Article Archives
Here you’ll find all of our articles on topics on personal behavior design and consumer psychology. Whether designing customer behaviors or your own habits, you’ll benefit from understanding the research I share from user experience design, behavioral economics, and neuroscience.
Referent Power: The Ultimate Form of Influence
“Be the change you want to see in the world.” —paraphrased quote from Mahatma Gandhi Where does a leader’s power come from? In their landmark 1959 report often referenced in leadership theory, social psychologists John R. P. French and Bertram Raven pinpointed five...
Studies Show Self-Compassion is the Motivator You’re Missing
“There are a whole lot of ways to be perfect, and not one of them is attained through punishment.” —science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin Pushing ourselves and holding ourselves accountable are how we achieve success. Unfortunately, many of us mistake harsh...
How to Banish Virtual Meeting Boredom
Can virtual meetings be as effective as in-person ones?It’s one thing to eliminate distractions in meetings. It’s another to do the same in virtual meetings. Now that virtual teams are becoming a norm, many coworkers have never met each other in person. Yet, they’re...
Limiting Beliefs: Ditch the 4 Dream Killers Holding You Back
How to help, not hinder, yourself in achieving your goalsYou’re probably not going to fulfill all your goals this year. And if you don’t, it likely won’t be because you’re incapable; it will be because you got in your own way. A slew of limiting beliefs will distract...
Sales Psychology: Why You Make Terrible Buying Choices
Did the load of gift returns you made in January make you realize that you need to be a smarter shopper? In the United States alone, people were expected to spend $966.6 billion in November and December 2023—3 to 4 percent more than the same period the previous year,...
Listening to Fitness Gurus is Making You Fat
Use these 4 Science-Backed Tips for all the Gym Motivation You NeedYou could feel the excitement buzzing through the WhatsApp channel. An A-list fitness guru reportedly spending millions of dollars yearly to reverse aging was in town to hold an in-person workout....
The Magic of Now, Not How
Nir’s Note: Noah Kagan is the Chief Sumo at AppSumo and runs a YouTube Channel with over 1 million subscribers. His new book, Million Dollar Weekend, is out now. Airbnb began as a weekend project when the founders sent an email offering their living-room air mattress...
The App that Transforms Drinking Habits: a Case Study
As a child of two parents who both struggled with alcoholism, Nick Allen had a choice to make when it came to his own drinking. He could follow the same destructive path his parents took, or he could swear off drinking altogether. But for Allen, and millions of others...
3 Steps to Master Your Emotions and Be Your Best Self
Your emotions are the core of everything. Mastering them allows you to be your best self.You won’t evolve if you ignore your emotions. I discovered the power of managing emotions when I set out to find a cure for my chronic distraction. I was struggling to the point...
The Ultimate Guide to Unstoppable Motivation
Nir’s Note: Ali Abdaal is a medical doctor turned entrepreneur, and the world’s most-followed productivity expert, with an audience of over 6 million across social media. His new book, Feel-Good Productivity, explores science-backed strategies that help you do more of...
Multitasking During Meetings? How to Make Your Colleagues Indistractable
Nir’s Note: This guest post is written by Jenny Wood, an author, speaker, founder of Google’s popular “Own Your Career” program. She writes for the Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur, and her own blog. When I moved from a Google sales team in New York City to a...
How to Build a Habit-Forming Enterprise Product
Use the Hooked Model to retain your customers by building better habitsFor companies building products for enterprise customers, increasing customer retention by just 5 percent increases profits by 25 to 95 percent. Yet keeping customers isn’t easy. Eighty percent of...
Score Your Spats: How to Stop Arguing and Enhance Your Relationships
[10:26 pm] Shane Parrish: oh i mean[t] to tell you... I remember something you told me that I now share with everyone. It's made a difference for so many. The “something” he’s referring to is a simple question that my wife and I have posed to each other throughout our...
Unlocking Focus with the Distraction Tracker
Use this tool to stop wasting precious time on distractionThink you’ll explode if you try one more ineffective productivity hack? Here’s what you need to know to actually hack back distraction: There are only three causes of any distraction: an internal trigger, an...
The Crucial Difference Between Distraction and Diversion
Understanding the distinction is the first step to managing your timeBecause I write about distraction and how to avoid it, I often get asked the question “Aren’t distractions sometimes a good thing? Don’t we all need some distraction in our lives?” Nope!The Big...
Decoding Self-Serving Bias: A Spy’s Guide to Clear Thinking
Nir’s Note: Shane Parrish is the writer of the popular blog Farnam Street, where he shares insights on decision-making, mental models, and lifelong learning. He is also a former cybersecurity expert and intelligence officer. This excerpt about the cognitive bias known...
This Meeting Could have Been an Email: From Time Suck to Unstuck
End boring, useless meetings once and for all.We’ve all been in a dumb meeting—one that makes you think, “This doesn’t even apply to me,” “I’m learning nothing from this,” or, worst of all, “This meeting could have been an email.” I’m sure you’ve commiserated with...
When Do You Feel Most Creative? Why Ideas Bloom at Bedtime
Schedule time for mind wanderingMore times than I can count, I’ve slid under the bedsheets, turned off the light, and shut my eyes…only to have a great idea pop into my head. I’ll toss and turn for a while, hoping I’ll forget the thought. But if it’s a good one, I’ll...
32 Morning Affirmations: Rise & Shine! [Science-Backed]
Science shows self-affirmations can shift our mindset and behavior.Even if you’re not sure about the power of morning affirmations, the science behind them is–when used correctly, self-affirmations can significantly affect your mindset and behavior. They have...
Scheduling for Life’s Surprises: When Timeboxing is Toast
You have more control than you think Some days, the world seems intent on sabotaging your timeboxed calendar. A meeting goes longer than expected. The daycare center calls to say that your child is ill and has to be picked up ASAP. A project you thought would take an...
Messaging App Madness: How To Stay Productive [and Sane]
Nir’s Note: This guest post is by Stedman Blake Hood, Co-founder and CEO at Dispatch.When they came on the scene in the 2010s, enterprise messaging apps delivered the fast collaboration companies craved. A new world of internal messaging dawned in which anyone could...
How to Build an Irresistible Product for VC Investors
Venture capital (VC) is a great opportunity for new entrepreneurs seeking to bring a product to life—but the funding is incredibly difficult to secure. A 2021 Harvard Business Review survey of almost 900 VC firms found that they consider 101 opportunities on average...
You Don’t Have to Follow the Same Routines Forever
Embrace doing something for just a little whileNumerous articles detail the routines of the most successful people in the world: Apple CEO Tim Cook wakes up at 3:45 a.m. and exercises. Actor and producer Reese Witherspoon eats the same healthy breakfast every day....
You Can Have Your Retirement Fantasy Today
Dreaming of retirement helps you fantasize about your ideal life—and potentially have it now Imagine your retirement. Are you picturing long, lazy days on a tropical beach under coconut trees? Maybe you’ve opted for a life of adventure, traveling to all the places you...
How to Craft an ‘Indistractable’ Summer Schedule for Your Kids
Help them make the most of it by becoming “indistractable”The end of the school year is a magical time. Kids have made it through a grueling year of groggy early mornings, rigid class schedules, piles of homework, and endless extracurriculars. Finally, they have two...
The 4-Day Workweek: How To Do More With Less
Become Indistractable to conquer the paradigm shiftWhat would it look like if the world moved toward a four-day workweek? The organization, 4 Day Week Global, did a 6-month study of 900 employees across 33 U.S. and Irish businesses in 2022. The study was based on the...
Managers, Stop Distracting Your Employees
Nir’s Note: This post originally appeared here in The Harvard Business Review. Summary. The rise of remote work has made corporate leaders paranoid, thinking they must monitor their employees’ every digital move in order to maintain productivity. But while people...
Here’s How I Made the Time to Write 2 Bestselling Books
The cornerstone techniques you need to build and stick to a writing routine.So you want to write a book. Awesome! If you’ve made attempts already, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that writing is hard work. I’ve written two books and countless articles, and it...
A Case Study in Implementing the Hooked Model: Gatorade’s Gx App
Nir’s Note: This guest post is written by Sam Evans, founder of Design for Decision, a behavioral-design growth consultancy.As a dad with three kids, I struggle to stick with a fitness regimen. The two years of on-and-off quarantining during the COVID-19 pandemic...
Money Buddies: Don’t Go It Alone with Your Wallet
We get by with a little help from our friends Now, more than ever, we have to be smart with our money. Consumer prices at one point increased 9.1 percent from June 2021 to 2022, and financial experts are wary of an economic recession. Yet navigating our personal...
5 Productivity Myths Ruining Your Life
Busting these myths will set you free from productivity woesEvery time I hear a productivity myth described as fact, I cringe as if listening to a snake oil salesman peddle his cures. Let me tell you, when I was writing my second book, Indistractable, I endlessly...
6 Habits That Are Secretly Making You Miserable
Uncover the real sources behind six habits secretly causing misery and learn simple ways to break them for a happier life.You wake up in the morning irritable and groggy but determined to be productive. Yesterday didn’t go well. It always seems as if there are not...
One Question to Ask Yourself to Know Your Future
And to change it too.The German writer and philosopher Goethe believed he could predict someone’s future based on one simple fact. “If I know how you spend your time,” he wrote, “then I know what might become of you.” Seeing how you spend your time reveals your values...
Make Time for Procrastination
Nir's Note: This guest post is by Bryan Gentry who writes at Idea Link about finding productivity and satisfaction in life and work. Follow him on Twitter at @brygentry for more insights and occasional dad jokes.If you haven’t finalized your New Year’s resolutions,...
People Make Time for What They Want — Rightfully So
People make time for what they want, and we should aspire to that.“People make time for what they want to make time for.” Though the author is unknown, this saying has become an axiom to soothe distraught thoughts. Some use it as reasoning to understand why another...
Kickstart the New Year with a Self-Audit
Practicing introspection using these methods will improve your self-awareness, confidence, and motivation in the new year.As New Year’s Eve approaches, so does the customary exercise of introspection and self-reflection. The practice of examining ourselves can be a...
’Tis the Season for Reexamining Your Values
How will you spend your precious time in the coming year?As one year ends and another begins, many of us won’t help but reflect on who we are and who we’d like to become. Most people aiming to emulate their ideal selves will resort to New Year’s resolutions—but more...
4 Mental Traps That Kill Productivity
(...and how to avoid them to keep a "productivity mindset")Productivity has many enemies: too many meetings, external triggers like interruptions from coworkers, and multitasking the wrong way, to name a few. But more often than not, it’s mental traps that trip us up....
Labeling Yourself is Keeping You Down, Do This Instead
Labeling yourself has risks. Give yourself space to change and grow.Recently, after I gave a virtual presentation on my book Indistractable, a listener wrote something in the Zoom chat that drove me bonkers: “This is great but wouldn’t work for me. I’m a Gemini.”...
Not Enough Hours in the Day To Slay Your To-Do List
Even the most productive person can’t have it all. At least, not all at once.You can search for the best productivity apps to make you more efficient and focused. You can implement productivity hacks and cut distractions. But you still might feel like there simply are...