Some thoughts on attention
For the past few years we’ve been frequenting the Goodwill Outlet store near us. Or the “bins” as we affectionately call them. If you’ve never been, let me describe the scene.
You walk in and find yourself in a warehouse-like space. There are long, blue bins, the length of a compact car, holding mounds of unsold goods from regular Goodwill stores. Everything is sold by the pound, except books, which are by the piece. It basically works out to thrift store prices from the nineties, when books and clothing could still be bought for less than a dollar.
There are all variety of people there. Regular folks just looking for a good bargain on household necessities, but also obnoxious resellers who load up their carts, then take their dandy old time sorting through their haul in the corner, before putting most of it back.
I don’t mind the book resellers too much, since they are only scanning for high value books, and many times skip over the gems. This happened to me this past weekend. A squirrelly looking fellow with glasses, was scanning for books. He set aside what looked to be a brand-new copy of Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss. A book you can find used for under $10 online, but which contains priceless wisdom.
As soon as he set it aside, I swooped in.
I first became familiar with Tim Ferriss via his podcast (The Tim Ferriss Show), then subsequently read 4-Hour Workweek. I still work a full-time job (lol), but it was very informative, and influenced the way I think about work, productivity, and my music business.
So when I saw Tools of Titans, I knew it would be worth its weight in gold. Or maybe I should say: I knew the wisdom it contained would be worth far more than the fifty cents.
Ferriss says in the beginning of the book that it’s intended to be more like a “buffet” and to “skip liberally” through the chapters. So when I opened the table of contents and saw Seth Godin’s name, I figured I’d start there. Because I remembered listening to a few interviews with him, and every time I do, I’ve always come away inspired to live more closely aligned with my ideals.
“I quantify almost nothing in my life” – Seth Godin
Ferriss goes on to write:
I sometimes fear I’ll lose my edge if I stop measuring everything. This line was freeing for me to hear… He inspired me to start “cycling off” of quantification…
I like to study what Seth doesn’t do as much as what he does. Seth has no comments on his blog, he doesn’t pay attention to analytics, and he doesn’t use Twitter or Facebook (except to rebroadcast his daily blog posts, which is automated). In a world of tool obsession and FOMO (fear of missing out) on the next social platform, Seth doesn’t appear to care. He simply focuses on putting out good and short daily posts, he ignores the rest, and he continues to thrive. There are no real rules, so make rules that work for you. (p. 241, Tools of Titans, Tim Ferriss)
When I read this, I was freshly reminded of my obsessive relationship with the data and stats around my music. It’s a weird thing, because, on the one hand, data is useful for informing business decisions. However, I can so quickly conflate relevant data and analysis (e.g. – a cadenced analysis of royalties, album purchases, advertising efficacy) with irrelevant stats (views, likes, followers, streams, reshares).
In other words: I get caught up in irrelevant data—i.e., data that doesn’t actually inform or help my creative inspiration and direction—to the point where I’m distracted from my true goal of creating.
I think a lot of the reason it’s hard to distinguish between the two, is because I don’t take enough time for reflection. I’ve noticed that the more space and time I give myself for writing, and undistracted thought, the more aware I am of the things I’m focussing on that are wastes of time, and don’t matter in the long run.
I’ll be taking some time this week to reflect more on this, and what “rules” work for me.