This content is locked. Please login or become a member.
The last step to becoming indistractable is to prevent distraction with pacts. Now, pacts are what’s called a pre-commitment device and psychologists have studied the effectiveness of making a pre-commitment for decades and decades. A pre-commitment is when we take some kind of action today to make sure we don’t do what we don’t want to do later on. So, for example, putting money into a 401k account, a retirement account with stiff penalties for early withdrawal, prevents you from doing something you don’t want to do at a future date, namely, withdrawing that money before retirement.
So, we can use three types of pacts to make sure that we don’t slip off track and go into distraction. The first type of pact is called an effort pact. An effort pact puts a bit of friction between us and something we don’t want to do. So, we can use different technologies, for example, to prevent us from getting distracted. So, for example, when I am doing my focused work time for my day, I use an app called Forest. I open this app, I set in how much time I want to do focused work. And when I hit “go” on that timer, a little virtual tree is planted. Now, if I pick up the phone and do anything with it, the little virtual tree dies. And, of course, I don’t want to be a virtual tree murderer. And so it’s a little bit of a reminder to remind me, “Hey, that’s not what you want to do right now.” So, that would be an example of an effort pact, a pre-commitment I made with myself to remind me to stay on task.
We can also use what’s called a price pact. A price pact puts some kind of financial cost to slipping off track. So, when I was working on my book Indistractable, after four years of research, I decided it was time to finally put the words on paper. And I made a bet with my friend, Mark, who’s a fellow author, and I shook his hand and said, “If I don’t finish this manuscript by January 1st, I am going to pay you $10,000.” Now, my hand shook as I made this agreement, but that price pact was enough to make sure I accomplished my goal. And, of course, not only did I keep my money, I never had to give Mark the $10,000, I also did the thing I wanted to do: I finished my manuscript. And there are many other price pacts that we can use.
But perhaps the most interesting and effective of the three different pacts is what’s called an identity pact. An identity pact comes out of the research from the psychology of religion. And it turns out when we create a moniker for ourselves, an identity with which we see ourselves, we are more likely to stay on track. So, when a devout Muslim looks at alcohol, they don’t even have to exert any self-control to not drink that beer, because for a devout Muslim, they are forbidden from drinking alcohol. And so that part of their identity makes it easy to resist that temptation. So, this is why I titled my book Indistractable, because we can use this moniker for ourselves to tell ourselves we are the kind of people who strive to do what they say we are going to do. We are indistractable.
Now, the one word of warning around this fourth technique, around using these pre-commitments, these pacts, is that it has to come last. If you don’t do the other steps first, this technique will oftentimes backfire. So, first master the internal triggers, then make time for traction, hack back the external triggers, and finally, use these pre-commitment devices, these pacts, to prevent distraction.