So life is kinda hard these days for lots of reasons,

but one of them is that we live

in an epidemic of distraction.

We're always surrounded by fancy technology,

firms that ping us every five seconds,

and a world of games and TV shows at our fingertips.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with this stuff,

but it becomes a problem when it's distracting us

from the things that we actually want to do.

And there's probably three reasons why we get distracted

from the stuff that actually matters to us.

Number one is that it's just too boring.

We're trying to do something important,

but it's just really not fun,

and so we're gonna get distracted

by anything that comes our way.

Number two,

the thing we're trying to do is just too hard.

We're working on something important,

but we've hit a roadblock,

we can't figure out what to write next

or where the missing semi-colon

is that stopping the code from working,

or get our fingers to do what we want them to do

while playing the guitar,

as soon as a distraction comes our way we rejoice.

And number three, the distraction is just too prominent.

Most of us work with our phones at our desk

and a laptop sending us notifications

for every little thing.

Even with the best of intentions,

it's genuinely hard to stay focused

when we're being bombarded

by these distractions all the time.

So now that we know the enemy,

let's figure out ways that we can fight these distractions

so that they don't stop us

from doing the things that actually matter to us.

Tip number one is somewhat counter-intuitive,

but that is to embrace welcome distractions.

Now, I draw the distinction here between welcome

and unwelcome distractions.

An unwelcome distraction is like a notification

from Instagram that someone has, I don't know,

liked my post or something

that's really not adding any real value to my life,

and if I click on it,

I'm just gonna end up doom scrolling through Instagram.

That would be an unwelcome distraction,

but a welcome distraction

is something that I actually want to be distracting me.

And so what I mean is, for example,

when I was at university studying for my medical exams,

I would be studying in my room,

but then I would leave my door open

and I would have a doorstop

wedged my door open at all times,

because I would welcome the distraction from my friends

and from my med school colleagues,

and they'd come in and have a little bit of a chat.

Now, the yes, those were distractions,

but they were welcome distractions like,

under the point of university, yes was to pass the exam,

but the bigger point of university was to make friends

and to have a nice time and all that kind of stuff.

And if I'd been distracted by a friend,

maybe I would get like 0.002% less on the exam,

but given that that work was not gonna be the thing

that makes me fail the exam,

I would rather be distracted by my friends

or by my family or in the future,

hopefully if I'm working from home and I have kids,

I would enjoy,

I would welcome being distracted by the kids

'cause that's kinda the point.

And the way I think about it is that,

when I'm on my death bed in a few years time,

will I wish I had worked harder and been more focused

or will I wish that I had spent more time

being distracted by friends and family?

I don't know.

Tip number two for combating distractions

is to optimise for enjoyment.

So you know how we talked about

one of the main reasons why we get distracted

is because the thing

that we are being distracted from is just too boring.

What we wanna do is try and make the thing a lot more fun.

Like we almost never get distracted

if we're having a great time watching a great film

or TV show or playing a video game

or hanging out with our friends,

or doing something that's genuinely fun.

Like it's very difficult to get distracted from that.

We tend to get distracted from the things that are boring

or the things that are hard.

And so, if we focus on optimising for fun,

then we can reduce the risks

of us being distracted from the thing.

And there's loads of ways

to make whatever we're doing more fun.

One of my favourite ones involves charting progress.

So, one of the reasons why games, like video games are fun,

is because you get a very clear sense of progress.

You kill the animal, the beast, the bore,

whatever, like in a non mean way,

and you're experienced ball goes up,

and then you level up and then you get more skills.

And so, applying this concept of gamifying stuff

to whatever we're trying to do,

just genuinely makes it more fun.

So for example, if you're studying for an exam,

like treating it as a points tally,

or like a score or like a traffic light system,

I've got more details

in my retrospective revision timetable video,

which will be somewhere over there.

If you're trying to make progress in learning how to code

or starting a business or whatever,

then you give yourself milestones,

like little milestones that you can then take off.

And that leads to that sort of dopamine release of,

yes, I've accomplished something,

and that makes us feel like the thing that we're doing

is more fun because it actually does become more fun

by the fact that we're charting our progress through it.

Yeah, a bunch of other stuff,

it's all gonna be in the book.

I'm researching all this stuff these days,

but sign up to the mailing list to find out more

as details come up.

Tip number three is to basically throw away the phone.

Like, even if we're having fun

and the phone is bombarding us with notifications,

oh, like on Hinge or like on Tinder or that kind of stuff,

it's generally very hard to stay focused,

even if we're like super focused and in the flow

and having a great time.

What I normally do, if I'm really struggling with a phone,

I just chuck it behind me onto the sofa or whatever.

More often than not what I do,

I'll just have it face down and on aeroplane mode.

So, yeah, if it's an aeroplane mode, it's not gonna ping,

and if it's face down,

that I'm not even gonna see the screen.

And then when I'm taking my breaks, I'll pick it up,

take it off aeroplane mode and then be like,

oh, hello, lots of notifications.

Ignore all of them, put it back down and start kind of doing

the thing that actually matters to me.

Tip number four is to control your environment.

Now, like at the moment, my desk is pretty messy,

and it's very easy to get distracted

when there is a messy desk with a lot of stuff going on,

because, as soon as the thing that I'm doing becomes boring

or becomes challenging, I can be like,

oh, I wonder what this lens is doing on my desk,

or, I'll play with my deck of cards a little bit,

or I'll open that box that I haven't unboxed yet.

And like the more crap that I have on my desk,

the more likely I am to get distracted.

And so, an easy tip for not getting distracted

is just to have a clean desk.

This is actually not very hard.

I personally find it very hard to maintain a clean desk,

which is why I've, a few months ago,

signed up to a WeWork coworking space in Cambridge,

link and video description, if you wanna check it out,

it's really good.

So I go there basically every day,

and it helps keep me focused,

because then I'm sitting at a table

with only my laptop and my AirPods,

and I have nothing on the desk to distract me,

whereas I get distracted all the time when I'm at home.

And so, going to a library, going to a coffee shop,

going to a co-working space,

going somewhere outside of your own environment,

where you're less likely to get distracted

because there's no stuff all around you.

That is often, at least I find for me,

a really good way of combating distraction.

Now, as a quick aside, do you know how we talked about that,

If a thing is fun,

you're less likely to be distracted while doing it.

One app that takes us to a whole new level is Brilliant,

who are very kindly sponsoring this video.

If you haven't heard by now,

Brilliant is a fantastic platform with online courses

in math, science and computer science,

and they're genuinely really fun and interactive,

and they teach stuff to you in a very engaging

first principled kind of way,

where it has just the right amount of challenge

and just the right amount of fun

that is genuinely like it's hard to be distracted

when you're doing an online course at Brilliant.

My favourite courses on Brilliant

are the computer science ones,

and if you're interested in learning how to code,

they've got a fantastic introduction to algorithms

and introduction to Python.

And they've recently released a brand new course

on scientific thinking,

which is all about how we can solve interactive puzzles

using science,

which is A, fun and B, helps level up our brains.

If that's on the pure street

and you want a genuinely enjoyable learning experience

then head over to brilliant.org/Ali,

and the first 200 people to use that link

will get 20% off the annual premium subscription.

So thank you so much Brilliant for sponsoring this video.

And finally, tip number five

is to deliberately manage your time.

Now, there is a book called "Indistractable"

by Chap Gordon and Nir Eyal.

And then in that, he's done all the research

around what makes things distracting.

And he says that,

often you can tell by looking at someone's calendar,

how prone to distraction they are.

Because, like, if your calendar,

let's say it's 11:00 a.m.

and you feel like you're getting distracted,

and you look at your calendar

and there's nothing in the 11:00 a.m. slot,

then you have nothing to do in that time slot,

and therefore you have nothing to be distracted from,

if that makes sense.

And so it's very easy to like pick up the phone

or pick up the PlayStation or whatever,

because we don't have a default action

that we're gonna be doing in that time.

And so what Nir Eyal says,

and what I completely agree with is that,

if you time block the things that you actually want to do

earlier in the day...

So the first thing I do each morning

is I set my daily highlight,

which is the one thing I wanna get done today,

and then I make sure I stick in my calendar

exactly when I'm gonna do that thing,