Tag Archives: attention

Buying loyalty

You are offered a free ebook, but it’s not free, it includes confirmation of your email and now you are on their email list. You are buying a coffee, groceries, or clothing and you share your loyalty card to earn points and free products..

‘Have one on us on your birthday!’ – the price is your name, email, phone number, date of birth, and maybe even address.

The discounts and rewards change, and each time they do, it’s free advertising for the company. Double points days and bonus point items give you a sense that you are saving money. You are spending a little less, but you aren’t saving anything.

Loyalty isn’t always about shopping, sometimes it’s about information. E-mail lists, Reddit and Discord communities, and Facebook groups all offer the inside scoop. Membership means access to information and insights, and you can choose to pay or not. Maybe a book will be for sale at some point. You can join the Substack for free, and only pay if you want to. Watch on Twitch for free or pay a little monthly. Watch a livestream on TikTok for free, or pay with nominal donations of digital hearts and roses.

Discounts, free items, and only pay if you want to… but know this, your loyalty is being purchased. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but there is a price you pay, even if it’s just for your attention.

Time and attention

This is going to be one extremely busy week. I don’t usually get stressed out about about my schedule but I’ve got so much going on, pulling me in so many directions, that I get tired just thinking about it. Just cancelled a meeting I want to do, but know that it’s optional. This week is about focus and clearing my schedule for the big items.

Sometimes I can get a bit lost in doing the little things and in following the most recent issue in front of me. This week I need to keep my attention on the ‘must do’s’ and stay focused. Distractions need to be at a minimum. What I have control over is my attention. What I pay attention to gets my time. It’s a simple formula, but not always easy to follow… especially as a school administrator.

Sometimes emergent issues rule the day. Many times the priorities of others become my issues. But there are days when I need to look to others for support. Times when I need to ask others for help. And this week, I need to focus my attention on the things that need to get done right away. What I pay attention to gets my time… and this week time is precious.

The shallows vs the deep

When you meet some people, you instantly like them. They are friendly, personable, and genuine. Some people take a while to grow on you. There isn’t that quick assessment, and you need time to figure them out and have them figure you out. They can easily be as genuine as the people you like instantly, but you don’t immediately know.

Then there are the ones you instantly dislike or mistrust. There are those that seek to complain, and are quick to annoy you or to be easily annoyed themselves.

Isn’t interesting how much time and thought we spend on these different kinds of people? Those that have a depth of quality, we appreciate and want to know, but we don’t necessarily think or talk about them when they aren’t around. But those that annoy and frustrate us consume more of our thought and attention than they deserve.

We spend too much time focused in on the shallow end of this continuum and not enough time going deep with those that deserve more of our attention. We play and replay scenarios dealing with shallow people instead of doing the work to let go of petty things and investing time with those that lift us up in body, mind, and spirit.

Sometimes I’m surprised by my inability to move beyond the shallow end. I try to convince myself that I’m not interested in playing in the shallows, but I allow small conversations and interactions to consume too much of my thoughts. And then I wonder why I don’t have the time or energy for more intellectual endeavours?

This is why I seek people to converse with one-on-one. I create the opportunities to go deep, to invest time with people that are intelligent, forthcoming, insightful, and enjoyable to be around. I create time away from from the shallow end, where conversations can go deep. We might still splash around in shallow conversations but these are enjoyable rather than taxing, playful rather than confrontational… and always open to going deeper.

Content trumps people

Social media has changed. Whether it’s Instagram or Facebook Reels, Youtube Shorts, or TikTok’s ‘For You’ page, we no longer follow people, we follow viral videos. Content trumps people. Trends and clicks determine our feed, not who we know; who we choose to follow. And for things we share, our followers are less likely to see this and more likely to Like and Share something from people we don’t know.

Algorithms, not our online community, determine what we see, what we relate to, and what consumes our attention. I’m in Spain and now every one in four TikTok videos on my page are in Spanish, I’ve seen a mom of a young child sharing what her life is like after moving from America to Spain twice now. Not because I follow her, but because the TikTok algorithm thinks this is what I want to see.

What does this mean for us? Social media influencers will be less influential… probably a good thing. But this will also mean we are more distracted and less connected. How this changes the landscape of our digital lives is likely to be an overall negative in the short term, and ‘to be determined’ in the long term. Time will tell.

Easy distraction

I’m finding my phone to be a painfully easy distraction that’s sucking away too much of my time. I need it to write this post. I need it to meditate. I need it to listen to music while I work out. I need it to listen to my book. These are all legitimate reasons to ‘need’ my phone.

I don’t ‘need’ it beyond that, but it still ends up in my hands, it still takes my attention. It still sucks time out of my day.

I’m realizing that I need to put it down more, tuck it away more, leave it alone more.

Less phone, more life beyond the screen.

Let down

Yesterday I made a decision not to run an online blended program we’ve run for 6 years. It’s a great course but we couldn’t get the attendance to fill it enough the last couple years. The course required the work of a not-for-profit organization organizing community presentations, and they too struggled with supporting our course with such low numbers.

It’s such a let down to take away something good from our roster of courses we offer. It feels worse because I think I could have done more to promote the course and get more students interested. But sometimes it’s important to recognize what your own personal limits are and not chase after something that requires too much work and energy. Schools already offer a version of this class and it’s hard to promote students taking an online and blended class where students need to go to another school to meet. The struggle to get students interested and enrolled was just too high.

And yet I feel disappointed. I feel I’ve let down people. I feel that I’m the reason we failed to fill the course. I think out of everyone, I let down myself the most. On the one hand I absolutely know I could have done more. On the other hand I feel like this wasn’t a year that I could have put more into anything. This doesn’t soften the disappointment much, but it reminds me that I’m better off giving less things 100% effort than spreading myself thin and giving everything 75% or less.

That’s the lesson, but it still stings.

Spiral into TikTok time

I have a 30 minute timer for TikTok and I am committed to not going past that on work days. It’s crazy how the algorithm works. Before the self-administered time restraint, I could get sucked in for over an hour… Occasionally, on weekends, I still do. And my TikTok is nothing like my daughter’s, we are into completely different things.

What’s scary is how well the algorithm has me figured out. I can watch 20-30 short videos in a row without skipping one. It has completely figured out what I like, and feeds me related and relatable content. If you are a fan of Facebook or Instagram, you’ll notice the same thing.

But I’m someone who watches very little TV, and doesn’t spend much time on social media, and so 30 minutes is like sitting down to watch a single TV show. It’s entertainment for me and I allow myself that break.

But what about our younger generations? What kind of time are they spending sucked into attention algorithms designed to keep them engaged? Designed to keep them watching?

In China, they stop the Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin, from 10pm to 6am, and I’ve heard that they intentionally push educational content when it is on. This may seem draconian, but I’m not sure that letting addictive social media tools run rampant is a good idea. I’m not sure what balance looks like, but I am pretty sure that these tools are a bit too addictive to let them co-parent our kids.

Meh

It’s 10:30pm and I feel like I’ve wasted most of the day. I did help my wife with some garage clean-up but we didn’t spend that long on it. I did have a wonderful dinner with my daughter, but then I came home and fell asleep on the couch. I started writing this and realized that I forgot to hit publish on yesterday’s post. I back dated it, hit ‘Publish’, and now I’m writing this before doing a meditation and a guilt-ridden workout, having not worked out yesterday.

This is the challenge of not having a routine. This is what scares me about the idea of retirement. I often need a schedule to be and feel productive. I can waste away time like it’s nothing and end up feeling like a day has completely escaped me. I didn’t even listen to much of my audiobook that I’m thoroughly enjoying. I didn’t take time to do archery, which I just mentioned enjoying yesterday (although I only published it tonight).

This is not me at my best. I’ve got to be present rather than simply let the present become the past without even realizing it. I’ve got to get active early in the day and set a personal goal or two to accomplish. It can be as simple as listening to my book, or writing this before 10:30pm… it’s not about needing to do anything great, it’s just about make moments of ‘meh’ into moments I value and appreciate. It’s interesting that my only two mentionable moments from today were with my family and my meh moments where when I was alone. I usually enjoy times of solitude, but now it’s obvious to me that I have to be more present and focused about how I spend my alone time, rather than wasting it away.

Attention, not convenience

If you share a post on Instagram, it can go directly to Facebook, not because it’s convenient, but because Facebook owns Instagram. That same link will create a link in Twitter, rather than sharing the picture, so if you want to see the picture, you must go to Instagram. Why? Because Instagram wants your attention. If they share the image you want to share on Twitter, then you don’t need to click on Instagram, see other Instagram images… and advertising.

Got a message from LinkedIn? You’ll get an email informing you of it (if you want to be notified). But that email won’t contain the message. Instead, you cave to click a link and go to LinkedIn.

They want your attention at the cost of your convenience.

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Update: I want to share this tweet by Laef Kucheran here:

“This observation is strikingly useful when trying to understand almost *anything* the social media giants do.

They want your attention. Convenience (or health, or democracy, or societal happiness) are always secondary concerns.”

Cloudy thinking

Yesterday at my archery practice my thoughts were my enemy. I got into a negative flow of thinking that I couldn’t break. It seemed as though every thought I had related to reasons why I would not hit the center of the target. My scores weren’t horrible, but they also weren’t anything close to what I’m capable of. It wasn’t so much the score that bothered me, it was my inability to get out of a negative loop of thinking.

I often wonder what goes through other people’s heads when they think. Are their minds as busy as mine? Do they have a constant internal dialogue that doesn’t shut up? For me, there is always a dialogue going on, and it isn’t always helpful. I sometimes wonder if I have some kind of attention deficit issue, with my mind bouncing from idea to idea.

Sometimes I feel like this is a super power, because I can make lateral connections to things others don’t see. Other times it’s more like a disability, with an inability to truly focus. And still other times (though less common) my thoughts can sink me into a zone of singular focus. This can happen when I’m writing, and I can start to put words on paper, intuitively knowing the beginning, middle, and end, before the world can get from my mind to the page. I love these moments, but they don’t come often.

What comes most often is a busy, somewhat clouded mind that is easily distracted. One that requires constant reminding to stay on task. I’ve figured out how to manage this, how to be effective, even when my mind wants to wander and wonder. But sometimes, like yesterday’s archery practice, I become my own worst enemy. I try to convince myself that I can focus and get away from the negative thoughts, but I can’t. Negative thoughts prevail. Negative internal dialogue persists.

I can get this way with meditation too. I can get so that every attempt to focus on my breath lasts only seconds before I’m fighting off distraction. And then the distractions become the only thing I can think of. These sessions don’t prove to be very meditative. They become 10 minutes of thinking that I need to be better at mediating, rather than actual meditation.

Yesterday, a clouded mind took over my archery practice. I didn’t practice archery, I practiced the art of negative thinking. The art of getting in my own way. The art of distraction. I need to learn a strategy to get my head out of these dark clouds when they come. I need to metaphorically clear the skies, and let the sun shine through… or at least pack an umbrella.