Nir Eyal
Nir Eyal is the author of two best-selling books, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. He writes, consults, and teaches at the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. His books have sold over 1 million copies in more than 30 languages; he has taught at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and its Design School; and he has started and sold two startups since 2003.
Communication Skills
Regular 'schedule syncing' sessions prevent conflict by ensuring all stakeholders are aligned on time commitments and responsibilities.
"My wife and I used to have conflicts over who's going to pick up our daughter... we take maybe five minutes a week. Sunday evening, we sit down together. Let me look at your schedule. Let me look at m..."
Effective meetings require social norms that prohibit digital distractions to ensure all participants are present in body and mind.
"If we're going to have a business meeting or a personal meeting, we're going to declare these no-phone zones because that's who we are. We want to be indistractable."
Hiring & Teams Skills
A culture of focus requires psychological safety where employees feel safe to discuss productivity blockers and communication norms.
"Indistractable companies provide employees with what's called psychological safety... if you can't talk about a problem, if you can't raise your hand and say, 'Hey, you know what? I'm just not able to..."
Leadership Skills
Use a visual time-boxed calendar to facilitate a prioritization conversation with your manager instead of simply saying 'no' to new tasks.
"You print out your calendar or you show it to them on your screen, and you say, 'Hey boss, I need 10 minutes with you, Monday morning. Is that okay? Can I get 10 minutes with you?' And now, what you'r..."
Product Management Skills
The planning fallacy occurs because we don't account for distractions; accurate timelines require measuring focused work time.
"tasks take people three times longer to finish than they estimate. Why does that happen? Because when you say, 'Okay, here's that thing on the to-do list. I'm going to work on that and see how long it..."