As a PM, between meetings, Slack, and emails, I often felt like I had no time left to do “real work”. And yet, in business school, my friends had nicknamed me “T2K” because of how I got things done with robot-like efficiency. What had happened to the machine that I used to be?

I found the answer in “Indistractable” by Nir Eyal. Not only was I nodding along as I read the book (as odd as that is when you’re in a room by yourself), but it has been one of my favorite books that I’ve read this year. In this post, I’ll share my key learnings from Indistractable.

Recently, my alma mater, Lowell High School in San Francisco, decided to change their admissions policy for the upcoming school year to be lottery, rather than merit-based. I can’t help but feel bad for this year’s 8th graders. They bought into the admissions game. They worked hard following the rules of the game, but the rules changed on them mid-game. Those that were at the top of their class and don’t get in next year because of the lottery will be left feeling supremely let down.

I know how they’ll feel, because it happened - temporarily - to me. Not many people know this, but I almost didn’t get in. Because of my personal experience, I’m taking a break from my normal product-focused writing to share what happened to me and three lessons that we can takeaway to turn this situation into a learning experience.