The PR BlogCreativityLifestyle DesignThe Every Day Rule: How I Stay Focused and On Track

The Every Day Rule: How I Stay Focused and On Track

There’s only one day — today.

Cover photo: @jerrysilfwer

The Every Day Rule is how I run my life for bet­ter results.

I’ve always been fas­cin­ated by per­son­al devel­op­ment. I know the self-help industry is a can of worms, but the idea that we can aspire to bet­ter ourselves is beautiful.

And for many years, I thought I had a great approach to achiev­ing my goals in life. However, I had to rethink everything from the ground up — because my frame­work wasn’t working.

I found a con­trari­an approach that now runs how I live my life. I call this approach the Every Day Rule.

Here’s how it works:

The Flawed Epic Year Concept

A dec­ade or so ago, I star­ted com­par­ing my years. Some years pro­pelled me for­ward by a lot, and some weren’t. The dif­fer­ence between such years wasn’t subtle; it was substantial.

I figured that years of immense per­son­al growth con­tained at least four major life events (mov­ing homes, get­ting mar­ried, hav­ing chil­dren, start­ing a new job etc.), so I named such years Epic Years.

The Epic Year Approach: Push to shorten the inter­val between sig­ni­fic­ant life events to max­im­ise per­son­al growth.

It was an under­stand­able con­clu­sion at the time, I think. 

The years between 30 and 40 can be stress­ful; a lot is sup­posed to hap­pen for any well-adjus­ted white-col­lar urb­an pro­fes­sion­al with a uni­ver­sity degree. Find someone to marry, start a fam­ily, elev­ate your career, and organ­ise your household.

Today, how­ever, I’m more relaxed about hit­ting as many mile­stones as pos­sible. And more import­antly, I find that sig­ni­fic­ant life events tend to occur on their inher­ent sched­ule and shouldn’t be forced. 

Instead, I’ve applied a drastic­ally dif­fer­ent approach.

A New Approach to Goal-Setting

I’m grow­ing less and less inter­ested in fight­ing the com­ings and goings of tides.

The change in per­spect­ive came about as I was think­ing about achieve­ments. I felt that there was a down­side to set­ting goals. A goal can quickly morph into an author­it­at­ive pres­ence in life.

And I’ve nev­er been at ease with authorities.

I reasoned that the per­fect goal provided the sense of being on the right tra­ject­ory here and now — without over-emphas­ising the import­ance of reach­ing the des­tin­a­tion as soon as possible. 

Another way to put it:

The import­ance of a goal is not its res­ult but how it impacts me today. According to this reas­on­ing, I now set goals to give mean­ing and pur­pose to my present, not my future.

Allow me to elab­or­ate fur­ther.
Because I’ve giv­en this some thought.

The Every Day Rule

Let’s say that I want to write a book. It’s a non-trivi­al goal and a sub­stan­tial under­tak­ing. And pub­lish­ing a book would undoubtedly qual­i­fy as a sig­ni­fic­ant life event and count toward an Epic Year.

But, If I were to write every oth­er day, I would soon write every third day, then every fourth day. And so on.

Soon enough, I wouldn’t write reg­u­larly, but the goal would still lurk in a dark corner of my brain. The idea of writ­ing a book would make me feel lousy.

A goal set to pro­pel me for­ward is instead set­ting me back.
This is not a good strategy, right?

So, for me, it’s every day — or nothing.

Why does this approach work so well for me?

  • Daily habits com­pound twice as fast as every-oth­er-day habits and will bet­ter sup­port neur­o­lo­gic­al rein­force­ment. 1An inter­est­ing par­al­lel is James Clear’s approach to habits (described in his best-selling book Atomic Habits), focus­ing on small but fre­quent incre­ment­al improve­ments to reach sig­ni­fic­ant goals … Continue read­ing
  • Doing some­thing daily makes the activ­ity part of your iden­tity, over­rid­ing the need for con­stant inspir­a­tion and motivation.
  • The Every Day Rule approach also sig­nals what to de-pri­or­it­ise; it’s not worth my long-term focus if I’m not pre­pared to set aside daily tasks.

If I write daily, being a writer becomes a part of how I identi­fy myself, like a psy­cho­lo­gic­al mas­ter override. 

Writing daily makes me a writer.
A writer writes daily.

From Long-Term Goals to Daily Efforts

Based on the Every Day Rule, I now only set goals that can be broken down into daily efforts. 

For example:

Long-Term GoalDaily Effort
Improve health.Intermittent fast­ing — one meal a day (OMAD).
Eat bet­ter food.Cook homemade din­ner every day at res­taur­ant-level quality.
Launch online course.One ses­sion of script­ing, film­ing or edit­ing every evening.
Be more grateful.Tell my wife and son I love them twice daily (morn­ing and evening).
Teach my son to read and write well.Read and dis­cuss books every night before bedtime.
Become a bet­ter photographer.Either shoot or edit a new photo daily (or learn some­thing from a tutorial).
Explore watches as a hobby.Always wear a watch but nev­er wear the same watch two days in a row.
Be more structured.Update Notion (“Second Brain”) when hav­ing cof­fee in the morning.

There’s Only One Day — Today

The Every Day Rule has an excit­ing con­straint: time in a day.

  • The goal isn’t sig­ni­fic­ant enough if I can’t carve out daily time for a par­tic­u­lar pur­suit. Discard.
  • The goal is a pipe dream if the daily effort is too uncom­fort­able or impossible. Discard.
  • If I can­not break the goal down into daily efforts, it’s a poorly framed ambi­tion. Discard.
  • If a habit isn’t daily, it doesn’t become a part of my iden­tity; thus, my motiv­a­tion will even­tu­ally run out and weigh me down. Discard.

By pri­or­it­ising daily activ­it­ies instead of goals, I’ve cre­ated more focus and achieved more sig­ni­fic­ant res­ults in less time.


Please sup­port my blog by shar­ing it with oth­er PR- and com­mu­nic­a­tion pro­fes­sion­als. For ques­tions or PR sup­port, con­tact me via jerry@​spinfactory.​com.

PR Resource: Mental Models

Mental Models: How To Think Better — Faster

You only have to do a few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.”
— Warren Buffett

Mental mod­els emphas­ize the import­ance of view­ing prob­lems from mul­tiple per­spect­ives, recog­niz­ing per­son­al lim­it­a­tions, and under­stand­ing the often unfore­seen inter­ac­tions between dif­fer­ent factors. 

These mod­els are inspired heav­ily by the writ­ings of Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and long-time col­lab­or­at­or of Warren Buffett and many oth­ers.2It’s worth not­ing that these mod­els are not exclus­ively Charlie Munger’s inven­tions but tools he advoc­ates for effect­ive think­ing and decision-mak­ing.

Here’s a list of my favour­ite men­tal models: 

The Iron Prescription—This men­tal mod­el sug­gests that some­times, the most chal­len­ging actions or decisions yield the best long-term res­ults. Sticking to a tough workout involves push­ing through dif­fi­culties and res­ist­ance to achieve great­er rewards. It’s about dis­cip­line, per­sever­ance, and the will­ing­ness to under­take hard tasks for future gain.

The Red Queen Effect—Originating from Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking-Glass,” this meta­phor describes a situ­ation where one must con­tinu­ously adapt, evolve, and work to main­tain their pos­i­tion. It’s often used in the con­text of busi­nesses need­ing to innov­ate con­stantly to stay competitive.

Occam’s Razor—This prin­ciple sug­gests that the simplest explan­a­tion is usu­ally cor­rect. The one with the few­est assump­tions should be selec­ted when presen­ted with com­pet­ing hypo­theses. It’s a tool for cut­ting through com­plex­ity and focus­ing on what’s most likely true.

Hanlon’s Razor—This mod­el advises not to attrib­ute to malice what can be adequately explained by incom­pet­ence or mis­take. It’s a remind­er to look for sim­pler explan­a­tions before jump­ing to con­clu­sions about someone’s intentions.

Vaguely Right vs Precisely Wrong—This prin­ciple sug­gests it is bet­ter to be approx­im­ately cor­rect than exactly incor­rect. In many situ­ations, seek­ing pre­ci­sion can lead to errors if the under­ly­ing assump­tions or data are flawed. Sometimes, a rough estim­ate is more use­ful than a pre­cise but poten­tially mis­lead­ing figure.

Fat Pitch—Borrowed from base­ball, this concept refers to wait­ing patiently for the per­fect oppor­tun­ity — a situ­ation where the chances of suc­cess are excep­tion­ally high. It sug­gests the import­ance of patience and strik­ing when the time is right.

Chesterton’s Fence—A prin­ciple stat­ing that reforms should not be made until the reas­on­ing behind the exist­ing state of affairs is under­stood. It’s about respect­ing the wis­dom embed­ded in estab­lished prac­tices and con­ven­tions before mak­ing changes.

First-Conclusion Bias—This is the tend­ency to stick with the first con­clu­sion reached without con­sid­er­ing altern­at­ive pos­sib­il­it­ies or addi­tion­al inform­a­tion. It’s a cog­nit­ive bias that can impede crit­ic­al think­ing and thor­ough analysis.

First Principles Thinking—This approach involves break­ing down com­plex prob­lems into their most basic ele­ments and then reas­sembling them from the ground up. It’s about get­ting to the fun­da­ment­al truths of a situ­ation and build­ing your under­stand­ing from there rather than rely­ing on assump­tions or con­ven­tion­al wisdom.

The Map Is Not the Territory—This mod­el reminds us that rep­res­ent­a­tions of real­ity are not real­ity itself. Maps, mod­els, and descrip­tions are sim­pli­fic­a­tions and can­not cap­ture every aspect of the actu­al ter­rit­ory or situ­ation. It’s a cau­tion against over-rely­ing on mod­els and the­or­ies without con­sid­er­ing the nuances of real-world situ­ations. 3Silfwer, J. (2022, November 3). Walter Lippmann: Public Opinion and Perception Management. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​w​a​l​t​e​r​-​l​i​p​p​m​a​nn/

Bell Curve—This curve is a graph­ic­al depic­tion of a nor­mal dis­tri­bu­tion, show­ing how many occur­rences fall near the mean value and few­er occur as you move away from the mean. In decision-mak­ing, it’s used to under­stand and anti­cip­ate vari­ab­il­ity and to recog­nize that while extreme cases exist, most out­comes will cluster around the average.

Compounding—Often used in the con­text of fin­ance, com­pound­ing refers to the pro­cess where the value of an invest­ment increases because the earn­ings on an invest­ment, both cap­it­al gains and interest, earn interest as time passes. This prin­ciple can be applied more broadly to under­stand how small, con­sist­ent efforts can yield sig­ni­fic­ant long-term results.

Survival of the Fittest—Borrowed from evol­u­tion­ary bio­logy, this men­tal mod­el sug­gests that only those best adap­ted to their envir­on­ment sur­vive and thrive. In a busi­ness con­text, it can refer to com­pan­ies that adapt to chan­ging mar­ket con­di­tions and are more likely to succeed.

Mr. Market—A meta­phor cre­ated by Benjamin Graham, rep­res­ent­ing the stock mar­ket’s mood swings from optim­ism to pess­im­ism. It’s used to illus­trate emo­tion­al reac­tions in the mar­ket and the import­ance of main­tain­ing objectivity.

Second-Order Thinking—This kind of think­ing goes bey­ond the imme­di­ate effects of an action to con­sider the sub­sequent effects. It’s about think­ing ahead and under­stand­ing the longer-term con­sequences of decisions bey­ond just the imme­di­ate results.

Law of Diminishing Returns—This eco­nom­ic prin­ciple states that as invest­ment in a par­tic­u­lar area increases, the rate of profit from that invest­ment, after a cer­tain point, can­not increase pro­por­tion­ally and may even decrease. It’s import­ant to under­stand when addi­tion­al invest­ment yields pro­gress­ively smal­ler returns.

Opportunity Cost—This concept refers to the poten­tial bene­fits that one misses out on when choos­ing one altern­at­ive over anoth­er. It’s the cost of the next best option fore­gone. Understanding oppor­tun­ity costs helps make informed decisions by con­sid­er­ing what you must give up when choosing.

Swiss Army Knife Approach—This concept emphas­izes the import­ance of hav­ing diverse tools (or skills). Being ver­sat­ile and adapt­able in vari­ous situ­ations is valu­able, like a Swiss Army knife. This mod­el is par­tic­u­larly use­ful for uncer­tain and volat­ile situations.

Acceleration Theory—This concept indic­ates that the win­ner mustn’t lead the race from start to fin­ish. Mathematically, delay­ing max­im­um “speed” by pro­long­ing the slower accel­er­a­tion phase cor­rectly will get you across the fin­ish line faster. 4Silfwer, J. (2012, October 31). The Acceleration Theory: Use Momentum To Finish First. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​a​c​c​e​l​e​r​a​t​i​o​n​-​t​h​e​o​ry/

Manage Expectations—This concept involves set­ting real­ist­ic expect­a­tions for your­self and oth­ers. It’s about align­ing hopes and pre­dic­tions with what is achiev­able and prob­able, thus redu­cing dis­ap­point­ment and increas­ing sat­is­fac­tion. Effective expect­a­tion man­age­ment can lead to bet­ter per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ships and outcomes.

Techlash—This men­tal mod­el acknow­ledges that while tech­no­logy can provide solu­tions, it can cre­ate anti­cip­ated and unanti­cip­ated prob­lems. It’s a remind­er to approach tech­no­lo­gic­al innov­a­tions cau­tiously, con­sid­er­ing poten­tial neg­at­ive impacts along­side the benefits.

World’s Most Intelligent Question—This men­tal mod­el refers to repeatedly ask­ing “Why?” to delve deep­er into a prob­lem and under­stand its root causes. One can uncov­er lay­ers of under­stand­ing that might remain hid­den by con­tinu­ally ask­ing why some­thing happens.

Regression to the Mean—This stat­ist­ic­al prin­ciple states that extreme events are likely to be fol­lowed by more mod­er­ate ones. Over time, val­ues tend to revert to the aver­age, a concept rel­ev­ant in many areas, from sports per­form­ance to busi­ness metrics.

False Dichotomy—This logic­al fal­lacy occurs when a situ­ation is presen­ted as hav­ing only two exclus­ive and mutu­ally exhaust­ive options when oth­er pos­sib­il­it­ies exist. It over­sim­pli­fies com­plex issues into an “either/​or” choice. For instance, say­ing, “You are either with us or against us”, ignores the pos­sib­il­ity of neut­ral or altern­at­ive positions.

Inversion—Inversion involves look­ing at prob­lems back­wards or from the end goal. Instead of think­ing about how to achieve some­thing, you con­sider what would pre­vent it from hap­pen­ing. This can reveal hid­den obstacles and altern­at­ive solutions.

Psychology of Human Misjudgment—This men­tal mod­el refers to under­stand­ing the com­mon biases and errors in human think­ing. One can make more ration­al and object­ive decisions by know­ing how cog­nit­ive biases, like con­firm­a­tion bias or the anchor­ing effect, can lead to flawed reasoning.

Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast—Often used in mil­it­ary and tac­tic­al train­ing, this phrase encap­su­lates the idea that some­times, slow­ing down can lead to faster over­all pro­gress. The prin­ciple is that tak­ing delib­er­ate, con­sidered actions reduces mis­takes and inef­fi­cien­cies, which can lead to faster out­comes in the long run. In prac­tice, it means plan­ning, train­ing, and execut­ing with care, lead­ing to smooth­er, more effi­cient oper­a­tions that achieve object­ives faster than rushed, less thought­ful efforts. 5Silfwer, J. (2020, April 24). Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​l​o​w​-​i​s​-​s​m​o​o​th/

Because You Are Worth It—This men­tal mod­el focuses on self-worth and invest­ing in one­self. It sug­gests recog­niz­ing and affirm­ing one’s value is cru­cial for per­son­al growth, hap­pi­ness, and suc­cess. This can involve self-care, edu­ca­tion, or simply mak­ing choices that reflect one’s own value and potential.

Physics Envy—This term describes the desire to apply the pre­ci­sion and cer­tainty of phys­ics to fields where such exactitude is impossible, like eco­nom­ics or social sci­ences. It’s a cau­tion against over­re­li­ance on quant­it­at­ive meth­ods in areas where qual­it­at­ive aspects play a sig­ni­fic­ant role.

Easy Street Strategy—This prin­ciple sug­gests that sim­pler solu­tions are often bet­ter and more effect­ive than com­plex ones. In decision-mak­ing and prob­lem-solv­ing, seek­ing straight­for­ward, clear-cut solu­tions can often lead to bet­ter out­comes than pur­su­ing overly com­plic­ated strategies. 6Silfwer, J. (2021, January 27). The Easy Street PR Strategy: Keep It Simple To Win. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​e​a​s​y​-​s​t​r​e​e​t​-​p​r​-​s​t​r​a​t​e​gy/

Scale is Key—This concept high­lights how the impact of decisions or actions can vary dra­mat­ic­ally depend­ing on their scale. What works well on a small scale might not be effect­ive or feas­ible on a lar­ger scale, and vice versa. 

Circle of Competence—This concept involves recog­niz­ing and under­stand­ing one’s own areas of expert­ise and lim­it­a­tions. The idea is to focus on areas where you have the most know­ledge and exper­i­ence rather than ven­tur­ing into fields where you lack expert­ise, thereby increas­ing the like­li­hood of success.

Fail Fast, Fail Often—By fail­ing fast, you quickly learn what does­n’t work, which helps in refin­ing your approach or pivot­ing to some­thing more prom­ising. Failing often is seen not as a series of set­backs but as a neces­sary part of the pro­cess towards suc­cess. This mind­set encour­ages exper­i­ment­a­tion, risk-tak­ing, and learn­ing from mis­takes, emphas­ising agil­ity and adaptability.

Correlation Do Not Equal Causation—This prin­ciple is a crit­ic­al remind­er in data ana­lys­is and sci­entif­ic research. Just because two vari­ables show a cor­rel­a­tion (they seem to move togeth­er or oppose each oth­er) does not mean one causes the oth­er. Other vari­ables could be at play, or it might be a coincidence. 

Critical Mass—This men­tal mod­el emphas­izes the import­ance of reach­ing a cer­tain threshold to trig­ger a sig­ni­fic­ant change, wheth­er user adop­tion, mar­ket pen­et­ra­tion, or social move­ment growth. This mod­el guides stra­tegic decisions, such as resource alloc­a­tion, mar­ket­ing strategies, and tim­ing of ini­ti­at­ives, to effect­ively reach and sur­pass this cru­cial point. 7Silfwer, J. (2019, March 10). Critical Mass: How Many Social Media Followers Do You Need? Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​c​r​i​t​i​c​a​l​-​m​a​s​s​-​f​o​l​l​o​w​e​rs/

Sorites Paradox—Also known as the para­dox of the heap, this para­dox arises from vague pre­dic­ates. It involves a sequence of small changes that don’t seem to make a dif­fer­ence indi­vidu­ally but, when accu­mu­lated, lead to a sig­ni­fic­ant change where the exact point of change is indis­cern­ible. For example, if you keep remov­ing grains of sand from a heap, when does it stop being a heap? Each grain does­n’t seem to make a dif­fer­ence, but even­tu­ally, you’re left with no heap.

The Power of Cycle Times—Mathematically, redu­cing cycle times in a pro­cess that grows expo­nen­tially (like con­tent shar­ing on social net­works) drastic­ally increases the growth rate, lead­ing to faster and wider dis­sem­in­a­tion of the con­tent, thereby driv­ing vir­al­ity. The com­bin­a­tion of expo­nen­tial growth, net­work effects, and feed­back loops makes cycle time a crit­ic­al factor. 8Let’s say the num­ber of new social media shares per cycle is a con­stant mul­ti­pli­er, m. If the cycle time is t and the total time under con­sid­er­a­tion is T, the num­ber of cycles in this time is T/​t​. … Continue read­ing 9Silfwer, J. (2017, February 6). Viral Loops (or How to Incentivise Social Media Sharing). Doctor Spin | the PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​v​i​r​a​l​-​l​o​op/

Non-Linearity—This men­tal mod­el recog­nises that out­comes in many situ­ations are not dir­ectly pro­por­tion­al to the inputs or efforts. It sug­gests that effects can be dis­pro­por­tion­ate to their causes, either escal­at­ing rap­idly with small changes or remain­ing stag­nant des­pite sig­ni­fic­ant efforts. Understanding non-lin­ear­ity helps in recog­niz­ing and anti­cip­at­ing com­plex pat­terns in vari­ous phenomena.

Checklists—This men­tal mod­el stresses the import­ance of sys­tem­at­ic approaches to pre­vent mis­takes and over­sights. Using check­lists in com­plex or repet­it­ive tasks ensures that all neces­sary steps are fol­lowed, and noth­ing is over­looked, thereby increas­ing effi­ciency and accuracy.

Lollapalooza—Coined by Munger, this term refers to situ­ations where mul­tiple factors, tend­en­cies, or biases inter­act so that the com­bined effect is much great­er than the sum of indi­vidu­al effects. It’s a remind­er of how vari­ous ele­ments can con­verge to cre­ate sig­ni­fic­ant impacts, often unex­pec­ted or unprecedented.

Limits—This men­tal mod­el acknow­ledges that everything has bound­ar­ies or lim­its, bey­ond which there can be neg­at­ive con­sequences. Recognizing and respect­ing per­son­al, pro­fes­sion­al, and phys­ic­al lim­its is essen­tial for sus­tain­able growth and success.

The 5Ws—This men­tal mod­el refers to the prac­tice of ask­ing “Who, What, When, Where, Why” (and some­times “How”) to under­stand a situ­ation or prob­lem fully. By sys­tem­at­ic­ally address­ing these ques­tions, one can com­pre­hens­ively under­stand an issue’s con­text, causes, and poten­tial solu­tions, lead­ing to more informed decision-making.

Chauffeur Knowledge—This men­tal mod­el dis­tin­guishes between hav­ing a sur­face-level under­stand­ing (like a chauf­feur who knows the route) and deep, genu­ine know­ledge (like an expert who under­stands the intric­a­cies of a sub­ject). It warns against the illu­sion of expert­ise based on super­fi­cial know­ledge and emphas­izes the import­ance of true, deep understanding.

Make Friends with Eminent Dead—This men­tal mod­el advoc­ates learn­ing from the past, par­tic­u­larly from sig­ni­fic­ant his­tor­ic­al fig­ures and their writ­ings. One can gain valu­able insights and wis­dom by study­ing the exper­i­ences and thoughts of those who have excelled in their fields.

Seizing the Middle—This strategy involves find­ing and main­tain­ing a bal­anced, mod­er­ate pos­i­tion, espe­cially in con­flict or nego­ti­ation. It’s about avoid­ing extremes and find­ing a sus­tain­able, middle-ground solu­tion. Also, centre pos­i­tions often offer the widest range of options.

Asymmetric Warfare—This refers to con­flict between parties of unequal strength, where the weak­er party uses uncon­ven­tion­al tac­tics to exploit the vul­ner­ab­il­it­ies of the stronger oppon­ent. It’s often dis­cussed in mil­it­ary and busi­ness contexts.

Boredom Syndrome—This term refers to the human tend­ency to seek stim­u­la­tion or change when things become routine or mono­ton­ous, which can lead to unne­ces­sary changes or risks. Sometimes, tak­ing no action is bet­ter than tak­ing action, but remain­ing idle is some­times difficult.

Survivorship Bias—This cog­nit­ive bias involves focus­ing on people or things that have “sur­vived” some pro­cess and inad­vert­ently over­look­ing those that did not due to their lack of vis­ib­il­ity. This can lead to false con­clu­sions because it ignores the exper­i­ences of those who did not make it through the pro­cess. 10Silfwer, J. (2019, October 17). Survivorship Bias — Correlation Does Not Equal Causation. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​u​r​v​i​v​o​r​s​h​i​p​-​b​i​as/

Each men­tal mod­el offers a unique lens for view­ing prob­lems, mak­ing decisions, and strategiz­ing, reflect­ing the com­plex­ity and diversity of thought required in vari­ous fields and situations.

In addi­tion, numer­ous oth­er men­tal mod­els are used in vari­ous fields, such as eco­nom­ics, psy­cho­logy, and sys­tems thinking.

Learn more: Mental Models: How To Think Better — And Faster

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR ideas.

PR Resource: The Anatomy of Attention

The Anatomy of Attention

Attention is an essen­tial com­pon­ent of pub­lic relations:

  • An organ­isa­tion, starved of atten­tion, trust, and loy­alty, is com­pelled to wage a per­petu­al struggle for its con­tin­ued existence.

We all seem to crave atten­tion in some form or another:

People want to be loved; fail­ing that admired; fail­ing that feared; fail­ing that hated and des­pised. They want to evoke some sort of sen­ti­ment. The soul shud­ders before obli­vi­on and seeks con­nec­tion at any price.”
— Hjalmar Söderberg (1869−1941), Swedish author

But what con­sti­tutes ‘atten­tion’?

Attention is a com­plex, real neur­al archi­tec­ture (‘RNA’) mod­el that integ­rates vari­ous cog­nit­ive mod­els and brain cen­ters to per­form tasks like visu­al search.”
Source: Trends in cog­nit­ive sci­ences 11Shipp, S. (2004). The brain cir­cuitry of atten­tion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 223 – 230. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​1​6​/​j​.​t​i​c​s​.​2​0​0​4​.​0​3​.​004

Each of the below terms refers to a spe­cif­ic aspect or type of atten­tion (“men­tal band­width”), a com­plex cog­nit­ive pro­cess. 12Schweizer, K., Moosbrugger, H., & Goldhammer, F. (2005). The struc­ture of the rela­tion­ship between atten­tion and intel­li­gence. Intelligence, 33(6), 589 – 611. … Continue read­ing

Let’s explore dif­fer­ent types of attention:

  • Alertness. This is the state of being watch­ful and ready to respond. It’s the most basic form of atten­tion, rep­res­ent­ing our read­i­ness to per­ceive and pro­cess inform­a­tion from the environment.
  • Sustained atten­tion. This involves focus­ing on a spe­cif­ic task or stim­u­lus over a pro­longed peri­od. It’s cru­cial for tasks that require ongo­ing con­cen­tra­tion, like read­ing or driving.
  • Focused atten­tion. This refers to the abil­ity to con­cen­trate on one par­tic­u­lar stim­u­lus or task while ignor­ing oth­ers. It’s the abil­ity to focus nar­rowly on a single thing.
  • Attentional switch­ing. Also known as task switch­ing or cog­nit­ive flex­ib­il­ity, this involves shift­ing focus from one task to anoth­er. It’s crit­ic­al for mul­ti­task­ing and adapt­ing to chan­ging demands or priorities.
  • Divided atten­tion. This is the abil­ity to pro­cess two or more responses or react to mul­tiple tasks sim­ul­tan­eously. It’s often tested by ask­ing people to per­form two tasks sim­ul­tan­eously, like listen­ing to a con­ver­sa­tion while writing.
  • Attention accord­ing to the super­vis­ory atten­tion­al sys­tem. This concept, derived from cog­nit­ive psy­cho­logy, refers to a high­er-level con­trol sys­tem that reg­u­lates the alloc­a­tion of atten­tion, par­tic­u­larly in situ­ations requir­ing plan­ning or decision-making.
  • Attention as inhib­i­tion. This aspect of atten­tion involves sup­press­ing irrel­ev­ant or dis­tract­ing stim­uli. It’s a cru­cial com­pon­ent of focused atten­tion and self-regulation.
  • Spatial atten­tion. This type of atten­tion focuses on a spe­cif­ic area with­in the visu­al field. It’s like a spot­light that enhances inform­a­tion pro­cessing in a par­tic­u­lar location.
  • Attention as plan­ning. This per­spect­ive views atten­tion as a resource that needs to be alloc­ated effi­ciently, espe­cially in com­plex tasks requir­ing stra­tegic plan­ning and organization.
  • Interference. In the con­text of atten­tion, inter­fer­ence refers to the pro­cess by which irrel­ev­ant inform­a­tion or dis­trac­tions impede the effi­ciency of cog­nit­ive processing.
  • Attention as arous­al. This con­siders atten­tion in the con­text of the gen­er­al level of alert­ness or arous­al. It’s about the read­i­ness of the brain to engage with stim­uli or tasks.
  • Attention accord­ing to the assess­ment tra­di­tion. This refers to meas­ur­ing and eval­u­at­ing atten­tion­al pro­cesses, often in clin­ic­al or edu­ca­tion­al set­tings, to identi­fy atten­tion defi­cits or disorders.

Each type of atten­tion plays a cru­cial role in how we inter­act with and pro­cess inform­a­tion from our envir­on­ment, and under­stand­ing these dif­fer­ent aspects is key in fields like psy­cho­logy, neur­os­cience, and education.

There’s only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
— Oscar Wilde

Learn more: The Anatomy of Attention

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ANNOTATIONS
ANNOTATIONS
1 An inter­est­ing par­al­lel is James Clear’s approach to habits (described in his best-selling book Atomic Habits), focus­ing on small but fre­quent incre­ment­al improve­ments to reach sig­ni­fic­ant goals through com­pound­ing effects.
2 It’s worth not­ing that these mod­els are not exclus­ively Charlie Munger’s inven­tions but tools he advoc­ates for effect­ive think­ing and decision-making.
3 Silfwer, J. (2022, November 3). Walter Lippmann: Public Opinion and Perception Management. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​w​a​l​t​e​r​-​l​i​p​p​m​a​nn/
4 Silfwer, J. (2012, October 31). The Acceleration Theory: Use Momentum To Finish First. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​a​c​c​e​l​e​r​a​t​i​o​n​-​t​h​e​o​ry/
5 Silfwer, J. (2020, April 24). Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​l​o​w​-​i​s​-​s​m​o​o​th/
6 Silfwer, J. (2021, January 27). The Easy Street PR Strategy: Keep It Simple To Win. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​e​a​s​y​-​s​t​r​e​e​t​-​p​r​-​s​t​r​a​t​e​gy/
7 Silfwer, J. (2019, March 10). Critical Mass: How Many Social Media Followers Do You Need? Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​c​r​i​t​i​c​a​l​-​m​a​s​s​-​f​o​l​l​o​w​e​rs/
8 Let’s say the num­ber of new social media shares per cycle is a con­stant mul­ti­pli­er, m. If the cycle time is t and the total time under con­sid­er­a­tion is T, the num­ber of cycles in this time is T/​t​. The total reach after time T can be approx­im­ated by m(T/​t), assum­ing one ini­tial share. When t decreases, T/​t​ increases, mean­ing more cycles occur in the same total time, T. This leads to a high­er power of m in the expres­sion m(T/​t), which means a sig­ni­fic­antly lar­ger reach.
9 Silfwer, J. (2017, February 6). Viral Loops (or How to Incentivise Social Media Sharing). Doctor Spin | the PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​v​i​r​a​l​-​l​o​op/
10 Silfwer, J. (2019, October 17). Survivorship Bias — Correlation Does Not Equal Causation. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​u​r​v​i​v​o​r​s​h​i​p​-​b​i​as/
11 Shipp, S. (2004). The brain cir­cuitry of atten­tion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 223 – 230. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​1​6​/​j​.​t​i​c​s​.​2​0​0​4​.​0​3​.​004
12 Schweizer, K., Moosbrugger, H., & Goldhammer, F. (2005). The struc­ture of the rela­tion­ship between atten­tion and intel­li­gence. Intelligence, 33(6), 589 – 611. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​1​6​/​j​.​i​n​t​e​l​l​.​2​0​0​5​.​0​7​.​001
Jerry Silfwer
Jerry Silfwerhttps://doctorspin.net/
Jerry Silfwer, alias Doctor Spin, is an awarded senior adviser specialising in public relations and digital strategy. Currently CEO at KIX Index and Spin Factory. Before that, he worked at Kaufmann, Whispr Group, Springtime PR, and Spotlight PR. Based in Stockholm, Sweden.

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