Think about the last time you got a new piece of art or furniture. For a while after you got it, it sort of popped out to you when your eyes scanned the room it was in. It seemed more vibrant, special, or interesting than the rest of the art/furniture. But then, perhaps a month or two after getting it, the new art/furniture blended into the rest of the room.
Nothing changed, of course. It’s the exact same art/furniture it was when you bought it. But your mind changed. Now you’re used to it. And when you get used to something, it ceases to grab your attention.
Whenever something new is added to your environment, it sticks out like a sore thumb, and you notice it readily. But you soon become habituated to it. Your mind adapts, and the stimulus loses its novelty. And then you basically become blind to it.
Now, for art and furniture, who cares? But it does matter when the feature of your environment is a reminder to do something important or think in a better way, and you become blind to that reminder. If that happens, the reminder ceases to work.
Reminder Blindness
I don’t trust myself to remember things, so instead of relying on memory, I rely on reminders. I have posters of inspiring quotes, sticky notes recommending certain actions, mindset reminders on my whiteboard, buttons on my favorites bar, and recurring appointments on my calendar.
But I realized something recently: Although these reminders help in the short run, I quickly become blind to them, and they lose their power.
By the time blindness sets in, whatever the reminder is about may have become a habit, so I don’t need the reminder anymore. And sometimes, it’s something I no longer care about or need to do. In those cases, the reminder should be discarded. You shouldn’t keep reminders that you ignore.
But if the reminder is for something you actually want to do, and the old reminder isn’t working anymore because you’ve become blind to it, you just need to refresh it.
You can refresh a reminder by changing it in some way.
For example, if you have a recurring appointment with yourself to do work on a project, and you’ve become blind to that, change the color of the appointment in your calendar to make it stand out more.
Or if you’re reminding yourself of something with a sticky note, don’t just leave the sticky note in one place all the time; move it around, or switch from a sticky note to a printed sign or whiteboard message.
We need to update, refresh, and remake our reminders often, or we’ll become blind to them. Use new colors, pick a new format, or put it in a different place. Find a new quote with a similar message. Write the same idea in a new way. And then recommit.