Insights & Ideas Blog
We’re always learning and expanding our thinking.
Just like the pain of hunger is a signal to feed our bodies, the pain of boredom is a signal to feed our brains. Boredom cries out for mental engagement but it doesn’t tell us how or with what. The big businesses of the attention economy are more than happy to provide quick and easy short term boredom balms, but these rarely enrich us. How can we learn to listen to our boredom and reach for something that is more nourishing in the long run?
The pleasurable state of mind between the known and the unknown, between familiarity and exploration, is where creativity flourishes and discoveries are made. How can you cultivate this state of mind and what can it do for you?
I create art because I love exploring materials, techniques, and ideas. I create to help make sense of my thoughts and emotions. I create as a way to communicate ideas. These drives are not unique to me. In fact, they reflect fundamental human needs. Being sensitive to these needs can have a profound effect on well-being – whether in our organizations or ourselves.
In a world designed to capture our attention through ever more sophisticated means, perhaps the most revolutionary thing we can do is to decide for ourselves, with intention and care, what to pay attention to and what to ignore. A rational inattention approach can help us do just that.
reDirect co-founder, Rachel Kaplan, shares some musings on the Small Experiment Mindset, connecting curiosity and exploration to our quest to understand the world around us.
When you can’t think yourself out of a problem, it’s time to act. But taking action doesn’t mean that the action has to be big or even that you have to be particularly sure about it. In fact, often the best actions are small experimental ones. This small experiment approach is what I’ve been using to try and break through my creative block.
My brain is so overloaded these days that it’s affecting my creative work. It’s time for a mental spring cleaning! Over the past week, I’ve been using the KonMari method to tidy up my mind and close out the open cognitive loops of mental clutter.
Like Jello and cement, once our minds are set they are hard to change. This has certainly been true of my “paint scarcity” mindset in the studio. One alternative to trying to think ourselves into a new mindset is to look to the environment for help. This is just what I did when I set out to shift my paint scarcity mindset by creating a micro-environment of abundance.
Environment matters. It’s easier to get daily exercise in a city that is designed for walking than one that is designed for driving. It’s easier to eat a healthy diet if that is what’s on the menu. And it’s easier to learn a language in a city that immerses you. Unfortunately, that is not Barcelona. In my ongoing effort to tip to Spanish fluency, I find myself wondering if I can tweak my environment in order to offload some of the learning burden from my own waning willpower.
Artists communicate not just through art but also about art. We talk about our work. We teach. We care about helping people understand. And yet in our excitement to share everything we know, it is all too easy to share too much. To think about content but not form. And so, like so many well-intentioned communicators, we end up overwhelming or boring our audience. We can do better.
When it comes to planning, why do we tend to overestimate our abilities and underestimate time and costs? This year, I’m coupling my annual art practice planning with a “premortem” technique. Read on to learn more about cognitive biases, premortems, and my own Christmas Carol inspired process.
Meet Anne Kearney, reDirect’s 2025 Artist-in-Residence.
If we pause and look at the people around us in almost any public space, we’re likely to find someone with a wearable device. "Wearables" have become widespread consumer products that also provide us with more information about ourselves than we ever thought possible. But are wearables worth our attention and the other resources we spend on them?
In the modern era of technology, humans are constantly inundated with visual information. When visual information is so pervasive, how can we share our knowledge in a way that increases clarity and understanding instead of adding to the deluge?
Have you ever considered that your attention is as valuable a resource as your time? And just like the number of hours in a day, your capacity to pay attention is limited. In this article, we’ll explore why our brains get tired and how the power of nature can reboot them effectively.
What is a "micro-break"? While the best way to restore your attention is to spend time in nature (and avoid looking at screens), we know that isn’t always possible. This post offers some simple micro-break ideas that may give your mind some relief throughout the day.
We all start the day with limited resources. When it comes to work, those resources include our time, our energy, and our attention. And, despite what “hustle culture” tells us, there’s a limit to how much we can accomplish each day.
This post explores what it means to “take a break,” and how we can foster work environments that support them.
This July, as we mark the 33rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Disability Pride Month, we delve into the transformative power of embracing workplace accessibility through a SEE lens. Click the link below to learn more and read this guest blog from Rachel Fink, a 2023 reDirect Fellow.
Discover how Verdi EcoSchool, a reDirect grantee and urban farm school in Melbourne, Fl., harnesses the potential of “The Third Teacher" in education. Delve into their reflections on how intentionally crafted environments can shape behavior, ignite curiosity, and foster a strong sense of community. Learn from Verdi EcoSchool’s insights into the power of conscious design, feedback, and the profound impact of the environment as a vital classroom.
“There is an innovative dialogue between urban planning and the SEE framework, prompted by their orbit around a common inquisitive core: How can we leverage our environmental surroundings to bring about the best version of our society, our communities, and ourselves?”
“Incorporating Supportive Environments for Effectiveness (SEE) in program analysis is a great way to understand a program’s success, as well as potential areas for improvement. This past summer, I had the privilege of working with Julie Roth from the City of Ann Arbor to take a closer look at what is making the Solarize program so successful in the Ann Arbor area…”
“Over the past 12 months, I have been part of an amazing group, a first time cohort of Points of Light affiliates who are conducting volunteer engagement and Service Enterprise training across the country, while introducing a new framework called Supportive Environments for Effectiveness, or SEE…”
Small experiments – whether in the design of spaces, programs, or just our own lives – can have big impacts. They can also keep us from making big mistakes. Although the quick, flexible, and impermanent nature of small experiments can make them feel haphazard, they are anything but.
It can be extraordinarily frustrating when people fail to see the obvious. Why can’t they perceive what’s right in front of them? Why can’t they see what’s real and true?
"Creating an environment for effectiveness means creating a place where everyone can be their best selves, and bring their full, lived experience to their work." In the words of Amy Lytle of HandsOn NWNC, "the core SEE tenets seemed to flow directly toward the idea of 'belonging.'" This is their journey of leaning into the SEE framework to build a sense of belonging for their organization, as a member of our Points of Light Affiliate grantee cohort.
“As managers of humans, I hope that taking care of ourself is seen as an expectation, not a suggestion. The belief of always needing to do everything and be ‘on’ all the time slowly wears on us and can deplete our drive to achieve goals that we’re passionate about.” Kayla Paulson of UWECI describes the transformation that learning SEE helped her make as she approached her work as a Points of Light Affiliate grantee.
People thrive on opportunities to do things that matter. Having a sense of purpose makes people more motivated and increases their overall physical and mental health. How could you help meet someone else’s need to make a difference? How might this improve their world and yours?
What if we think about motivation as a feeling to be developed rather than an elusive thing to get? There are at least five common causes for feeling unmotivated. Identifying the root cause, or causes, is a first step in creating a path toward motivation and getting the job done.
Fighting distractions and temptations has a hidden cost. Although you might win the fight, you will have to spend mental energy to do so. This leaves less energy for doing other things, like resisting future temptations or getting work done. How can you minimize this drain on your mental energy? As I was recently reminded, sometimes the best strategy for fighting distractions is simply to avoid them.
The way that we understand the world is based, in part, on cultural norms. These norms are often so deeply ingrained that we don’t stop to think that they might be arbitrary – they just feel objectively right. In fact, they are so obviously right that we tend to assume everyone else, if they are reasonable and rational, must understand things the same way. But what happens when they don’t?