Getting rid of distractions is the easy part.

Delete the app on your phone.

Close the door to your office.

“Mute” the notifications on your phone.

Stop answering emails.

Not one of those things is hard. What is hard is committing to not reinstalling the app, opening the door to your office, “unmuting” the notifications on your phone, or answering the emails.

Commitment takes willpower, and the modern world is designed to drain us of that thing. The thing that neuroscientists can’t find in the brain, and that psychologists say doesn’t exist in the mind, but which every algorithm relies on wearing down, one interruption, one notification, one dopamine-driven impulse at a time.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

The rock stops getting eroded by the water first by being moved away from the water source, and then by building up a tougher, thicker layer of sediment.