DISTRACT THE EYE
When you dislike something, but can’t remove it, you can distract the eye.
Let me give you a personal example.
In one of my 23 moves, this was the bathroom—specifically in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Brookline, just outside Boston, is a town with either historic Victorian homes or modern developments. The house was old, spacious, and full of light, but it definitely needed renovation work. In fact, not long after our move back to Italy, the owners sold it, and it was torn down to make way for a new fancy building.
I loved that area and miss it sometimes, but yes, that home needed a total refresh. You can’t see it in these pictures, but the bathtub was rusty, with old, dark stains; some floor tiles were ruined, and other details made it a little…meh.
As a renter, there wasn’t much I could do structurally, but I knew that I could shift the atmosphere with a few tweaks.
I was going to get my tweak on and get this room from stagnant to flowing.
Did you know that you can draw inspiration and apply principles from various fields, then make changes accordingly?
I do it often—for example:
I might be driving and then noticing patterns or shapes that I like in a building’s architecture, and later replicate it in the layout of a website I am restyling.
Another time, I’ll be walking in nature when something evokes a certain feeling in me, and I'll take a picture. I then use similar colors and materials from that image to recreate that type of energy in the corner of a room.
Or I come across a short YouTube video about a neuroscience principle that piques my curiosity, and I apply it in my morning routine by tweaking it and seeing if things run more smoothly before school drop-off.
This is something that you can do too, or maybe you already do.
Can you think of a physical space, a routine, or a creative project you are working on that could use a little refresh to flow better? Make one tweak inspired by a field you are passionate about or an element that piques your interest, and see if it helps.
In the Brookline bathroom case, I wanted to find a way NOT to focus on the elements that needed an upgrade.
With all due respect to a well-functioning bathroom and home, aesthetics aside, but hey…I’m very visual and neurodivergent, so the way things are arranged in a space affects how I process and experience them.
I remembered that in graphic design, there is a concept called visual hierarchy. You arrange elements in a way that people instantly recognize their importance in a space, so you guide the eye to look at something first.
I was going to tweak this concept to give the bathroom a refresh. Given that the house wasn’t ours, and we would have to move again, the refresh needed to be within a small budget. I thought to myself,
‘What if I create interesting points of focus that will distract the eye from what is not in good shape? So I can look at those instead. I’ll also get inspiration from what lights me up and helps me flow.’
I don’t know about you, but I love nature and being outside, so I used that as a baseline for the points of interest that I would create. I wanted the space to feel more refreshing, alive, and enveloping.
So with a few simple tweaks, this was the bathroom refresh.
I loved how I felt when I would step inside.
And so did the next (and last) renter, who saw a video tour of the home and insisted on leaving the bathroom exactly as it was and on paying us for the decor. My oldest daughter is still upset with me for selling that curtain. I agree with her—the fabric looked and felt really good, and it would have been a nice relic to keep!
So remember:
When you dislike something, but can’t remove it, distract the eye.
Make one tweak and shift the focus to something that lights you up and enhances the overall experience.
AND YES - You can apply that same principle to different areas of your life. I would say it’s a universal principle. But please don’t use this advice to distract yourself from something you dislike, yet actually needs your attention (trust me—it will keep calling for it).
Choose your tweak, write it down, or record it in a voice message.
What needs fresh flow?
When will you get your tweak on?
What can you get inspiration from?
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