What I Learned From a Failed 30 Day Experiment to Become Indistractable

TL;DR

• Real success in changing your behavior comes from changing yourself. Environment plays a role, but only insomuch as it supports the internal work.
• Stopping the usage of one distraction will lend to another distraction taking its place. This is a good stepping stone, but you shouldn't be satisfied with the solution.
• Over the course of 30 days, I did not decrease my overall time on my phone, but I definitely decreased my distraction while on my laptop.
• We are all terribly distracted. I'm almost certain that most of your email, messages, side projects, are distractions.

Intro

In March 2026, I picked up Nir Eyal's Indistractable from the San Francisco Public Library. I was feeling disgusted at myself for regressing to a previous version of myself.

In March 2025, my roommates and I did a commitment pact to significantly decrease our phone usage. We allotted a maximum of 30 minutes a day to services we didn't like that we used. Instagram, YouTube, Reddit. That cut my daily phone usage from ~4 hours/day to ~1 hour/day.

I doubled-down on the digital detox by going through the Summer of '25 using a flip-phone, and got huge focus and productivity gains.

These positive effects continued into my final semester at UIUC, and I felt significantly ahead of my peers in terms of my ability to focus.

This changed when I moved to the Bay Area. I let myself watch YouTube late one night, then another. Then I re-downloaded Instagram. Eventually, I was back to my previous habits of 3 hours a day on my phone. The stakes were different this time. I was trying to figure out my life ahead of me, and the 3 hours a day felt like a handicap that would lead me to suffering.

That is why I decided to run a 30-day experiment to become indistractable. I wanted to get back to the version of myself that I was in the Summer of '25. I was not entirely successful, but I came out a much better person, and I learned a lot about myself and about the nature of distraction.

Book Summary and Relevant Takeaways

You can only call something a distraction if you know what its distracting you from

• Nir Eyal, Indistractable

After reading this book, something that surprised me was this idea that the word distraction comes from dis-traction meaning that you are not making traction (progress in your life). Unfortunately, [[essentialism-book-summary|most things are unimportant]] so this means most of the things that we do--even the things we don't conventionally call distractions--are distractions.

This explains a huge chunk of my failure modes.

I have an aggressive type A personality. I learned how to type Dvorak on a custom keyboard because it is theoretically faster, I customize my operating system, and aggressively schedule my days. With all the effort and amount of trying I put in, I am routinely astonished of my friends who have no systems, no optimizations, yet are significantly further ahead than I am.

Only with my nose in the pages of this book have I realized what I am doing is distracting myself, productively procrastinating. It has been difficult to remove the reflex to try to optimize or solve some problem instead of what actually matters.

This is probably better for another article, but taking a step out if we are not working on the thing that is the most important for us to work on Whether that be finding a career that has impact That makes us fulfilled and happy Finding a life partner or becoming our best selves Then it's it seems that the thing that we do is actually a distraction.

If you are in a relationship you know will end, that makes you unhappy, than that is distracting you from finding a relationship that is happy.

Distraction is the reason for regret at the end of our lives. Not pursuing what we know and ought to pursue. Being swept up in life and in a daze.¹

Where I was

"Time management is pain management"

• Nir Eyal, Indistractable

Before reading the book, I was on my phone two to three hours a day. I had already tried to fix this. A few weeks earlier I ran an experiment with always-on Do Not Disturb. I abandoned the DND within a day or two and nothing changed. A second attempt I made, right before committing to this experiment was supposed to be zero YouTube opens for seven days. I did not follow through.

What bothered me most wasn't the hours. It was that i was opening apps before I had consciously decided to. Some part of me had already chosen, and the part of me that was supposed to be in charge was just watching it happen.

What is Failure?

The goal of this experiment was to become indistractable. I used to be what I would consider indistractable, spending less than an hour a day on my phone, reading religiously before going to bed, going to bed on time and waking up at 7:30 to work on my most important task at the time. The goal of this experiment was, with my new armmed knowledge, get back to that version of myself.

I did not achieve that.

However, I did benefit a lot.

Where I ended up

"Schedule times so you can be your best self."

• Nir Eyal, Indistractable

I read part-way through Moral Ambition and read Dopamine Nation. I have gone through several articles on Substack instead of pacifying my mind with music. I spent ~4 additional hours listening to comprehensible input to learn [[how-im-using-claude-to-polish-max|Polish]].

Besides just my phone usage, I've actually concretely become much more indistractable on my computer, through the New Feed Eradicator and the Unhook extensions. I no longer doomscroll on LinkedIn, Instagram, or YouTube on my computer.

Additionally, I have been making time for traction in my life. I now call every member in my family once every two weeks. I maintain a workout and running schedule that keeps me healthy. I even make time to do the galaxy brain habits I want my best self to do, such as sending out cold emails to people that have cool personal websites!

Its hard to break habits

Even though I have "free time" in my calendar, most times I actually do not do free time. I worry about emails, not making progress on my project, etc. it was only until 05-11 that I realized that its 7 o'clock, i'm actually going to stop thinking or working on anything for the rest of the day

Actually Implementing This Into My Life

I have a little work flow with my friend Claude Code where I have it help me run experiments for me. The fateful experiment #11

Me and Claude brainstormed the principles from the book and we successfully.

The Hardest Work Is The Internal Work

In the 4 part model of distraction, the hardest part by far is with ones own mind. It is trivial to, at one moment in time, set up a perpetual DnD so you do not get notifications that break your focus. It is very easy to write out what you what your ideal week to look like, how much time you spend doing things. The hardest part is the automatic behavior of your unconscious that dictate the day-to-day.

You Will Likely Jump on Something Else

In my opinion, it's not real that removing the last thing we're using to escape will mean we have a problem. I found that when I work on things that are food for me, such as reading or listening to audio books instead of doomscrolling. Only that is not all. I've learned through these past 30 days that the most important and difficult work I need to do is internal work.

Because of this, I think a deeper solution is warranted. I have yet to see the concrete form of this. In my past success this came from abstaining completely from my devices, or having to pay my roommates money if I use my phone too much.

How I'm different

Qualitatively, I am more aware of myself when spending time on things I don't want to. I'm aware of the initially surprising realization that I am running away from pain in doing my distractions.

I do not yet know how to solve the fundamental problem of when my unconscious mind takes over. I have an automation that turns on DnD and grayscale, which is useful for not having notifications, but I probably disable it on the order of 15 times per day because it annoys me. i enjoy having apps with color. Eventually i developed a habit of just turning off DnD as soon as I turn on my phone.

I actually do not use less than before; however, I use it in a different manner, which is definitely better! I don't tend to watch brainrot, YouTube videos, but read Substack and listen to audiobooks on Libby. I've had many more moments of boredom than before when going on the BART for example. I am more on top of my emails and messages, which is a nice improvement.

How did my behavior change?

While running the experiment, my phone usage was:

Monday, May 11th, 3 hours 34 minutes Tuesday, May 12th, 1 hour 53 minutes Wednesday, May 13th, 3 hours 40 minutes. The next day was 4 hours 10 minutes then 3 hours 33 minutes, then 3 hours 57 minutes, Then 3 hours 16 minutes Then four hours 20 minutes

21-day mean: 2h 43m / day (range: 1h 02m → 5h 51m).

Footnotes

1. While writing this sentence. I gained self-awareness, and called my sister, who I haven't spoken to in a couple months. ↩