In Response to another recent question, "What do you think about while you're playing?"

Thank you for you question James!  This is what I think about: Music.  But before I could do that, I had to think about the mechanics of this kind of unwieldy instrument with 5 different places to play middle C and four, potentially 5 fingers to play them with.  My strong suggestion is to begin by learning arpeggio shapes.  Then moving them through a key.  Familiarize yourself with the shapes of different intervals and how you might reach them.  Where your hand is currently dictates some of where you can go next and so context becomes very important and to develop continuity you must learn every inversion of every chord and all positions of a given scale.  My little book on motific mastery might be helpful.  It is a fairly robotic approach but it lays the groundwork of moving up and down the neck.  We should just do lesson!  Until then, YouTube!  So many free guitar lessons it's silly.  Everyone has something to offer, even if it's a good example of what not to do.  Best of luck.  Oh, and often I'm thinking about dynamics and balance.  That is the thing I'm conscious of most of the time.