Noticing the details in life is eminently satisfying, yet surprisingly hard to do. Bird migration patterns, the moon phase, the details of a rearranged room all go unnoticed by most of us because our attention is fragmented.
When the pandemic hit the pause button on life, many of us realized just how much we were missing everyday. Our attention is fragmented by a phone, a to-do list, our choices. Rob Walker, author of the book The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday, has a different plan for us. His book and his course on Sam Harris’ Waking Up app prompt us to pay attention in new ways that open our eyes to the world around us.
In our conversation, Rob shares how noticing is different from mindfulness, what happens to our creativity when we learn to tune in, and how the way we direct our attention shapes who we are.
Links and resources mentioned
Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are
The Art of Noticing Newsletter (Substack) robwalker.substack.com
Merlin bird identification app (Cornell Lab of Ornithology)
About Rob Walker
Rob Walker is a New Orleans–based writer whose work explores the intersection of everyday experience, creativity, and consumer culture. He is the author of The Art of Noticing—a compendium of exercises that teach us to reclaim control of our attention and find wonder in the ordinary—and the earlier book Buying In, which examined marketing’s role in our daily lives. Rob teaches “Point of View,” a graduate course in the Products of Design program at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and offers a popular noticing course on Sam Harris’s Waking Up app. His Art of Noticing newsletter has cultivated a global community of readers practicing curiosity and intentional awareness in their own lives.
