I’d like to share with you a little method I’ve used for battling boring things I need to learn about.
Given what I do, there are a LOT of topics I’ve had to look into. If it’s something I’m not into and it’s for work, my brain will tend to act all inner teenager, getting grumpy and yelling “Booooooorrrring”. It would much rather stomp to my room and play games.
So, I’ve had to find a way to trick my brain into looking at boring topics.
One way I can do this is ‘passive watching’ videos. Have you ever noticed when watching programmes or tv shows, as soon as an ad comes on you just zone out and think about something else. Then the ad stops and you switch back into activitly watching the programme? (He has me watching The Block lately, it’s an australian building competition show, worth watching for the tongue in cheek audio editors). I take advantage of this passive watching behaviour to watch boring topic videos. I search for something (usually about an hour to half an hours worth) on a subject. Hit play and zone out, as if watching a half hour advert. What I’m waiting for is ANYTHING interesting to land. Anything at all. little facts, little insights. When a moment hits, I will ‘switch’ as if an ad has just ended and the show is back on.
It can take a few tries. To be succesfful I have to find a presenter on a topic that actully has something insightful to say. (Also important to not have a phone or book or anything distracting in the hand) It has been an invauable technique to help me get into a topic and get my occasionally gruding teenage brain back on board.
And, if I’ve done it right, I usually find out it wasn’t so boring after all 🙂
camera obsessa 