Add a lure to your focus nook
This practical betterment assumes that you've already implemented a focus nook, a space where you go to focus on difficult tasks.
Now that you have created a focus nook the next step is to increase the likelihood of you entering it. One way of doing this is by creating a lure.
A lure should…
Catch your eye …or ear or nostril, but probably your eye. The lure should bring attention to your nook. Once you are reminded that your nook exists you will be more likely to engage with it.
Attract you to the nook
Your lure should make you want to approach the nook.
Positively reinforce your focus
The lure should make you feel good when you approach it so you associate your nook with good vibes.
Before we start designing lures it's fair to question if this is even a real thing. It does after all sound extremely stupid.
Personally this seems intuitive to me. I usually amble around like a lost ant until I see something to do. So, I know a lure will work on me.
Perhaps you are similarly ant-like, or perhaps you operate at a higher level of consciousness. I think a lure will work on you to some extent either way.
This is my evidence…
Advertising in supermarkets
Much of the advertising industry is based on catching your eye, intriguing you, and getting you to do things you otherwise wouldn't have done.
Advertisers succeed even when their goals and the goals of the audience are misaligned. Advertisers want people to gamble, drink coke, and watch Netflix. Ads work even though people's goals might be to save money, be healthy, or read.
Advertising is usually more complicated than just seeing an ad and then buying a product. However, when it comes to advertising in supermarkets it pretty much is just that.
Brands pay supermarkets billions annually to have their products placed where they're most likely to be seen and interacted with — eye level on shelves and by the cash register for impulse purchases.1
Displays are added throughout the store as well as squiggly sticky out ads, video ads, and sometimes even music emanating from shelves. Usually these ads are for products you already know — the brand is simply reminding you that they're an option and putting their product to the top of your mind.
Your home is similarly filled with choices. Your TV is a big billboard advertising itself. Your bed invites you to lie in it, your sofa to sit on it. Your phone regularly flashes or pings. We interact with these objects with little conscious thought while the objects essential to completing our goals gather dust half-hidden.
How to make a successful nook lure
First we'll go through what a lure needs to do, then we'll consider some examples.
Noticing your nook
Advertisers use shocking visuals to catch our attention — bright colors, bold lettering, high contrast, and evocative imagery.
Anything that causes your head to turn towards your nook will do the trick.
Attracting you towards the nook
A tapeworm in a jar of formaldehyde hanging above your nook would probably grab your attention — but it would fail to attract you towards the nook because it is disgusting.
The lure should draw you in closer. So an image that you want to approach to admire, or something satisfying to pick up and feel could work.
Positively reinforcing your focus
The nook lure should make you feel good when you look at it and make you feel like focusing. It could evoke the end goal of your focus or just a picture of someone or something you love. e.g. hotdog.
Nook lure placement
You lure should be…
- Easily visible while ambling around.
- Not visible while you're focusing. If it is a good lure it might distract you.
Example: my nook lure
I've place a cork board in a nice wooden frame next to my desk. Pinned to it are three M.C. Escher postcards and a beautiful picture of my partner.
The Escher pictures are fractal and detailed and hypnotically draw you in. The picture of my partner is small and so I have to get close to it to see it — and there I am, next to my desk.
There's an illustration of some colorful tape worms, a picture postcard of moss covered rocks in a tranquil stream, and a gap where I will have a picture of my dog.
Crucially I can see the lure as I walk past but not while I'm at my desk.Footnotes