The Three Pact Types
Lock in your intentions with effort pacts, price pacts, and identity pacts — precommitments that make distraction harder, costlier, or incompatible with who you are
The Three Pact Types are precommitment strategies inspired by the ancient concept of the Ulysses pact — a freely made decision designed to bind your future self. Effort pacts increase the friction required to perform an unwanted behavior (like using website blockers or working alongside an accountability partner). Price pacts attach a monetary cost to distraction, leveraging loss aversion — people are more motivated to avoid losses than to seek gains. Identity pacts harness the power of self-image by adopting the identity of someone who does not engage in the unwanted behavior — saying 'I don't' rather than 'I can't.' These pacts are the fourth and final step of the Indistractable Model and should only be implemented after mastering internal triggers, making time for traction, and hacking back external triggers.
- Precommitments cement intentions when you're clearheaded, making you less likely to act against your interests later
- Loss aversion means losing hurts more than winning feels good — price pacts exploit this asymmetry
- Identity shapes behavior — 'I don't' is psychologically more empowering than 'I can't'
- Pacts are the last line of defense, not the first — they require the foundation of the other three strategies
- Teaching others about being indistractable reinforces your own identity pact
- Use Effort Pacts to increase frictionMake unwanted behaviors more difficult to perform. Use website blockers (SelfControl, Freedom), distraction-blocking apps (Forest), timed lockboxes (kSafe), or social accountability (working alongside a colleague or using Focusmate for virtual co-working sessions).Pro tipThe Forest app plants a virtual tree that dies if you leave the app — adding just enough emotional effort to pause before breaking your pact.
- Use Price Pacts to attach monetary stakesPut money on the line to motivate follow-through. Keep the cash if you stick to your plan; forfeit it if you get distracted. The 'burn or burn' method (burn calories or burn money) is one approach. Accountability partners or apps can hold the stakes.Pro tipThe dollar amount doesn't need to be large — just painful enough to lose. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that smokers who deposited $150 of their own money had a 52% quit rate versus 17% for those offered an $800 reward.WarningPrice pacts aren't suitable for behaviors with inescapable external triggers, should only be used for short tasks, and aren't for people who tend to beat themselves up after failure.
- Use Identity Pacts to become indistractableAdopt the identity of an indistractable person. Say 'I don't get distracted' rather than 'I can't check my phone.' Teach others about the concept — research shows teaching strengthens the teacher's own behavior change. Use rituals to reinforce the identity.Pro tipA Stanford study found that people asked about being 'a voter' (identity noun) were dramatically more likely to actually vote than those asked about 'voting' (behavior verb). Frame your identity, not just your behavior.
Eyal taped a $100 bill to his calendar with a lighter nearby. Each day he either burned calories at the gym or burned the money. No other options were permitted unless he was certifiably sick.
To finish the manuscript for Indistractable, Eyal pledged $10,000 to his friend Mark — forfeitable if he didn't finish a first draft by a set date. The thought of losing his vacation budget and standing desk fund made him commit to two hours of distraction-free writing six days a week.
When Eyal began calling himself a vegetarian, foods he once loved became unpalatable — not because he couldn't eat meat, but because vegetarians don't eat meat. The identity made the behavior effortless.
Eyal draws on Homer's Odyssey, where Ulysses had his crew tie him to the mast and fill their ears with beeswax to resist the Sirens' song. Modern examples include Jonathan Franzen, who superglued his laptop's Ethernet port shut to avoid internet distraction while writing. Eyal himself used a 'burn or burn' technique — taping a hundred-dollar bill to his calendar with a lighter nearby, committing to either burn calories at the gym or burn the money. In three years, he never burned the bill.