How To Be An Indistractable Product Manager
Unlock your focus potential with game-changing techniques from "Indistractable" by Nir Eyal. Here's how you can level up your productivity game for real.
Let's face it, fellow product managers: our days are a whirlwind of meetings, Slack or Teams notifications, and never-ending to-do lists and emails. It's no wonder we often find ourselves drowning in distractions, struggling to stay on top of our game. But what if I told you there's a way to reclaim your focus and supercharge your productivity?
I've heard a lot about the book "Indistractable" by
. interviewed Nir back in 2023 to reveal strategies for anyone looking to master the art of concentration in our hyper-connected world. Link at the end. ⬇️But it wasn't until recently that I saw this new interview with
that many of these techniques make sense to me.As a PM who's been there (and I’m still working on it 😉), I can tell you that the techniques in this interview are pure gold for our profession.
So, buckle up! We're about to dive into how you can apply Eyal's wisdom to your daily grind and become the productivity powerhouse you've always dreamed of being. 🚀
The Indistractable Model
Eyal's Indistractable model is built on four key pillars. Let's break them down and see how they apply to our PM world:
1. Master Internal Triggers
As PMs, we're constantly juggling multiple priorities. This can lead to stress, anxiety, and the urge to procrastinate. Eyal teaches us that the root cause of most distractions is internal discomfort.
To recognize these internal triggers and manage them effectively you can:
Practice self-awareness to identify your internal triggers.
Learn to "surf the urge" by acknowledging the discomfort without acting on it.
Use techniques like meditation or deep breathing to manage internal triggers.
How to apply it:
Keep a "distraction log": For a week, jot down every time you feel the urge to check your phone or switch tasks. Note what you were doing and how you were feeling.
Practice the 10-minute rule: When you feel the urge to procrastinate, tell yourself you'll wait just 10 minutes. Often, you'll find the urge passes.
💡 Pro tip: Use this technique during stakeholder meetings when you're tempted to check Slack. You'll be amazed at how much more you'll retain!
2. Make Time for Traction
In my opinion, I believe mastering internal triggers is crucial and you should not proceed on time management until you know:
What triggers you?
How do you react to triggers?
Now, why do I say this? Because I have been there. For example:
I hear about a new time management app or technique in an article or podcast that is becoming popular among productivity gurus.
I download it immediately and spend a lot of time setting it all up.
Big surprise. The rest of the week I don't use it.
What happened? 🤔
I didn't address the root cause of my distractions and triggers, so no matter how many time management tools I had at my disposal, I couldn't stay focused.
😫 I felt stressed ➡️ I opened Instagram to “relax.”
😖 I felt anxious or obfuscated ➡️ I felt like talking to someone.
😰 I felt insecure or incompetent ➡️ I started doing irrelevant tasks that I could complete.
😤 I felt dissatisfied or frustrated by an outcome or situation beyond my control ➡️ I had the urge to eat or drink to feel better.
Nir emphasizes the importance of scheduling time for focused work and sticking to it, just like you would for any other meeting or appointment. Timeboxing is actually a powerful productivity tool if you have identified your triggers.
When I first tried timeboxing, without worrying about understanding triggers me and how I behave, I used to ignore my blocks.
Instead of saying what I had already planned and even if my time was blocked just to do exactly that, I would end up doing something different.
That's why it's essential to first tackle internal triggers before moving on to time management techniques.
“You have power over your mind – not external events. Realize this and you will have strength.”
—Marcus Aurelius
But once you have a good handle on your internal triggers, it's time to make space for traction in your day. This is all about intentional time management – something we PMs desperately need.
How to apply it:
⏳ Time-box your calendar: Schedule every minute of your workday, including breaks and "reactive" time for emails and Slack.
👁️ Use the "focus funnel": Prioritize tasks based on their impact on your product goals.
🍅 Use tools like the Pomodoro Technique: Break your work into focused intervals (typically 25 minutes) followed by short breaks. This can help you maintain your focus and productivity throughout the day.
3. Hack Back External Triggers
As PMs, we're bombarded with external triggers – notifications, emails, impromptu meetings. Eyal teaches us how to take control.
How to apply it:
👩🏼💻 Slack/Teams or any messaging tool detox: Turn off notifications and check at set times. Let your team know you're doing this to boost productivity.
📨 Email batching: Process emails in batches 2-3 times a day instead of constantly checking. You can actually schedule specific time at a day to just check email and another block for answering them.
📞 Meeting audit: Review your recurring meetings. Can any be shortened, combined, or eliminated?
🙅♂️ Set boundaries: Communicate to your team and stakeholders when you will be unavailable for meetings or interruptions. Set a “Focusing” status in Teams or enable “Do Not Disturb” on your Mac.
📵 Eliminate distractions: Identify the biggest distractions in your work environment and take steps to eliminate them. If you are working from home and your phone is a constant distraction, leave it in another room.
4. Prevent Distractions with Pacts
It's about creating “pre-commitments” to avoid future distractions. According to Nir, these should be your last resort. The thing is, it's hard to change or adopt a new habit overnight.
Personally, I have often felt disappointment at not doing what I had promised myself. But this is because our internal triggers are often rooted in discomfort. We have to be patient and compassionate with ourselves.
That is why it is important to leave pacts as a last resort, after having identified and managed the previous points. If not, chances are that if you go straight to pacts, you will end up breaking them.
How many times have you told yourself or someone else “I’ll promise I’ll do this tomorrow”?
How to apply it:
Effort pacts: Use apps like Forest or Freedom to block distracting websites during focus time.
Price pacts: Bet a colleague $20 that you'll finish that PRD by Friday. Nothing motivates like the fear of losing money!
Identity pacts: Start seeing yourself as "the PM who always delivers on time." Live up to that identity.
Putting It All Together: A Day in the Life of an Indistractable Product Manager
Here's an example of how you can structure your day:
9:00 - 10:00: Deep work on product strategy
10:00 - 10:30: Email and Slack catch-up
10:30 - 12:00: Stakeholder meetings
12:00 - 1:00: Lunch and recharge
1:00 - 2:30: User story refinement
2:30 - 3:00: Quick break and email check
3:00 - 4:30: Sprint planning or backlog grooming
4:30 - 5:00: Wrap-up and plan for tomorrowAfter applying these techniques might play out in a typical PM day:
8:30 AM: You start your day by reviewing your time-boxed calendar and setting intentions for each block.
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Deep work session on product strategy. Phone is on "Do Not Disturb," and you've used Freedom to block social media sites.
11:00 AM - 11:30 AM: Scheduled "reactive" time. You batch-process emails and Slack messages.
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM: Stakeholder meetings. You practice the 10-minute rule when tempted to check your phone during lulls.
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM: Lunch break. You resist the urge to work through lunch, recognizing it as an internal trigger stemming from anxiety about deadlines.
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Sprint planning session. You've made an identity pact to be fully present and engaged.
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM: Final deep work session. You use the "focus funnel" to tackle your most impactful task.
5:00 PM - 5:30 PM: Day wrap-up. You review your "distraction log" and plan improvements for tomorrow.
They may seem as the same schedule, but in reality with this Indistractable techniques your agenda is not set on autopilot mode. You have control of it, you can decide how to improve it!
Things didn't go as you expected?
Embrace this change with the mindset of scientist instead of a judge:
It’s all about experimenting what works best for you.
Did your scheduled day go well or not?
What would you keep?
What can you improve the next day?
Adapt your days to make them better and leave room for the unexpected and unforeseen aspects of normal human life.
Wrapping Up
Escape discomfort to achieve goals
Remember, becoming an Indistractable product manager is a journey, not a destination. It will take time, practice, and patience to truly master these techniques and make them a seamless part of your workflow. But the payoff is immense – increased focus, productivity, and ultimately, better outcomes for you and your team.
You see, going back to internal triggers, such as boredom, loneliness, fatigue, uncertainty, stress, or anxiety, drive us to seek distractions as a form of escape. Eyal argues that rather than blaming external factors like technology for our lack of focus, we should address these internal discomforts directly.
"Time management is actually pain management."
—Nir Eyal
This means that to effectively manage our time and achieve our goals, we must first learn to handle the discomfort that leads to distraction.
Implementing these techniques won't happen overnight. It's a journey, and there will be setbacks. But stick with it, and you'll see transformative results in your productivity.
What techniques from "Indistractable" or other productivity hack have you tried? How have they impacted your PM work? Drop your thoughts in the comments – I'd love to hear about your experiences! 👇
Great resources to go deeper
How to be Indistractable as a PM (or any tech worker) by
.
Strategies for becoming less distractible and improving focus with Lenny.
How to Stay Focused and Beat Distraction with Ali.
The thing I've find most helpful in focusing is blocking deep focus time into my calendar. I will not be taking meetings during this time, and this is going to be part one of several outcomes I've committed to achieve this week.
Great post! And thank you so much for the shout-out.