Welcome to the folks who made the jump from my very old and very defunct Conscious Living Newsletter and are joining us on the latest incarnation of my obsession with attention.
Check-In Round
We always start with a check-in; a quick question and a top of mind answer. You’re more than welcome to send me your answer by hitting reply and sending it my way. This week’s check-in question:
“What new year resolution would have the biggest impact on your life if you were 100% successful in implementing it?”
Something about getting my self-critic to take a hike, probably. Without that guy hanging around I have a feeling I would be a much happier, more prolific, and generally better version of myself.
Apparently my dad is an Instagram advertiser’s dream. Shark socks.
I’ve been putting fingers to keyboard pretty regularly and have managed to get a couple articles out the door since the last time I said hello to all of you. First, I took a look at how 2019 and my “Year of Deliberate” went. In it I try to not go down too many data rabbit holes and instead get in touch with my overall subjective experience of the year — with a little data thrown in as seasoning. Read “Looking Back at a Year of Growth, Grief, and Calm.”
Then I turned my attention to 2020 and explored my yearly theme(s). A yearly theme helps give some structure and guidance to my year and this year I’m trying something a little funky — a dual theme with opposing(ish) intentions. Read “The Year of Intensity/Simplicity.”
What Has My Attention
I’ve been thinking a lot about why I find personal data collection so interesting and useful. I think some people have this idea that I’m running all my various data through complicated algorithms and looking for correlations that give me some sort of counterintuitive insight into how I should be living my life. Some quantified selfers may be into that — but that’s not me.
Here’s the thing... I don’t really do all that much with the data once I’ve collected it. Once a week I pull it all into a spreadsheet, do some color coding to indicate whether I exceeded, met, or failed to meet my expectations, and then mostly forget about it until the following week.
That’s because the data collecting I do is more about momentum. The worst thing in the world to a data fan is an incomplete dataset. Once I start collecting data on something I want to have as complete a dataset as I can possibly muster. That means keeping my attention on it and checking in with it from time to time. With my current system, I can’t really go longer than 7 days without interacting with some kind of data. In a world of distractions and nearly infinite things I could be doing my personal data collection habit helps me keep bringing my attention back to what matters.
It’s that exercise of never letting something I care about fall too far outside my attention that I actually find valuable. Sitting down every Sunday morning and putting in the numbers makes me think about why they’re doing what they’re doing and what that means for how I’ve been (or should be) living my life. That’s where the rubber actually meets the road for me. The data is a MacGuffin. A fun MacGuffin, but a MacGuffin nonetheless.
What Has My Attention Elsewhere
Improving ourselves to death. (The New Yorker)
American happiness is plummeting. Could a few words change that? (Vox)
Build your own intellectual oasis. (Quillette)
Doing a digital declutter. (The Focus Course)
Closing Round
Work: Using the beginning of a new year as an excuse to introduce new dynamics and practices to the project. Mostly, getting back to basics around some practices that we know work but are easy to let fall by the wayside when you feel busy.
Reading: Apparently I pre-ordered BJ Fogg’s new book, Tiny Habits, so when it unexpectedly showed up on my Kindle I decided to give it a go. Pretty good! Also re-read Watchmen for the first time since 2008 (in preparation for the new HBO show I want to start soon).
Watching: Just finished Letterkenny season 8 and The Expanse season 2. Emily and I are almost finished with Patriot season 1 (new for her, re-watch for me). I can’t wait to start season 2.
Your friend,
Sam