I have reinforced certain habits using the gadgets that I am so fond of using. Specifically the Reminders app that is linked to my Apple ID and my iCloud account. Enter items one place and they are present on all the other devices I use – ta dah! So I have a structure of repeating reminders that I use to structure my workdays – actually my entire life – but lets just go with workdays to make it seem less sad and dependent. I schedule snacks, lunches, even the end of work because when I’m concentrating deeply on something time just flows right on past me. Without alarms and reminders I would be late for everything and I might even forget to attend something important. So my reminder went off today, for my mid-morning snack, which is a cup of fruit-on-the-bottom greek yogurt and so I went into the mailroom here at work where the community fridge is located and as I was walking to get my snack I noticed the mail. Oh! The mail! So I got sidetracked. I got my mail and brought it back to my office. Mostly it was junk, just more meaningless wastes of paper as most mail is these days and I sat back down and got back to work. Then I had this nagging feeling like I had forgotten something and I looked at my reminder list and my snack wasn’t checked off.

I would love to attribute this to anything but what it is. Technology has softened my wits. I’m easily distracted and waylaid and that in itself is just another problem. It’s not age, although I would love to blame it on something like that, but what it comes down to is that technology is a double-edged sword. Sure it enhances life and makes it easier on us, but by doing so, it eliminates the rigor we once had to not forget when we move from room to room. The only real saving grace is that doorways represent really fundamentally important context changes in the human brain that can demonstrably damage items in short-term memory. You can get up, walk out of the office with a fully fleshed out plan and each time you pass a doorway that plan gets hit by a mental tempest. Coworkers stopping you to talk, mail in your mailbox, something going on with the machines in that room that need attention, anything at all can swiftly kill even strongly made plans.

This got me thinking about an imaginary environment, a building made up of doorways, in a long linear arrangement, say 15 rooms. Each room loaded with things designed to distract and confuse. Bright lights, blaring sounds, overstuffed mailboxes, a copier machine spraying paper, a ball-pit filled with brightly colored balls being gently agitated with mystery sounds coming from underneath it, perhaps even animals and clowns, like a circus. People walk in the entrance and as they slowly make their way through the doorways and the distractions erode even the most intensely established mental frameworks. When people reach the exit, they walk away refreshed and emptied. The worries, the concerns, the issues they carried in with them at the entrance are utterly blown away by the simple act of slowly walking through this environment. At the end you could have a nice big lounge filled with soothing music and overstuffed chairs with a really long wall of excellent books that you can pick out and read for as long as you like. Perhaps another room where you can nap. You could bill such a building as a “Mind Wash” and I bet people would pay to be able to enjoy it. All your worries, all your troubles, at least temporarily blown away by all the doorways and all the distractions and then the mood music and lighting and books and napping pads on the floor. 🙂