Name: 為什麼你工作時總是會分心？ ► 試試這個方法，只需要10分鐘... - Nir Eyal 尼爾‧艾歐（中英字幕）
Uploaded: 2024-12-29T13:40:54.000Z
Duration: 5 min 30 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Basic passive voice

Most distraction, it turns out, is not spurred by the external triggers at all.

Adverbs of degree

Most distraction does not start outside of us, but rather starts from within.

Transition words & phrases

The root cause of why we become distracted is because we feel these internal triggers, these uncomfortable emotional states that we seek to escape.

So if we're going to answer Plato's question of why do we get distracted, why do we do things against our better judgment, we have to start one layer deeper with first principles of why do we do anything?

And when you think about it, most people will tell you some version of carrots and sticks, that it's about the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

But neurologically speaking, that's not true.

That in fact, we do not do things in the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

That neurologically speaking, we only do things for one reason, and that is to avoid discomfort.

If you go outside and it's cold, that's not comfortable.

And when you go back inside, now it's too hot, that's not comfortable, you take it off.

If you're hungry, you feel hunger pangs, you eat, and when you're stuffed, oh, that doesn't feel good, you stop eating.

So physiologically, we feel this all the time.

The same rules apply with psychological sensations, not just with physiological sensations.

So when you're feeling lonely, check Facebook.

When you're bored, check the news, check sports scores, check Reddit, Pinterest, whatever.

All of these things cater to these uncomfortable sensations.

So that means if all human behavior is spurred by a desire to escape discomfort, that means, as you said, time management is pain management.

Fundamentally, if we don't deal with this fact that we are trying to escape an uncomfortable sensation when we become distracted, if we don't understand it and learn new methods to cope with that discomfort, we're always going to be distracted by one thing or another.

One of the things that people do that doesn't work is strict abstinence.

Now, strict abstinence is when you tell yourself, I am not going to do that thing.

And it turns out that strict abstinence, for many behaviors, backfires, particularly behaviors that are very difficult to avoid completely.

How do you abstain from food if you're on a diet?

How do you abstain from technology these days?

We can't just say, stop using email for 30 days.

So for those type of potential distractions, we don't want to just abstain.

And just to dive into, because I think the research is so interesting.

When we do abstain, when we tell ourselves, no, absolutely not, it's almost like pulling on a rubber band.

Now, when you pull on a rubber band and you stretch it, stretch it, stretch it, stretch it, and you let go, it doesn't just go back to where you started.

And that's what happens when we employ strict abstinence.

We tell ourselves, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it.

And that sensation of relieving the discomfort of telling yourself not to is itself pleasurable.

This is why this is a big reason why smokers get addicted to cigarettes.

What gets them to keep smoking is not only the physiological effects of the nicotine.

What more so gets them addicted is telling themselves, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it.

And now I'm relieved of the discomfort of having to tell myself, don't do it.

So strict abstinence oftentimes backfires because when we finally do give in, we are wiring our neural circuitry to expect, oh, when I feel the discomfort of not wanting something, giving in makes it feel so pleasurable, not because the behavior itself is pleasurable, but because it relieves us of the discomfort of telling ourselves no.

So instead of you telling yourself no, what you can do is employ a technique like this 10-minute rule.

You tell yourself, you can give in to that distraction in 10 minutes. 10 minutes of doing what psychologists call surfing the urge.

When it comes to these uncomfortable emotional states, we know that emotions don't last forever.

In the moment, we think they will last forever.

That's how the brain spurs us to do something about it, right?

It spurs us to action by making us think, I don't want to feel this way anymore.

But logically, rationally, when we think about it, emotions are like waves.

So we can surf these urges like a surfer riding a wave.

So what many people do when they tell themselves no, when they try and not get distracted, they fit into two buckets, the blamers or the shamers.

The blamers say, oh, it's my phone that got me distracted.

The shamers, this is the category I used to fall into, say there's something wrong with me.

And of course, that's not helpful either, because where does this shame spiral lead?

It causes more internal triggers, which makes us even more likely to seek a distraction to escape that uncomfortable emotional state.

So for 10 minutes, your job is to reflect on that sensation, to feel that sensation with curiosity rather than contempt, or to get back to the task at hand.

And nine times out of 10, by just setting that 10 minute rule and saying, I can give into that distraction.

I can go check, you know, my email or Google or whatever it is that I am tempted to do.

 But in 10 minutes, it's an incredibly effective and simple technique.