Indistractable

To harness its power, we must disavow the misguided idea that if we’re not happy, we’re not normal—

“ten-minute rule.” If I find myself wanting to check my phone as a pacification device when I can’t think of anything better to do, I tell myself it’s fine to give in, but not right now. I have to wait just ten minutes.

temptation bundling” and can be used whenever we want to use the rewards from one behavior to incentivize another. In my case, the articles I save to Pocket are my rewards for exercising.

Many parents want to know if there is a correct amount of time kids should be allowed to spend on their screens, but no such absolute number exists. There are too many factors at play, including the child’s specific needs, what the child is doing online, and the activities that screen time is replacing.

Coercion may be a band-aid solution, but it is certainly not a remedy.

those around us haven’t changed theirs? Essayist and investor Paul Graham writes that societies tend to develop “social antibodies”

“mass interpersonal persuasion.” Several

Tantalus’s curse was his blindness to the fact he didn’t need those things in the first place. That’s the real moral of the story.

boredom