on my ability to integrate

a few months ago, a friend told me that the rate at which I’m able to integrate things is astounding. and just the other day, a different friend said something similar. i’m not totally sure what that means exactly, but i do know that i’m passionate about learning. and, i think my practices around saying no really help me learn. which is counter-intuitive… so let me explain.

back in february, i listened to an interview with eric zimmer. in the interview, eric references some research about how the pace of things nowadays actually keeps us from reflecting. even good content pieces on the best platforms encourage us to move to the next content piece as quickly as possible. just take a look at an article on any major media outlet webpage and count how many links you can click once you hit the bottom (some sites now just autoload other articles you might be interested in so that you don’t have to click or even stop scrolling). or think about how youtube videos now automatically play another video when they’re finished. and those are just a few examples of which there are many. intentionally or not, i agree with eric that the impact these techniques have our ability to integrate is significant. when we’re constantly moving through new ideas and information, it’s nearly impossible to really digest and decide what is worth bringing into your life and what isn’t.

later in the interview eric gave an example of one way to switch this pattern. someone suggested taking just five minutes after consuming (watching, listening, reading, whatever) a piece of content to think about what to do with what you learned. i think that’s a brilliant suggestion. 

and i can already imagine myself resisting taking the time to reflect and process. honestly, i think that makes me want to commit to it more (it also gives me a (another) great excuse to not try to read or watch everything. we’ll see how it goes.