Issue link: https://www.balharbourdigital.com/i/1170372
BAL HARBOUR 135 WE ALL KNOW HOW our digital, always-on, constant FOMO world can be not just distracting but exhausting. Sometimes we all just need a break to focus on what's important to us as individuals. at's why I wrote a book called "e Art of Noticing," a series of 131 prompts, provocations, games and exercises you can add to your day-to-day life to build up your attention muscles. e way I see it, noticing is just shorthand for being present in the moment: really seeing the environment you're in, listening to others, engaging with your world instead of drifting through it and picking up on what everybody else overlooked or took for granted. I designed the book to be approachable: You can pick and choose easy-to-engage ideas, or work your way toward really committed attention-building projects. Here are a few personal favorites: Look Like A Child. Author and critic John Berger's famous Ways of Seeing documentary series and book offered a sophisticated treatise on perception. But one of Berger's insights was that the most honest, no-nonsense observers of our world are often children. ey see novelty and wonder in what we consider familiar; they notice things we've learned to ignore. Try to channel this mode of engaging with the world: Imagine you haven't "seen it all before," and try to see as a child would. And if you have access to a child— get her help! Just try to pay attention to what she's paying attention to, and appreciate why she's paying attention to it. Don't Photograph. Draw. Armed with smartphones, we can document anything now. See it, snap it, done. e problem is that this is so fleeting it doesn't stick—it's a substitute for attention, "noticing lite." Try drawing instead. Don't worry if you "can't draw." You don't have to show anyone. Just go through the process of sketching something you find interesting. e idea goes back at least to Victorian-era critic John Ruskin, who argued that a "sketcher" perceives better than the non-sketcher. Get a cheap notebook, make one drawing on the first page. en another. en fill the notebook. Some of the prompts in the book are easier, some are harder. But this should get you started. e idea is to care about what you pay attention to, and pay attention to what you really care about. "Noticing is just shorthand for being present in the moment: really seeing the environment you're in, listening to others, engaging with your world instead of drifting through it and picking up on what everybody else overlooked or took for granted."