Sunday, March 4, 2007
Attention Plateaus
What is the attentional counterpart to a fitness plateau?
The fitness plateau happens when a workout routine goes flat. One answer, then, is the anti-routine, a varied circuit stoked by variability, a notch above cross-training.
Without going too far with the brain-muscle metaphor, I like the idea of attention plateaus for the (inevitable?) flattening off of a given project. Sure, some projects will have plateaus before ramping up again. But attention plateaus account for the stall-out. Something like a precognitive habitus at the point where it is a drain, applying a slow deceleration. Brake.
It goes not only to writing projects but to reading rhythms. A spark of interest. Eventually, an attention plateau, a lull. Flattening, interest dwindles. Also with RSS feeds. Could feed readers allow for this? Could it include a feature that would allow me to table a feed so that it updates only every two weeks while another one updates every day, and another updates every month?
Attention plateaus are not a permanent condition, right? Their impermanence includes a built-in argument for the returns on disruption, variety and purposive digression, like Stone's "continuous partial attention."
Posted by Derek Mueller at March 4, 2007 9:00 PM to Media