Francis Barlow’s illustration of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” Public Domain.
“The Boy Who Cried Wolf” is traditionally told as a story where the moral is: “Don’t lie because people won’t believe you when it matters.”1 And while that’s not a bad lesson, it’s not very profound.
A more useful moral to learn from the story is: “All signals should be meaningful.”
The boy cries wolf when there isn’t a wolf, and the townspeople learn to ignore the warning. The signal usually isn’t meaningful, so when it finally does give a useful warning, no one pays attention.
The boy in the story is like a smoke detector that usually goes off for no reason but also goes off when there’s really a fire. This isn’t just annoying; it’s dangerous.
Meaningless Signals Are Bad
There are two indicator lights on our stove: one telling you that a burner is on, and one telling you that a burner is hot. The light that tells you a burner is hot is broken: it’s always lit up, no matter what. It’s a meaningless signal.
Now, why is this a problem?
It’s a problem because the other light actually works. The light that tells you when a burner is turned on is a meaningful signal. If you learn to ignore the hot-burner light, you could easily – and mistakenly – learn to ignore the burner-on light.
Realizing that this could cause me to accidentally leave a burner on, I covered the broken light with electrical tape. Meaningless signal removed.
At this point, you’re probably thinking, What the heck does this have to do with self-improvement?
A lot, actually. Let me explain.
Behavioral Change
One of the most important tactics for changing your habits is to use reminders. These reminders can range from calendar appointments to phone alarms to sticky notes to calendar chains. The point is to make it impossible to forget about your new habit.
But if this is the only strategy you use, you’ll probably fail to establish the habit. And pretty soon, your reminder will become a meaningless signal: a phone alarm you always turn off without taking action, a calendar appointment you always ignore, etc.
Obviously, this is bad because you’re not doing the thing you set out to do, but it’s also bad because you’re undermining the effectiveness of reminders in general. You’re training yourself to ignore all reminders, not just the meaningless ones. This makes any future efforts at behavioral change less likely to succeed.
The solution?
Accept your failure to establish a new habit, and get rid of the reminders you’re ignoring. Ditch the meaningless signals.
Beware of Reminder Blindness
Now, even if a reminder has been working, it could still become a meaningless signal through an insidious process known as “reminder blindness.”
This occurs when you become so accustomed to seeing a reminder that you start to ignore it. A sticky note under your monitor might work for a week or two, but eventually it just becomes part of the background – easy to ignore, just like the boy who cried wolf.
So if you find you’re starting to ignore a particular reminder, change it in some way to restore its effectiveness. By altering the format or the location of the reminder, you can (temporarily) make it a meaningful signal again. You’ll have to keep doing this until the habit becomes so well established that reminders are no longer necessary.
Productivity
Our endeavors to be more productive are also harmed by meaningless signals.
If you set aside a block of time on your calendar each Thursday to work on a project, but you routinely ignore the appointment you’ve made with yourself, that calendar entry is now a meaningless signal.
The solution? Delete the appointment and try a different approach.
If you have items on your to-do list that you keep neglecting, you run the risk of turning all of the items on your to-do list into meaningless signals. If it’s really important for you to do, do it now. And if it’s not, remove it from the list.
(If you’d like to know how to write better to-do lists, click here.)
Distraction
A modern version of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” might be titled “The Phone That Cried Important.”
How many of the notifications that come out of your phone are actually meaningful signals?
And how many are just unnecessary distractions?
Ruthlessly turn off all the buzzes and bells you don’t need, so that when your phone grabs your attention, it’s for a good reason.
Even an important notification doesn’t necessarily need to grab your attention right now. You’ll have an easier time doing deep work, getting into flow, and connecting with others if your phone is in set to do-not-disturb or airplane mode.
Meaningful Signals Are Essential
“The Boy Who Cried Wolf” is actually a warning about the importance of meaningful signals and the danger that arises when meaningless signals are allowed to persist.
We need meaningful signals to get by. They tell us what to do and when to do it. From traffic signs to alarm clocks to your baby’s cries, meaningful signals are immensely valuable.
But meaningless signals threaten the effectiveness of the signals that truly matter. So we need to be mindful of meaningless signals and remove them whenever we can.