Tuning Out to Tune In

Rational Ignorance Tuning Out Transcript

Craig 0:04

Hi folks. This is Craig Van Slyke. Welcome to the Rational Ignorance podcast, where we talk about facts, values, and living life well. 

Andrea 0:11

Hi everyone. I'm Andrea Christelle, a philosopher and outdoor enthusiast who lives in Sedona, Arizona. 

Craig 0:17

And I'm a business professor, author and rancher who lives in the middle of the woods in Eros, Louisiana. We're here to have fun, practical conversations with smart, interesting people to help us cut through the noise and get to what really matters. 

Andrea 0:30

Rational ignorance is an idea from economics that basically means there is a limit to what we need to know. So we'll skip the small stuff, focus on what really matters and separate the wheat from the chaff.

Craig 0:41

If you're like most people, every day you're faced with an almost limitless information tsunami. For many of us, most of our waking hours are spent dealing with information. Much of which comes from our leisure time. Unfortunately, much of our so-called downtime is spent dealing with this constant barrage of information. News stories, advertisements, social media feeds, text messages, all of these flood our brains with information. In our device tethered lives we rarely take the time to step away from the information the world throws at us and simply tune out. In this episode, we're going to discuss the idea of tuning out, starting with the need to tune out followed by the benefits and risks of tuning out. Then in the last segment we're gonna offer some advice on how to start selectively tuning out and how to build the practice of tuning out into our lives. So Andrea, why should we have an episode about tuning out? 

Andrea 1:31

Craig, really it's for many of the reasons that you just mentioned, um, the 24/7 news, social media, and so many things that compete for our attention all the time. And I think that there is so much pressure to learn more and know more, but occasionally instead of taking in more information, we just need to stop the flow of information and take time to rest and time to reflect.

Craig 2:04

All right. So let's, let's talk a little bit about, um, where that need might come from. I know a lot of times when I'm just faced with all this information coming at me, I feel tired. Um, and so I wanted to talk for just a second about why that might be, and if I could preface this with a disclaimer that neither of us are experts in this area. You know, there are a psychologist and communication scholars and, and other folks who spend their lives researching some of the things that we're talking about today. And so we're going to kind of give the, I don't know if overview is quite the right word, but we're going to give the lay person's view of some of this. So any of you who are experts on some of these theories, uh, we apologize in advance. Feel free to berate us on our Twitter feed or, you know, to your significant other or whatever.

Um, but now seriously, we'd love to hear from you if we've gotten any of this wrong. So there are a lot of theories of attention. Uh, we could do multiple episodes just on the idea of attention and still not really do the topic justice. So we're just gonna pick a reasonable way to go, uh, to go about this. And, and I'm, I'm a fan of Kahneman’s capacity view. It just kinda makes sense to me. So the way that we can think about this as your attention is a limited resource. You know, and like any limited resource you have to make decisions or, or your brain has to make decisions about what to attend to and what not to attend to. And so that causes kind of a cognitive capacity problem when we have to consciously make those decisions. And so most folks who are experts in this area kind of separate between the automatic way that our brain decides to pay attention. Like if somebody shouts, or if you hear a car wreck behind you or a dog starts growling, we don't decide this is something I should pay attention to, or this isn't, we just pay attention to it. We just attend to it automatically. So that's not what we're talking about here. And so when we have the world, like we have today with just all of these stimuli coming at us, almost constantly, our brain can get bogged down and just deciding what to pay attention to. I don't know, Andrea, have you ever felt that way when you're, you know, maybe you're trying to research something or there there's some something going on that you're interested in and you just go down this rabbit hole of finding more and more stuff and trying to figure out what you should be paying attention to and what you shouldn’t.

Andrea 4:44

Yes. I mean, that that's definitely happened to me. I think that it's happened to most of us. And I would say that, you know, to your earlier point, even though, um, neither one of us are technical experts in the field of attention, in a way everybody is kind of an expert on this because we are all, uh, directing our attention on a daily basis. And this is, this is something that everyone deals with and experiences. And one thing we do know is that even if we wanted to, um, fully focus our attention all day, we can't really effectively do that. Our attention is a limited resource, as you mentioned. And so one strategy is just to, to come to terms with that fact and recognize that you're only going to have a really focused or, um, deep attention for a limited period of time. So I think that there are really, um, at least two issues here. One is, um, how long can you really sustain focused attention on any topic and then two, um, which is like where do you direct that attention? And I think that you're right. If you start reading an article that you're interested in, almost inevitably, it's going to link to other articles that will link to other sources. And so with the ease of information access we have right now, we really have to make strategic decisions about where we're going to spend our time. And, uh, so we have to make strategic decisions about what we're going to pay attention to. And realistically, accept that our attention, as you said, is a limited and finite resource. 

Craig 6:32

And by strategic, uh, I'm taking that to mean purposeful, not as opposed to accidental.

Is that the way you're using the word strategic? 

Andrea 6:40

Right, I mean, what, what do I care about most right now? What am I interested in researching? What projects am I working on? What, you know, what did just come up in my Twitter feed? Or someone mentioned to me that I had never heard of before, but, but is of interest. So I think that we're constantly juggling these priorities and like it or not, most of us are barraged with information so that new things do come up. And I think that it's in those instances that we have to be strategic in number one, about how much we expose ourselves to the sort of, you know, random onslaught of information that we get, whether it's in our email inbox or the various social media platforms that we're engaged in. I think we can intentionally tune those things out, but I think it's quite difficult for most people, for me often to do that because those platforms are set up to be addictive. I mean, it's, it's not, it's not neutral. 

Craig 7:37

That's an excellent point. 

Andrea 7:38

Yeah. I mean, if I'm, if I'm working on something that's really difficult, uh, you know, maybe it's easy to pull away from that and check an email or, you know, see what's on Twitter. Um, so it takes a certain amount of self-discipline to decide, you know, I'm going to set aside these 90 minutes and work on something. Um, for me, that's probably about as long as I can maintain sustained attention on any one question. And then I'll go back from that and check email or do more, uh, a routine administrative task.

Craig 8:12

So you bring up an interesting point. I want to see if I can get to where I want to get to with this. So I look at this whole issue as being kind of a series of, of things that we have to do. So assuming that we're not talking about automatic processing, when something comes into our awareness, we first have to cognitively figure out how much attention we should be paying to that. Alright. So that, that takes part of our cognitive capacity, because if you think about it, you're, you're taking this stimulus and you're trying to fit it into what your brain already knows to determine whether or not you should give it attention. All right, so that's all requiring your cognitive capacity, which is also limited, just like our attention is limited.

And so just like a computer that runs out of memory, you know, our brains can kind of do the same thing and this attention problem gets exacerbated because of the limited information  capacity problem, processing capacity problem. It's like the attention piece is almost a double whammy because not only does the attention take our cognitive resources, but deciding whether or not we should pay more attention or less attention to this thing also, uh, takes our cognitive capacity. So, so there's this filtering that goes on first. So there's something that comes in, you know, there's a new story, you know, you've got the news on in the background, a news story comes up. That comes into your awareness and you, you have to filter it as either in your discard pile, I'm not going to pay any attention to it, or I should consider this further. And then you're taking in more stimuli and kind of refining that decision. And you know, takes your, it takes your brain power. And then once you decide to more or less fully attend to that new thing, now you have to make sense out of it. So what, what does this do? Does, you know, how does this fit into my, uh, current relevant mental models? How do I need to adjust those mental models, you know, to help make sense of this new information? And then this is where it gets even worse. At least for me, that triggers a desire to get more information because I can't quite make sense totally out of this new information. And so it really can be this rabbit hole. And I can't tell you how many times I've gotten myself into a mental frenzy over stuff that at the end was just kind of dumb, you know, and pointless. So it really is that the attention piece is really a challenge. 

Andrea 10:41

Right. Well, I think that, uh, people by nature are curious. So when we learn about something new, some topic of interest, then we tend to want to find out more about that. We also, as people, like to learn. And so it's kind of tantalizing when we hear about something that's new. I think people are attracted to novelty, to learning. They're curious. And so this all makes sense about why we behave this way, but the, the, you know, the ecosystem is such that we realize it's ultimately not, not productive. And so I think one of the reasons we wanted to, um, talk about tuning out is because kind of counterintuitively, perhaps, tuning out actually enables us, uh, better to tune in to those things that we really care about. And so even if we, um, seem to be tuning out, what are we tuning out? I think what we want to tune out are the extraneous things or perhaps the more random things that are pitched at us for our attention, because, because our attention is valuable to other people that want us to learn about their message and to really take control and say, no, I've established ahead of time that these are the things I care about or where I want to focus my attention and I'm going to tune out from anything that's extraneous so that I can tune in to what I know is valuable. 

Craig 12:16

Right. I, I think that's, uh, just really the, the heart of the matter is what we're talking about here is tuning out so you can tune in. And I also would not advocate for completely reigning in curiosity, you know, it's, there's nothing wrong with curiosity. Uh, you know, I think you hit on another important point earlier when, when you were talking about it being strategic. So it's okay to have times when you're just kind of randomly going down these garden paths of this or that, like one of the things I like to do, if Tracy and I are sitting, watching TV, there'll be some, you know, be some actor that's up on the screen that either, I don't know, or, you know, one of us will say, well, wasn't she in this or that? Or I recognize this person, where do I know her from? And I'll get my phone and I'll go on Google and I'll look up whoever the actor is. And I kind of enjoy that new, it's fun. It's a little thing for us. And I see nothing wrong with that because all it's doing is drawing attention away from something else that really doesn't matter at that point. You know, that's kind of downtime where I don't want to really have to learn and have to get in depth on anything. Cause if I don't remember who we were talking about two nights later, who cares? It doesn't matter. That's what I think being purposeful about these things is one of the real keys to kind of navigating all of this.

I also can get carried away when I do that. So I'll, you know, I'll be reading some Wikipedia article about an actor and then it mentions a movie. And then I said, oh, I remember that movie. And then I'll look up that movie and that'll mention another actor. And I realized that I, I, a little while ago I was sitting there with Tracy and now I'm sitting there in my own little Wikipedia, you know, iPhone bubble. And so, you know, you want to draw limits to all of that. Uh, but, but it does come back to the idea of being purposeful. I think what's gotten really bad, I know this, this is going to make me sound old, but it's just constant now. It's absolutely constant. You know, there's always news on TV. There's always your phone or your tablet or your computer. We're always getting text messages, you know, even for work. It's this 24/7 thing. You know, I, I started leaving my phone in the kitchen when I went to bed at night, because I don't want to wake up because of some stupid email, but just never stops. 

Andrea 14:33

Yeah. I, I definitely, um, leave my phone in the living room before I go to bed. I don't take it to bed with me. And you're right, like all the ways that people have to reach us. Um, I was just, you know, yesterday was Friday and I was finishing out my week and I had certain emails I needed to attend to, certain teams messages, certain things on slack. And I thought, okay, I'm going to take care of everything I need to before I log off, right. And I did that and I put away my work computer, got out my personal computer because I was doing some work for a community organization and picked up my phone and I had a text message from someone I was working for. And I thought, oh, I didn't check it. And then I had to shut down my personal computer, turn on my work computer, go back on and attend to that thing. But, um, yes, I mean, there, there's so many different channels that things are, um, ways that things come at at, at us. 

Craig 15:31

And it really changed the expectations because we're so available, we feel like we should be so available a lot of times. Yeah, we're back back before. It's like, why are you calling me on a weekend? You know? I mean, if the building isn't burning down or, you know, if our, if our office didn't get flooded, I mean, this can wait until Monday, you know, we're not working in an ER, this, this can wait until Monday. 

Andrea 15:53

Yeah. Although I have to say that COVID and doing all of our work now, online and on zoom in many ways has helped me, I think, develop a more healthy, um, work, personal life balance. Because I think before, when I would meet people in person. And I usually, uh, you know, like working and like my job and i'm interested in what I'm doing so that I would check my email at night and I would check my email during the weekend and I would want to work on things, but after being on the computer all day nonstop in Zoom meetings and then on the computer again at the end of the working day, or sometimes on the weekends, I am really ready to shut it completely down.

Craig 16:42

I think that’s really variable.I think some people have, you know, the, the reaction that you've had and other people have found that work-life boundaries have completely disappeared. Uh, I think I've mentioned to you before that Tracy said, “Well, you know, you work all the time now.” And it's interesting. I don't, I don't think I work any more hours than I did pre COVID, but she just didn't see it. You know, I'd leave it before she got up in the morning and I'd get home late afternoon and it just wasn't apparent, but that could be another interesting topic to pursue. So I think if we take all of this together, we believe that we can build a case for selectively and purposely purpose of purposefully? Strategic. We'll just call it strategic because that's a lot easier to say purposefully tuning out. So let's switch gears if we could and talk about what we might gain. What are the benefits of tuning out? So what do you see as some of the benefits of kind of tuning out from work on the weekends or just tuning out in general?

Andrea 17:42

Sure. So, um, one benefit that we've talked about already is that tuning out allows you to tune into what you really care about. So if you can tune out extraneous information, then you can focus on a particular project or task that, that you know, really matters to you, that you care about, that you want to make progress on. But that’s one way of tuning out, right, so that you can more effectively tune in. but there's also a tuning out that is really just removing your attention from anything. And we've all heard about mindfulness meditation. Um, that's very popular. And I think the reason that it's popular is because it's very beneficial, especially in this time when we tend to be so barraged with information, it can be very helpful to just really give ourselves a break. And so then there is this other way of completely tuning out, right. And just focusing our attention on our breath or on, on a simple counting exercise. And of course there are various forms of meditation, whether it's a guided meditation, where someone is focusing your attention on different objects, whether that's a, a thought pattern, pattern, or paying attention to, um, you know, different aspects of your body, or simply trying to, uh, hold attention on not having attention, allowing nothing to come into your mind when something does come into your mind, allowing those thoughts to release and go away.

And why do we do this? Um, we find pretty widely that there are tremendous benefits to completely tuning out as well. 

Craig 19:26

Yeah, that's a, that's a pretty high bar for most of us. Sorry. I needed to make a little microphone adjustment there. Yeah. But I think I want to be really careful about how I say this. This is not an all or nothing. I mean, I, you know, the, the concept of fully shutting my brain off is just so far outside of anything I've ever done. You know, it's like, nope, I'm not even going down that path because it just feels impossible to me. I mean, it really, it really does. I'm sure it is possible. And I'm sure if I devoted enough time to it, I could develop these practices, but this is going to sound really bad, you know, who has time for that? Who has time for that? And so I think if you do, that's wonderful, you know, if you built up this capability over over the years and you have this, you know, or if you want to give it a try, that's great. But I think we can take kind of baby steps too, that can be helpful. Let, let me, let me give you an example of one that I do. Um, when I go out to do what, uh, what I refer to as convict work, which is, you know, go out digging rocks. And, but my task for this afternoon is digging out one of the horse stalls, which is a particularly unpleasant task because of the state of horse stalls. But I don't take my phone with me. You know, I don't put a pair of earbuds in and listen to music or anything. I just go out there and my brain certainly is not turned off, but I'm focused on a pretty menial task. And I didn't mean any insults to anybody who's been convicted of a crime and had to work on a chain gang. I don't think they have chain gangs anymore, but anyway, when I go out there to do something physical like that, it's kind of a time to just be. And even though it's, it's really hard work, I'm talking about digging wet dirt down to where we've got rock. So that'll be a 12 by 12 stall, about three or four inches of wet dirt. You know, I'm an old man. That's tough work, but in some weird ways, I kind of look forward to it because it forces me to kind of disconnect. Can't really concentrate on anything because I'm, you know, my back is so sore. It's kinda neat to just go out there and be, and I can listen to the birds. You know, we live in the woods, I can listen to the birds and I can listen to the goats talking to me. And it's just so even if you don't think that you can get all the way to what you were mentioning earlier. Yeah, it was just some little baby step I think can be really rejuvenative for us. Is that a word rejuvenative? I think it is. It is now. 

Andrea 21:59

Yeah. Or rejuvenating. Yeah, I think, I think you're right. And I think that, um, you know, what you're describing as baby steps might be a full on meditation, actually. And I think that it's interesting how much, uh, language sometimes can get in the way. Um, and which is one of my favorite topics is like, what is meditation? So now we're both talking about meditation, but I think we might, um, be thinking of different things when we're using this same word. And so I think there's one conception of meditation that's popular. That means I can't be physically moving. My legs need to be crossed. My eyes need to be closed. Right. My hands need to be in a certain Sutra perhaps. And that's, that's one way of meditating and perhaps one of the most, uh, commonly conceived images that is conjured up when we describe meditation, but there are certainly moving meditations, walking meditations. And I think that doing the kind of physical labor that you're describing can be conceived as a meditation. So it's anything where we're, we really are effectively tuning out. And it sounds like because you, you know, aren't listening to a podcast, for example, when you're out there or music, or, um, you know, just doing this repetitive task and sort of setting your mind at ease, right.

That can be a meditation. Now, if you're out there, um, digging a horse stall and, you know, making a plan for your next syllabus, right. Then that's not quite a meditation. Right. But if you're just focused on the activity of digging itself, right? And just paying attention to this routine activity or just walking and just, and just noticing, you know, nature around you and really allowing things to come into your attention, then that's a real reprieve from checking email or attending to whatever information is, is coming to us. And, and I'm sure, um, is very restorative in a sense, even though it's hard work. Um, and even though you're physically tired in a way I would, um, I would ask you if you're in some way restored or renewed or refreshed by just getting away from all of the external stimuli.

Craig 24:32

I, you know, I, I think the short answer to that is yes, mentally. Although, I, I, it might be meditation cause I have a mantra: “Why don't I live in a condo?” 

Andrea 24:41

This is sounding like meditation. 

Craig 24:43

My mantra is “why don't I live in a condo? Why don't I live in a condo? Why don't I live in a condo?” I frequently remind Tracy that when we met, I had no yard. Literally, I lived at a townhouse, no yard. And then I upgraded to a concrete backyard, which we dug out. I paid $3,000 to have these guys come in and break up all this concrete and this little backyard, we lived in a really nice townhouse and Lafayette square in St. Louis. And these guys came in, broke all this stuff up, put, put grass down, which didn't grow. And then the dogs were afraid of the back step and wouldn't go out there. So. No, not my highest return on investment investment, but it's a good running joke for the marriage. 

Andrea 25:28

Yes. And talk about baby steps, you took baby steps and then at some point you took a big leap to, to where you are now. 

Craig 25:35

Yeah. Yeah. We're we're going to, we have reached the peak. We are going to start on the downside if we ever move. So, you know, I think the point is you can make some conscious decisions. To kind of leave some stuff, leave some of this interference, you know, these information sources behind periodically and just let yourself kind of be, you know, be it, this is another meditation thing, kind of be in the moment. And so what, what I. Go ahead. Sorry. 

Andrea 26:04

No, no. And I was just going to say, it can be very accessible and it can be through, you know, gardening or working outside, or sometimes even doing the dishes can be a meditation. I mean, tuning out is just really stopping this sort of chatter or what some people sometimes call like a monkey mind, just like stopping the constant chatter that can go on in our own minds and so part of that is stopping the external stimuli from coming in, but it's also a way of, um, really quieting our own minds because it's not just external stimuli, right? It can really be like a sort of conversation happening in your own mind. 

Craig 26:47

Or internal dialogue. What I find interesting about some of this, and it might be, you know, mowing the pasture, it might be, you know, working out in the, you know, in the barn or whatever, but that creates some, some cognitive space for things to kind of percolate.

And so often I'll get some little epiphany is, probably too strong of a word, but, you know, I'll have some research project I'm working on or, you know, that I might see in a different light or I might come up with a solution to a problem we've got on a paper. And so I think one of the things about kind of stopping that noise, that monkey mind, is that it gives you some space for a different kind of cognitive processing for your mind to work in a different way and kind of let it sit. And, you know, I'm sure we've all heard stories about Eureka moments, you know, when, you know, when Archimedes was taking a bath or, you know, whatever it might be. Where these, these brilliant people have some brilliant thing come to them when they're engaged in a mundane activity. So it can, you're doing these kinds of things actually can spur your creativity and a different kind of cognitive processing.

Andrea 27:54

Absolutely. And I think since we know that there are those benefits that we've experienced them, that they're well-documented for thousands of years. I think the question then becomes why, why, why aren't we all doing this more all the time, right? There are obvious benefits associated with it. So what are the challenges? Um, what gets in the way? 

Craig 28:16

I have two, I'm sorry. I don't mean to cut you off there. I have two big reasons. One is we mistake activity for productivity or achievement. So, you know, we're busy. We feel like we're, we need to be busy. We need to be busy, busy, busy all the time. And you know, that doesn't necessarily mean you're being effective just because you're being busy. That always blew my mind when I'd hear some of my colleagues, you know, who weren't maybe publishing as much as me or, you know, were teaching fewer students or whatever. And they say, “You know, I'm working 70 hours a week.” And I’d look at him and say, “Then you're doing it wrong.” Most college professors don't, don't jump on me too much about this listeners.

You know, you can do a really good job in 40 hours a week or so, you know, you don't have to spend 70 hours a week doing it. And if you start to dig in a little bit, you find that they're wasting a lot of time. It was some of these attention problems that we've talked about. And so, and you know, there are tons of systems for taking care of, you know, those kinds of problems. All I wanna do is point out that's one of the reasons that we, we can get ourselves into this kind of monkey mind is we feel like we always need to be doing something and maybe you don't, you know, maybe it's better to kind of do it nothing for a while and let yourself rejuvenate, let your, your mind kinda quiet and start to process things.

So that's one reason. The second reason is FOMO, which is one of my favorite new, new terms is a Fear Of Missing Out. And so we feel like we're going to be uninformed, or we're going to miss out on something important or, you know, we wait, uh, you know, I might need to know about this. You know where I'm terrible about FOMO, is the weather, you know, we mean, we live in a pretty, an area that's pretty prone to violent weather from time to time. And so it's prudent to pay some attention to it, but, you know, I'll have, there'll be a storm coming through and I'll look at the radar, and then I'll look at the radar again, five minutes later, it's not, I mean, the, you know, the front might be moving through, but the radar image is not going to change much in five minutes, But I feel like, you know, maybe there's a new cell, popping up, or maybe the, you know, a cell has died down. I get to where I just can't leave it alone. And that's a, that's a fear of missing out thing. Am I going to miss out on something that's going to be useful? You know, sometimes missing out isn't a bad thing. It's okay. 

Andrea 30:35

I think that's right. Yeah, it's not. And I think, you know, we had Tara Zimmerman on a few weeks ago and she talked about it's okay not to be aware of all the latest breaking news, but there is kind of a feeling when someone asks you, did you hear that this happened, that, um, if you are a person that cares about what's going on in the world or your community, or you, you should have heard this, if you were paying attention to the news. Otherwise maybe, you know, you're not, you don't care enough to learn about recent political or current events, or you're not... that there is a fear of missing out and I think a culture that expects us to be aware of all the most recent headlines, but I think that's something to consciously try to overcome. And I think especially the news headlines, I would like to distinguish from the weather, which you, which you mentioned, because I think the weather, especially some of the weather we've seen, you know, around this country and in the world lately is something we all have to pay attention to. And I think if you're living in an area, that's, you know, a hurricane susceptible area then paying attention to the weather makes a lot of sense. But certainly there's a lot of news, a lot of, uh, political happenings that would, it really make a difference if we got the headline, the second the headline was released or a week later.

And in most cases, probably very little. 

Craig 32:04

That's a big part of what causes this problem, is this 24/7 news cycle. It used to be, you would read the morning paper or you'd watch the morning news, or you'd watch the evening news. And, you know, maybe you'd stay up until 11 o'clock and watch the 11 o'clock news.

But now sometimes we feel like we need to know about it immediately, you know, as it's happening, when in reality, there's, there's rarely any benefit from that. There's rarely any benefit at all from, from being... Now, you know, it's different with weather, if you've got a storm coming through that kind of thing, but you know, most things that happened in the world don't really affect us directly in the moment. And so it would be, as you're saying, it would be okay to find out about it the next day. 

Andrea 32:48

So if that's the case and we know that we don't really have to find out about things right away, and that they're all are all kinds of benefits to tuning out occasionally either so we can tune in and really focus on something we care about or just give ourselves a kind of cognitive break, because it is on the one hand has many benefits, one, it is restorative actually in itself, but also as you mentioned, sometimes creative ideas then have the space to, to come up. And, and we know that there are benefits associated with that. How can we do that more effectively? What, what can we do to tune out? How do you do it? How do you get yourself to do it? 

Craig 33:33

So, uh, I think this is going to sound so cliche, you know, the first step is awareness kind of, kind of being aware when you're getting like that, that when, when you feel yourself getting obsessed or, you know, you feel like it's almost a withdrawal if you get away from something, but just knowing that that feeling is pretty human, right? It doesn't make you a bad person because you feel that way. So it's pretty human. And it's also not that difficult to make these small steps disconnecting. Well, let me give you an example. So one of the design firms I worked for back before I went to my PhD program, they had an hour every day where nobody was allowed to talk to each other and no phone calls got through. You know, this was before everybody had their own personal phone that they would use for work purposes, but it was, so everything came through, uh, it wasn't really a switchboard, but kind of like a switchboard. And so the, the receptionist had very strict instructions, you know, between, I don't remember when it was, but between two and three every day, unless it is a true emergency, nothing gets through, you take a message and everybody just works.

And there are a lot of these people were creatives, you know, they, they, they did planning and design on big communities, kind of landscape design and urban planning, that kind of thing. But it was great. It was great. So you had that and it wasn't that they were, you know, sitting around meditating. I mean, they were working, but they were focused. So, I mean, one way to, one way to tune out is to kind of do nothing mentally. I don't know if that's a really good way to describe it, but what we were talking about earlier, where you're doing something that's menial or you're actually trying to meditate, but that's not the only way of tuning out. You know, you can disconnect yourself from some of these distractions in order to create kind of time and space for, for better focus, which you mentioned right at the beginning, you know, this, this idea of being able to focus more on something. That's why I think, I think we can, we can adopt something like that, you know, between, I don't know, one and two every day, I'm going to turn my cell phone off, I'm going to not have my email up, I'm going to disconnect from the internet and I’m just gonna write. Or, or I'm going to get away from all of it. And I'm going to take a notebook somewhere and just think, and have ideas or work out some problem on a project. And that's not a difficult thing to do. You know, you could do that once, you know, once a day, even if you did it Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, it would be beneficial. So that's one way, pretty simple. 

Andrea 36:08

I love that idea. And I am going to put it into practice because one hour, it does seem like it's really doable. And I think that often, and I think this is a challenge, you know, people, many people have, or I have, when I have a task that I know is going to take much more than an hour. I feel like I have to find a block of time that would in some way be equivalent to what the task will require rather than just spending an hour or even a shorter amount of time chipping away at that thing. Though, so that's maybe a kind of slightly different point, but just the idea of having that hour where no phone calls, no email, no anything gets through. And then, and then yes. However you want to use that to work on a creative project or to just take that time. Um, sounds like a great idea. 

Craig 37:05

Uh, a couple of add on points. One is that an hour of focus time can be as good as three hours of unfocused time. You know, one hour with no distractions is going to be a lot more productive than multiple hours with distractions. You know, there's, uh, any time we task switch there's a startup cost. So, you know, if you're working on one thing and then you go to work on something else, you've got to kind of get yourself mentally oriented in that other thing. Then if you switch back to the first thing, you've got to get mentally oriented again into that first thing. And so there are switching costs that are involved in this task switching. And so one focused hour really, I don't know, you know, who knows what the multiplier is, but there is some multiplier that's greater than one on how effective you can be in a focused hour. The other point is that, which is kind of tangential. Almost any task can be broken down into sub tasks. And so, you know, don't focus on this is going to take, you know, two weeks, you know, two weeks is a bunch of 15 minutes and we teach you that when we're trying to help people write. So yeah, you're going to write a 5,000 word article, but don't think of it that way. You know, I can't write 5,000 words. Okay. Can you write 250 words? Yeah, I can do that. Well, you're just doing that 20 times. You know, so just pick 15 minutes or half an hour where you can write in that that's an oversimplification, but it's also an effective technique. 

Andrea 38:26

So, I think this is really interesting because we've kind of, um, this conversation has moved from, you know, tuning out and focusing attention to strategies for working effectively.

And these might seem like different things, but I think they're very much related, right? Because really when we get to like tuning out, like why do we need to do that? Well, there are a few reasons, you know, one is just to step away from the constant barrage of information. Another is because it's a restorative practice and it actually makes us feel better, but three, you know, and what you're getting at here, which I think is really important is, you know, how can we work most effectively? Given all the things that there are to do, what are some strategies that can help us really focus our attention on the things that matter and, and break things down and make progress on other projects that we care about most. 

Craig 39:22

Yep, absolutely. So in some level of irony, I just got distracted because my phone flashed in my peripheral vision. 

Andrea 39:33

Well, you know, I think that's great. And I think that, you know, that's such a perfect example and shows how, um, conscious and deliberate we need to be about it because it used to be maybe you could step in your office and shut the door and if nobody let a phone call through, right, then it would be easy to not be distracted and to focus on the task at hand. And I think now we really do have to put our phones away, turn things off, go to a certain place, really set up the conditions for concentration, because almost like in, in our environments now there are so many devices and mechanisms designed to try to seize our information. 

Craig 40:14

Right. Yeah. Everything is trying to draw your attention. So there's a, there's a second approach that I think can be useful and that's to pick something, you know, social media, email, whatever it might be and find a period of time each day that you disconnect from that thing. Or if it's something that you can actually disconnect with for an extended period of time, take a break. You know, take a break from Instagram for the next week. Here's my big confession. I used to play Angry Birds every, every night. I'd go to bed and I'd have my little tablet there and I’d play Angry Birds. And I think it's a great game and I love Angry Birds. Well this, and you know, for those of you who aren't familiar with it, you, you launch birds at pigs and the structures, pigs build that's the basic premise. Yeah. Yeah. The pigs have stolen birds and you're trying to get those birds back. So, you know, it's silly. 

Andrea 41:09

Yeah. I've never played Angry Birds. I have to confess I have no experience, but, but it sounds like it could be fun. 

Craig 41:18

It really is. 

Andrea 41:19

And I have heard of it. I've never played it, but I've certainly heard of it. So... 

Craig 41:23

Andrea is hip enough to have heard of Angry Birds. That's… 

Andrea 41:30

Somehow I don't think either one of us are going to get points for being hip. 

Craig 41:33

No, no. As soon as I used the word hip, I've proven that not. At least, at least I didn't say it at least I didn't say Hepcat or groovy. Groovy was big when I was young. But what I did, I said, you know, I'm just going to not play this for a week. And I think I picked it up once since then put it down and I haven't played in, I don't know, several months and I don't really miss it. You know, I just kind of do something else to kind of wind down, but, but you could take a break, you know, I'm, I'm gonna take a break from social media or I'm not going to put CNN on for the next, you know, two weeks or whatever it is. Um, you know, I'm going to get my news in the morning. I'm going to look at, I'm going to look at the news in the morning and that's it. Or I'm going to look at news in the evening. I'd recommend morning because you don't want to get worked up about something in the evening. So I think that can be an effective thing to do as well. 

Andrea 42:31

Yeah, what I really like about that strategy, um, is that you can sort of notice if this is something that you really miss and find valuable and enriching, or if it's just something you're in the habit of doing, I mean, angry birds is great as it is, I'm sure. You know, you were like, well, look, I'm just playing this every night. This is what I did. But when I took a break from it, I didn't really miss it that much, even though it's entertaining, you know, or whatever. And I think also with watching the news, I suspect that if you didn't watch the news for a week, you might want to tune back into the news. Um, but I think that's a great experimental technique to find out if you really enjoy or, or are enriched by something. Or if you're just in the habit of engaging in that activity. 

Craig 43:16

I am a little worried about the kidnapped birds that I haven't been releasing. So... 

Andrea 43:22 

Aww, you might have to check on those. Yeah, that can be worth looking into. 

Craig 43:26

You may find that you want to go back to watching the news, but maybe you can do it in a different way. You know, instead of having it on all the time as background noise, you just decided, all right, I'm going to watch it. I mean, they replay this. So the, these, you know, CNN, Fox News, those kinds of places, they tend to either get on some big news story and run it constantly. Or they talk about the same things every hour. And so, you know, maybe you just watch it one hour and you'll, you'll get what's going on. So you may find that even if you decide, okay, I don't want to give this up completely. Maybe I can do it in a way that still keeps me informed in the way I want to be informed, but doesn't divide my attention so drastically as it did in the past. And so I think that can be done. I want to... 

Andrea 44:10 

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. 

Craig 44:12

Yeah. And I think, I think we want to be a little bit careful if you take this approach to not substitute one medium for another medium. So if you decide you're not going to watch CNN, you know, don't go to CNN's website and, and, you know, have that just where you're just substituting, you know, cookies for candy, kind of, um, Tracy is making chocolate chip cookies as we speak. So they are on my mind. Yes, she is, she's quite good at cooking. Um, yeah, it has its downsides, but yeah, which is my ever expanding wardrobe because of my ever expanding body. But, uh, that's another episode.

Andrea 44:54

Just dig more horse stalls and even it out,

Craig 44:59

It's a, yeah, it's a challenge. It's a challenge. So I think we ought to, before we close, we ought to talk about. A couple of, kind of systematic approaches to making these sorts of changes that go beyond kind of tuning out that can be applied to a lot of different things. And I think we should do episodes or even multiple episodes on each one of these. One is, um, Franklin’s virtues. And so you can Google that and look it up. And Andrea and I just, as an aside, Andrea and I used to teach a freshman seminar on self-leadership and we had the students do this. So Franklin had identified 13 virtues. 13 things that he wanted to to be. To be is, is really the right way to say it. You know, he didn't want to just kind of practice these things, he wanted to become, he wanted to have these virtues part of who he was and he set out... I'm going from memory. So I may get some of the details wrong. But he, he wanted to practice one virtue each week. He would really focus on that virtue and he would pay attention to every time he violated that virtue and he kept a, he kept a journal where he noted every time he, he, uh, violated that virtue and he'd reflect on that every night.

And then the other virtues, if you kind of, when he was reflecting, if he remembered, you know, oh, he was, uh, he spent money unnecessarily that day. He'd mark it down, but he wasn't really focusing on that virtue. And in the end of the year, he would have focused on each one of these virtues for four weeks. But practiced each one of these virtues at some level for the entire year. And so it was a very, I think you could do something like that where, you know, at the end of the day, where was I unnecessarily distracted? You know, what, and then what can I do about it and how can I kind of correct this? And so that's, that's something that, uh, folks might want to take a look at. Um, and I really do think we should do at least an episode, but maybe a couple of episodes on that practice because it can be very effective. 

Andrea 47:03

Yeah. I think that's a great idea. And you just reminded me of something, um, that when we taught the class, of course, you know, Franklin has the 12 virtues that he's, you know, selected and, and finds the most important. But we also used to talk about what virtues are appropriate now or asking people to think about the virtues you care about most and would like to cultivate. And it strikes me that a virtue that it would be, um, very germane for the moment we're living in now would be something like, like right attention or correct attention.

I mean, the very subject of this episode is like, how, you know, how can I, and virtue, by the way, just just means like an excellence, right? Or a habit or a way of being that you care about and want to cultivate. And it seems to me that really attending to our attention and noticing how we spend our time, um, would be something worth reflecting on and, and developing, um, helpful habits around.

Craig 48:06

Right, right. Yeah. And when we, when we did this with our students, they got to pick their virtues. So we gave them Franklin's virtues, but they could choose those or they could choose something else. And, you know, we let them kind of, kind of figure out who it was they want it to be. I mean, that's really the key to this is what, what kind of a person do you want to be? And the tuning out is just one little piece of that, but you know, you really have to think about this. What kind of a person do I want to be? And that brings me to Aristotle. So…

Andrea 48:31

Oh, good!

Craig 48:32

I know! Yeah, I think Andrew has a little crush on Aristotle. I'm not sure, but it seems that way from time to time. But, uh... 

Andrea 48:42

Yeah, that time, time lapse, uh, Wendy Cope had, uh, a poem where she was, um, you know, in love with someone who had been dead since 1848 or something. 

Craig 48:59

Well, I'm going to say this... 

Andrea 49:01

And Aristotle's been dead for far longer than that. So..

Craig 49:05

Yeah. But you know, I mean, time could be cyclical, so, you know, it could come back around. We don't know. Um, but I'm gonna say this wrong, but the “nicomancian” ethics, it was, is that right? I didn't say that right. 

Andrea 49:19

Nicomachian. That's pretty close. 

Craig 49:19

I was close, I was close. So Andrea introduced me to this and I remember reading it and thinking, you know, I kind of get some of it, but most of it, I don't understand. And you said something along the lines of, “Yeah. Nobody else does either. So it's okay.” But, but, but, but the thing, the piece of it, that really stuck with me go, go ahead. Sorry. There's a rebuttal. 

Andrea 49:38

No, I'm just going to say, I think that was Hegel, but..

Craig 49:42

It could be both. I think it, I think it might've been both. Yeah, I had somebody in China tell me the same thing about the I Ching. I said, I'm trying to understand the I Ching. Nobody understands that. So, but anyway, what stuck with me was this idea of Aristotle laying out. If you want to become something, you know, you want something to be part of who you are.

First, you have to understand it. You have to receive instruction in it. Then you have to practice. And over time that practice becomes habit. And then over time that habit becomes being and it becomes part of who you are. And I'm sure I didn't really get that quite, you know, in the best way, but that's what stuck with me is if you want new, if you want to change a piece of who you are, you know, you want to become a better person in some way, you figure out, okay, how does it get done? That's the instruction. And then you consciously, all right, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And then it becomes a habit. And then it just becomes part of who you are. And so, uh, maybe you can tell me where I'm wrong about that or. Or illuminate that a little bit. 

Andrea 50:46

You know, I think you've got it. I think that that's really it. Aristotle, you know, really did have the model of that our virtues are really habits or ways of being. And, um, he really, and, you know, the Nicomachean ethics, but it was written for his son, Nicomachus. And he wasn't writing that... We often think of like ethics as being kind of a pain or something we have to do or a box we have to check so we don't get in trouble. But really this is a book that he wrote for his son about how to live a good life, right? How do, I mean, this was, it was not like a list of you must do to be a good person. This is a list of, hey, here's my here's all that I can share with you that I think will give you the best shot at being happy. And in the Nicomachean ethics, you know, the why do we, you know, what do we want out of life? Well, it's like happiness or flourishing or, you know, to be content and satisfied with who we’ve become. So, so it's really a friendly, really a friendly and really like a loving, you know, message. And, and he's saying, you know, Hey look, just develop good habits because if you do that, that will be who you are and what you naturally do. And so if we have to struggle to do the right thing, you know that it's still more honorable to have done the right thing than not, but, but you don't want it to be a struggle, right? You want it to be something that's easy, something that's a habit, something that you are accustomed to doing. And so, you know, Aristotle also thought that that was why it was really important, um, to develop these habits from the earliest age, right? So he says, you know, it makes no small difference how we were raised, but you know, it's not a small difference, but rather all the difference. Um, and so we can, you know, if you have good habits, um, growing up, that's fantastic. It's easier to maintain them. What if you don't? Well, it's possible to change, right? And so many of us have, you know, probably developed somewhat, uh, some habits about distractions, you know, you know, playing games, listening, you know, attending to our phones, checking email, constantly, all these habits that are very easy to develop. Um, when we have all these platforms that are designed to be addictive around us, but, but by consciously paying attention to them, uh, we can reform and reshape our habits and reshape ourselves.

Craig 53:03

Well, and, and I think that's one of the key points that, that we really want people to walk away from with is that you can be the person that you want to be. You know, you get to decide what kind of person you’re gonna be, what your, what your values are, what you see as being important. And so, you know, that's within your agency. You know, you don’t necessarily get to decide your salary and you don't get to decide where you live all the time.

And you don't, there are a lot of things you don't get to totally control, but you can control the kind of person you are. And I think that's true for maybe not people that are really mentally ill, but, you know, for most of us, we have some agency over that. And so it's a matter of putting in the effort to be who it is that you want be. Be the kind of person that you want to be and live the kind of life you want to live. But what were the reasons I wanted to make sure we highlighted Aristotle a little bit is you have to stick with it. It isn't you learn about it and that's it, it isn't you learn about it and you practice it a little bit and that's it. You know, you're going to have slips and you're going to have missteps. And so you just go back and you analyze, okay, what do I need to do differently? And then you keep practicing and keep practicing. And eventually, I mean, it's almost just to give you a really dumb example. When I coached basketball, we had kids go around and open doors and do stuff with their off hand, with our non-dominant hand, you know? So I'm right-handed so I would start opening doors or opening my locker with my left hand, but over time, it's really kind of amazing. Over time, they would just get better with their non-dominant hand and basketball. And so, you know, even some little thing like that, you know, some of the things that we've talked about today  can make a difference in, in helping you be the kind of person that you want to be. And so I, I think this, this, the subtext of a lot of what we're going to talk about is being purposeful and taking some control and you can be purposeful about what you pay attention to and what you tune out from. And you can take control over that. Just give it some time. It's not going to be an overnight thing. Just let yourself screw up from time to time, just come back from it and keep going and keep going. And eventually you’ll get there. 

Andrea 55:13

That sounds great. All right. Um, let me ask you Craig, this week, we often have a little segment where we ask, you know, can we talk about these topics, but wanna know like more generally, um, what happened? What did you learn this week? 

Craig 55:32

Well, I learned that, uh, computers can still be very frustrating. I'm having technology problems. And this is really one where I went down a rabbit hole. What I should've done is just backed up. I have a backup anyway, most of the important stuff I should have just taken it to somebody and said, here, fix this, but I'll, I'll, I'll bet I've spent 10 or 15 hours in the last week, messing around with all of this. Uh, and, and it's a relatively simple fix, you know, if you've got the right equipment. Um, so it happens. I mean, it happens and I'm not, I mean, I kind of secretly enjoy part of it too. So it's not, I used to be pretty in the weeds on the technology, so... But it's easy. I mean, you know, even if you're trying to tell yourself not to do these things and there's, there's a little, you know, the director's commentary in my head saying, “Oh, well, here's where Craig's going to screw up again and spend another two hours doing something that he knows isn't gonna work, just because he wants to see if he can get it to work.” But, uh, so that, that's my new obsession this week, but it'll be over soon, I've got a new hard drive on the way. What about you? 

Andrea 56:34

Um, what about me? What did I learn this week? Um, you know, I learned that, um, Pima county, Arizona is, uh, going to have a new county recorder and it's the first Native American to hold the office of county recorder in Pima county.

Craig 56:59

That's Tucson, right? 

Andrea 57:00

It is. Yeah. I think it's in Tucson. So anyway, I thought that that was interesting. I learned that in kind of a random way. Um, and, and then, you know, I just, I learned about the importance of county recorders, which is something we don't think about a lot. It's like, you know, who is the county recorder? What does the county recorder do? But, but one of the things the county recorder is responsible for is, um, voter registration, you know, counting the votes, all this. So that's really, um, an important public official that has a lot in Arizona, anyway, it's an elected position in each of the counties and, um, yeah. Just something to, to think about. Who's your, who's your county recorder. Do you know who your county recorder is and, and what did they do? 

Craig 57:51

We don't have county. We don't have counties here. We have parishes, yes. I did. I did take the time to vote in our, uh, congressional special election. So we had a terrible... It was really a sad situation here. So we had a, I think his name was Ralph Abrams, who, when he ran for Congress, US Congress, he said, I'm going to serve two terms or three terms. I don't, I think it might've been three terms. Well, you know, we hear that a lot. Well, he did, he ran for three terms and then he stopped. He didn't run again. And so it was kind of a, an open election since there was no incumbent. And this, uh, this guy, Luke Letlow, who happens to be a graduate of my department at the university. One, um, he, there was a runoff, but we, we have these open elections. And so there were probably 15 people running for that seat.

And so it's pretty common for somebody to, for nobody to get 50% so that, and he won that pretty easily. Young guy, I think he was in his mid, late thirties, gets COVID and dies. No, in between the time he gets selected and the time he would have taken office, you know, this poor guy, he was in good health. He had no, you know, from what I'm hearing, he didn't have any, any of the typical markers of having real problems. And so he gets COVID and he dies. Well now his wife was just, uh, elected to take his place, which, you know, happens from time to time, but it turns out she's pretty well qualified. She's got a doctorate in communication from the University of South Florida and to her credit, she's been using what happened to her husband to really push, uh, vaccinations and other safe practices. And, and she's, she's a Republican, you know, this is a Republican parish and district by a lot. But, you know, she's, you know, she's using it to try to change some minds from, you know, from people that might be disinclined to get those kinds of things. 

Andrea 59:46

Yeah. Well, that's really great to hear. I'm glad that she's using that position to talk about the importance of getting vaccines and the vulnerabilities that we all did face as a result of COVID because, you know, Republicans, you know, weren't particularly well known for, uh, talking about the dangers associated with the virus, but I think it was just such a difficult thing to understand. In some respects we kept getting different information, but it sounds like, um, that certainly has hit close to home for her. And so I'm glad she's letting everyone know how serious the virus is and that, um, we're in a fortunate position now that most of us can get vaccines. And I'm glad she's getting that message out there. 

Craig 1:00:28

Well, and I think, I think there's a second message. That's maybe more important, you know, I mean, certainly nobody wanted this Congressman elect to die, but she doesn't get to make a choice about that, you know, he's gone. And so she has to decide how to best move forward and you know what to do with the situ... what to do now. And so she's trying to, you know, use what happened to have some small benefit, maybe, maybe a large benefit. So, you know, we're certainly not saying we're glad this guy died by all accounts. I didn't know him, but by all accounts, he was a real good guy, but you know, he did. And so now what, you know, what can she do to maybe help some other people from going through what she and her family, they've got two young kids, you know? So, uh, you know, you have to give her, you have to give her a lot of credit. Cause it can't be easy for her. I mean, I, you know, I lost a spouse when she was quite young and you know, it can't be easy to get up in front of the public and say, look, I don't want you to have to go through what I went through and I don't want your family to have to go through what my family is going through. And so, you know, go get yourself vaccinated, try to protect yourself against this thing. That's gotta be really, really difficult for her to do. Yeah. Big shout out to her. I'm glad she won. 

Andrea 1:01:46

Definitely, definitely good for her. 

Craig 1:01:48

So, so what, what, what's up on your week? What are you doing this week? Anything fun?

Andrea 1:01:55

Bernadine is going to come over here this afternoon. 

Craig 1:02:00

This is a mutual friend of ours. Great person. 

Andrea 1:02:03

Oh, yes. Yeah. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna see someone which I haven't done for, you know, almost, um, you know, since this, since COVID began, so we're going to socially distance and hang out on the deck, and yeah, and that's about that's the whole highlight of my week is seeing someone besides Matt. Not that I don't love to see Matt, I adore him, but boy, he's just about the only person I have seen in person for the last year. So. 

Craig 1:02:37

Bernadine is great. She's one of my favorite people. 

Andrea 1:02:40

We should have her on the podcast sometime. 

Craig 1:02:42

Yeah we should. She's very, very interesting. She's led an interesting life. So I'm going to eat chocolate chip cookies. I'm actually... don't. I don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear about this from anybody. I'm going to eat chocolate chip cookie dough. I know you're not supposed to, but i’ma gunna!

Andrea 1:02:59

Oh, enjoy. 

Craig 1:03:01

I'm going to. It will be one of the few times I, uh, I give into temporary temptation.

Andrea 1:03:08

Just be sure to focus your attention on the chocolate chip cookies so you get the full benefit of the experience. 

Craig 1:03:14

I savour. I savour. Plus it's bad for dogs. I just tell them, no, you can't have any. We don't, we don't feed the dogs, people food anymore. So that's not a big problem, but the puppies will be disappointed. I will, I will have, uh, constantly at least two, two eyes staring at me longingly. I pretend it is just because they love me so much. 

Andrea 1:03:35

That’s tough!

Craig 1:03:36

Yup. Yup. We'll get through it. All right. Well, thanks a lot, Andrea. And thanks everybody. I think that's good. Anything else you wanted to add? 

Andrea 1:03:45

Alright. Thanks Craig. See you next week. 

Craig 1:03:47

The Rational Ignorance Podcast is sponsored by Sedona Philosophy, a completely unique tour company that uses Sedona’s amazing natural environment to unlock personal growth and insight. Explore nature, culture and history with a philosophical twist. Visit sedonaphilosophy.com to learn more. 

Andrea 1:04:03

Thanks, Craig. If you enjoyed this podcast, hit the subscribe button, please rate, review and tell your friends. Until next time.