Tame Daily Distractions With a ‘Pre-Commitment Pact’
From Homer to Franzen, productive people lean on these pacts as a proven way to stick to their goals
Famed director Quentin Tarantino “never use[s] a typewriter or computer.” He prefers to write screenplays by hand in a notebook.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri writes her books with pen and paper, then types them up on a computer without internet.
Jonathan Franzen, the writer Time magazine called the “Great American Novelist,” believes “you can’t write serious fiction on a computer that’s connected to the Internet.”
These methods may seem extreme, but desperate times call for desperate measures. These luminaries understand that focus requires not only keeping distraction out, but also keeping ourselves in — learning to practice self-restraint when we would otherwise fall off track.
The Power of Precommitment
A precommitment involves removing a future choice, as a way to overcome impulsivity. It’s a key step on the path to becoming indistractable.
Although researchers are still studying why the technique is so effective, precommitment one of the oldest tricks in the book. Perhaps the most iconic precommitment…
