distractions?
And that happens not just through me talking to you through either the video or the podcast. But it happens through real conversations. And we can do that through the comments or just DM me. LinkedIn, Instagram. Obviously, I'm checking them way less. But there's two ways that you can get at me. And if you enjoy email, Ryan at FindingPeak.com. Just email me, my friends.
I'm happy to answer your questions and respond there as well. Okay. so getting into this topic in particular right so this research on attention residue residue comes out of the university of washington from a doctor named let me just make sure i get it right dr sophia leroy she is a professor of management at the university of washington and she introduced the term task switching, right?
Which ultimately led to her research around attention residue. Attention residue and understanding this particular term and its psychological impact on us and our productivity is so important because of three main factors, right? The first is productivity loss.
When, you know, if if you are focused on a task and then, you know, you hit a point where maybe you come up against some resistance or there's some piece of it that that really starts to create an obstacle and a struggle. You know, oftentimes we'll immediately assume that we need a distraction. We'll go, we'll pick up our phone or our phone will buzz and go.
You know, now we are looking at something else or we're scrolling through Instagram or, hey, has anyone DM me or did someone like my last post or whatever? Whatever your app, your guilty pleasure app is for distractions, we pick it up because we feel like it's harmless. Oh, I'm just going to scroll a couple of times, see if anyone mentioned me or whatever.
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Chapter 6: What strategies can help reclaim focus?
What Dr. Leroy's research found is that our brain stays back. part of our brain's energy part of our focus stays back with the previous task and we are unable to reclaim our full focus for 23 minutes now you multiply that by the average of 50 disruptions 50 distractions a day that we face you're looking at 19 hours of lost full focus a week.
Think about what you could get done, the quality of work product that you could complete, the amount of output that you could create if you had full focus on the tasks that mattered and you were able to reclaim those 19 hours. Now,
i don't know that it's possible to live a completely distraction-free life especially in the modern world that we live in especially if you're living a modern life right if you're living out in the woods and you don't have the internet and you know you're just reading all day or writing and there's no technology maybe in the modern world it's almost impossible to live a distraction-free life
You're going to have messages that come in that are important for work. You're going to have messages that come in from a spouse, a partner, a loved one, family member. Maybe your kid gets sick at school. You got to go pick them up. If we can remove the unnecessary distractions, the social media, the gaming, the gambling apps, the whatever it is, the news sites that just suck you in.
If we can remove those as much as possible. then the necessary distractions, the ones that are important to your life, one, become less stressful, and two, we're able to regain more of our full focus. This is what distraction is costing you.
creativity quality relationships and the achievement of your dreams your goals so we're gonna talk about this impact we're gonna talk about how we mitigate it and how we move forward the things we need to do to get our full focus back to maximize our energy and to achieve world domination which why would you why would you shoot for anything less so what none of you want to hear is that
Multitasking reduces our productivity by 40%. This is tried and true. This has been tested over and over and over again. The original research came out of the University of California. Multitasking is not a real thing. You are not a good multitasker. No one is. If there's someone in your office who walks around and presents themselves as a good multitasker, they are not.
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Chapter 7: How can tools and techniques enhance productivity?
Particularly if you are a man. Because men's brains are wired differently than women's brains. Women lose less energy when they switch from one task to another. It does not mean that they are able to multitask or they are not impacted by a loss of creativity and energy and focus when they try to jump from task to task to task.
But particularly for men and particularly for younger men, jumping from task to task has an even greater impact on creativity, energy, and focus. We are not multitaskers. Humans are not multitaskers. thing at a time.
If the average person spends five hours and 24 minutes a day on their phone, which means even though I have a problem at 327 where I was, I'm still less than the average, which is insane. You're losing more than 100 full days a year to your phone. So there's a few different kind of like psychological principles that come into effect here.
The first is attention residue, which we talked about, right? Your brain stays attached to the prior task with a certain amount of energy and focus, which means that we're not able to focus on or refocus our attention to the new task when we switch. And on average, it takes 23 minutes to get our full attention back. Additionally, we have cognitive decline.
Research out of the University of Texas shows that having your phone within reach Whether you use it or not reduces your memory and your IQ. And this study I've seen multiple times. This is the original research out of the University of Texas.
But you have a reduction in IQ and memory just by having your phone in reach because your brain is some portion of your brain is constantly thinking, should I check? Should I check my DMs? Should I? What if someone texted me? Hey, do I have any new emails? Well, what's the new sports score?
And because it's there and your brain knows it's there, it's constantly, and I'm pointing here because my phone is right over here today. And what I should do is take that phone and put that phone someplace else. When I work, I actually put it in a drawer. So when I'm doing focused work, I actually take my phone right here and I put it in the drawer that's underneath here.
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Chapter 8: What are the final thoughts on focus and productivity?
And I put it on silent because anything I could possibly need is going to come through my computer. And we're going to talk about the apps that I'm using to make sure that the right messages come through. All the rest get blocked. during my focused time. The last is life fulfillment, right? The last major psychological impact we're having is life fulfillment. And this one is freaking crazy.
Harvard psychologists found that people are the least happy when their minds wander, the least happy, regardless of what they're doing. Distraction doesn't just waste your time. It steals your happiness. Now, you may be saying, Brian, you know, I like to go for walks and my mind wanders all over the place. That's because that is the task that you are on.
You have chosen to go for a walk without your AirPods or earbuds or whatever. And your mind is wandering all over and traveling to different things and thinking about different things. That's the task that you set it on.
When they use the word wander in this research, they're talking about distractions and actually life fulfillment relates to the cognitive decline piece and that having your phone near you, right? It's your mind. Some portion of your mind is constantly wandering to what's going on on the phone. whatever app or, you know, news site or whatever it is that is your attention stealer, right?
Your mind is constantly wandering to that thing. And that we get the most fulfillment, the most meaning and purpose when we are singularly focused on a task, which meaning and purpose ultimately lead to happiness. So...
guys the the effects are real right and just you know harvard texas university of california university of washington these are tried and true these are deep research institutions and there's multiple studies i just pulled out in most cases like the study that kicked off the idea but there have been multiple studies on all these things there is no denying that a lack of focus that allowing distractions to come into our lives and not being intentional with our focus
crushes our productivity, it decreases our ability to be great at what we do, and ultimately reduces our happiness on a day-to-day basis, which are all things that sound fucking terrible. The root cause of all of this, right? Why are we distracted? What is the root cause of our distraction? Why do we allow this to come into our life, right?
And no one wants to admit this, but distractions aren't a real problem. That's a symptom. The phone, the social media, the text messages, the TikTok, whatever it is that is your distraction is a symptom. It is not the root cause of the problem. The problem is we're avoiding discomfort.
Behavioral scientists have found that every time a task gets challenging, when you're faced with the boredom, the uncertainty, and even the tiniest frustration, your brain starts screaming for escape. That's when you grab your phone. That's when you check your email or your text messages or your DMs on social media or you death scroll X to find what's going on in the world.
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