Post content clarity

Short summary of a framework from Chris Willaims that's been super useful in my day to day life.

I all too often find myself consuming content that I don't actually want to be consuming or that I regret watching afterwards. Chris explains that the reason this happens is because the heuristic most people use when deciding what content to consume is "is this captivating or not". Not only does this optimize for the wrong thing (short term pleasure > long term benefit) but also anything you're watching is always going to be captivating because if it wasn't then you wouldn't be watching it.

The framework Chris suggests to use to combat the problem of content captivity is to either before consuming or whilst consuming content project yourself into the future to after you've consumed the content. He calls this "Post Content Clarity" as only after you've consumed a piece of content and it's stopped grabbing your attention can you really assess its impact. I've found this super useful in order to stop my attention being stolen by whoever is the most bold, eccentric and aggressive and instead make sure it's being given to whoever is the most interesting and beneficial.

Example

I start watching something, I realize that after watching this I'm probably going to feel worse about the future of our species. I turn it off. I see another video, I realize that after watching it I'll be more informed about a topic I care about. I press on the video.

I'll end this little summary with one of my favorite quotes from Chris.

“Your content diet should be spirulina for the soul, not fast food for your amygdala.”