Pay attention to what has your attention.
— David Allen
I set up my digital journal so that it is really easy to enter timestamped log entries: both with my computer and my phone. Today, I want to start using that function more frequently to note what I notice.
To notice anything is to have one’s attention drawn by that thing. Out of the torrent of data that constantly surges through one’s senses and psyches, the mind singles out a specific stimulus and, however briefly, redirects attention to it. The stimulus might be external: like an object or event we detect with one of our five senses. Or it might be internal: like an idea, memory, or feeling.
The mind attends to this datum because at some level it senses that it might be useful: i.e., relevant for action.
As Leonard Read wrote:
“An insight or an idea as it impinges upon the consciousness—however ephemeral or evanescent the idea—is a forewarning to the individual that he will be in need of it later on.”
If I let what I notice come and go without doing anything about it, I will miss whatever potential opportunity for improvement it represents. And I will likely notice it again and again until I finally act on it. It’s no fun to be nagged by your own mind.
However, if every time I notice something I fully switch tasks to pursue that thing, I’ll never finish anything, because I’ll be constantly hopping from rabbit trail to rabbit trail.
But there is a happy medium. Whenever I notice something, I won’t fully stop what I’m doing, but will merely pause just long enough to capture what I noticed by jotting down a quick note of it in my journal.
Then, once or twice a day, I can go over my notes and clarify if and how I want to follow up on each item.
For more on this principle of “capturing” what has our attention, see the great book Getting Things Done by David Allen.
Whenever we notice something, it’s opportunity knocking on the door or calling on the phone of the mind. If we answer the call and at least take a message, we can seize that opportunity and “free up the line” for new creative ideas for improvement.
For, unless an idea is gotten off the receiver and into memory, or otherwise recorded, the receiving set will not function with high fidelity.
— Leonard E. Read