After my recent post about What We Notice, my friend Dean Shareski left a comment that challenged me to write some more on the topic. He wondered how much of our ability to notice the little things is inherent and how much is learned. He suggested that noticing, like delight, requires us to pause long enough to appreciate what might otherwise pass us by. And he wondered if we could actually build our noticing muscles.
I think we can.
Some people seem naturally gifted at noticing. They see details the rest of us miss. They find beauty in ordinary places and meaning in seemingly insignificant moments. I have always admired these people. I have never thought of myself as one of them. I have spent much of my life doing one thing while preparing for the next. Increasingly, though, I believe noticing is less about a special talent and more about developing habits that help us pay attention to the things we might otherwise miss.
For me, three routines have made a difference.
A Photo a Day
For years, I have taken a photo every day. Dean did the same thing for a decade, and I suspect his noticing muscles are stronger than mine.
I started because photos brought me joy. I loved the idea of being able to scroll through a week, a month or even a year of my life and see the moments that made up those days. Originally, I shared the photos publicly. For the last several years, the daily collection has been something I share only with my immediate family.
What I didn’t fully appreciate when I started was how the practice would change what I noticed. When you know you are going to take a photo every day, you begin looking for one. And when you are looking, you see things you might otherwise walk past.
This past April, my younger son came home after several months away at university. I took a photo of him saying hello to my mom. The joy on their faces was wonderful. In the background, Wheel of Fortune was on television. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the setting. It was just a regular family moment.
I love that photo. The laughter, the familiar room, the ordinariness of it all. It is exactly the kind of moment that can easily come and go without much thought. And now it is one I can return to.
I have thousands of photos from this project. Some capture big events, but many of my favourites are of moments that would never make anyone else’s highlight reel.
The photo is the record. The greater benefit has been the practice of looking for it.
Thinking in Blog Posts
Writing this blog has had a similar effect, although in a different way.
After more than 15 years of writing Culture of Yes, I often find myself thinking in blog posts. I will see something happening in a school, hear an interesting comment in a conversation or read something that makes me curious. I wonder about it. I want to know more. Sometimes I start connecting it to other things I have seen or experienced.
This post is a good example. It began with a comment I could easily have read, appreciated and moved past. Instead, it stuck with me. Many of these ideas go nowhere. They never become posts. And that is fine. The value is often in the thinking that happens along the way.
Writing forces me to slow down. It asks me to take an observation and consider what it might mean. Sometimes I discover that what I thought was an interesting idea really isn’t. Other times, something that seemed quite small grows into a much larger reflection.
Photography has helped me look more carefully. Writing has helped me think more carefully about what I see.
The View From a Run
Running has also become part of this practice.
I run every day, often along familiar routes. You might expect that travelling the same paths repeatedly would make everything blend together. I have found almost the opposite. I notice the changing seasons, the light at different times of day and the way familiar places can look completely different from one morning to the next.
I regularly run the dykes near our house. A few weeks ago, I came around a bend and saw three coyotes together just off the path. I stopped. To be fair, they scared me a little at first. But standing there, watching them, I was struck by the beauty of where we live. I have run that route hundreds of times. That morning, it felt brand new.
I often stop to take pictures on my runs. It can be a little awkward, particularly when I am running with others, but I appreciate what those stops help me see.
The sun was always rising. The leaves were always changing. Running just gave me another reason to look.
What We Notice Shapes What We Value
The common thread in all three of these practices is that they are routines.
I know myself well enough to recognize that if I leave noticing to chance, it often won’t happen. Life moves quickly. There is always another meeting, another email, another task demanding attention.
Taking a photo, writing a blog post and going for a run create space for noticing. I don’t have to decide every day to slow down. The routine makes that decision for me.
And it doesn’t need to be a photo a day, a blog or a daily run. It can be a walk without headphones, a few lines in a journal or a habit of asking one more question before moving on. What matters is having something that reliably asks us to pause.
But I think these routines do something more than help me pay attention. Over time, what we notice begins to influence what we value. I have often said in my work that where I spend my time says far more about what I value than what I say. I can talk about the importance of being in schools, connecting with students and spending time with staff, but my calendar tells the real story.
Noticing works in much the same way. The things we regularly give our attention to become the things we think about, appreciate and ultimately value. If we are always looking for what is wrong, we will find plenty of it. If we make a habit of noticing kindness, creativity, beauty and joy, we begin to see more of those things too.
This is where Dean’s pairing of noticing and delight makes so much sense to me. Noticing is the pause. Delight is what we often find when we take it.
None of this means ignoring the challenges or pretending everything is wonderful. It means being intentional about where we direct our attention.
What About Schools?
If what we notice shapes what we value, then what we help students notice matters a great deal.
We often talk about preparing students for a fast-changing world. We want them to be adaptable, responsive and ready for whatever comes next. And those are important goals.
But I also wonder if one of the best things schools can do is help students slow down. So much of their lives outside of school moves quickly. The next notification, the next video, the next activity. There is a constant pull toward whatever comes next.
Schools can be places where students are encouraged to look more closely, ask another question, sit with an idea or appreciate something that might otherwise go unnoticed. And schools often do this well. Last week, I was in an elementary classroom where I watched a teacher create space for thinking. She posed a question and gave students time to think before writing down their ideas. They then shared with a neighbour, before sharing their neighbour’s thinking with the class. Nothing particularly complicated, but slowing things down gave students time to notice ideas they might otherwise have missed, including those of their classmates.
We don’t always need to speed students up to prepare them for the future. Sometimes we need to help them slow down.
The same is true for the adults in schools. In the busyness of a school day, it can be easy to focus on what needs to get done rather than what is happening around us. The small moments of connection, kindness, curiosity and joy are often the things that matter most. But we have to notice them.
And maybe that is the encouraging part. We don’t necessarily need more remarkable things to happen in our lives. We might just need to become better at recognizing the remarkable things that are already happening.
Like a son coming home, a grandmother smiling and Wheel of Fortune playing in the background.
Note: I used AI tools for editorial feedback while refining this piece. The arguments and conclusions are my own.