I had a peculiar experience today looking for a particular garment in a folded stack. The shirt I was wanted was floral, but much of my attention was occupied with stuff that’s on my mind, and somehow the “seeking” part of my brain decided that it was looking for a white shirt. I went through the pile twice on autopilot before the lack of success woke me up enough to [a] notice that [b] I hadn’t found the shirt, and [c] that’s because I was looking for a white shirt when the “mission accomplished” message would only be activated by finding a print one.

Once I looked for the floral, it only took a moment to find it.

I was struck by the process, though. It’s interesting on so many levels: the auto-search, the potential for confusing search goals, the role of attention and inattention in defining, tracking, and tallying goals.

How often in life do we not find what we’re looking for because what we’re looking for isn’t actually what we’re looking for?

For sale at ThinkGeek:

The SnuzNLuz gets your [derriere] out of bed with the simple trade-off of sleep for hatred. With every push of the snooze button, the SnuzNLuz will deduct ten dollars (or more) from your bank account and donate to an organization that you detest. That could be the Republican Party, PETA, ACLU, NRA, anything opposite to your politics. [via History of the Button]

ThinkGeek argues:

“The SnūzNLūz uses the very complex psychological phenomenon known as ‘HATRED’. Basically it’s human nature to wish harm upon your enemies. Similarly, it’s human nature not to give your enemies gobs of cash so that they can grow big and dominate the world with their totally wrong, stupid and invalid point of view. ThinkGeek realized that. That’s why every time you hit the snooze button, the SnūzNLūz will donate a specified amount of your real money to a non-profit you hate. The problem of sleeping in is solved.”

I’m not sure that I totally buy in to their explanation of the psychology behind the (supposed) effectiveness of the product, but I love the overall method: harness your own internal motivations (negative or positive) to drive desired behavior patterns. Many similar ideas are found in the teachings of the Mussar movement of Lithuanian Torah Judaism.