It’s a cliché to say that we live in a world of distractions, of instant gratification. I just right now got distracted from writing this to pick at my nails….

And while it’s easy to blame our phones, technology, technology companies, advertisement as the go to way to monetize something, etc. Just like my previous example shows. While the external doesn’t help, we can always find something to distract ourselves with.

I’ve wanted to start reading indistractable for a while now. Slightly ironic I know. One thing I’m trying differently is to do the exercises that accompny the book and to try to actually adopt it as part of my day to day life.

I find that too often I read a book, an article, whatever, on some way to better myself. I agree with the article / book, or in many cases I’m like, oh ya I already “know” this. And by know I mean I have the information on this topic. I already have all the information I need on how to be in better shape. How to lose weight. How to be happier. How to be better at task X.

And yet…. They don’t usually stick.

I did a speech at toastmasters recently and I might write a version out here later, but the point of the speech was that the initial action was useless. There are no big swooping actions that change the world. It’s not a single speech from Ghandi that ended the occupation, a single decisive action I took (paying for personal training) that helped me get in shape or a single challenging instance that makes you smarter at something. It’s the constant iterative small progress.

I’m just at chapter 2. But I’m hoping it will help me be more mindful of how I spend my time. I guess we’ll see.