Most people agree that time is one of, and often THE, most valuable resource we have. For good reason - once time has passed, we can't get it back.
There is one thing that I never thought of as a resource until I heard someone else mention it as such: attention; and lately I've been thinking that attention is even more valuable than time. We all have the same amount of time in our days, but there are some people for whom we look at and wonder how they have time for all the things they are able to accomplish. There may be multiple contributing factors, but I would bet a large sum of money that they are very deliberate, focused, and militant about where they put their attention.
Time is valuable, but attention is where things get done.
Most people cite things like work, family, and hobbies (not necessarily in that order) as their priorities, and thus what gets their attention. And yet, those three things are already enough to fill out our days. If you manage to get someone's attention, you are dealing with their most precious currency. You owe it to them to make it worth their while.
That is why I keep my posts short and to the point. I know that you saw this post in a feed, and could have kept scrolling. My title was competing with dozens or hundreds of other posts for your attention. Yet, you decided to move your index finger slightly off to the side and click a button on this one. You took a chance on what I have to say, and I owe it to you to be respectful of your time.
Knowing that attention is a valuable resource has helped me think about ways that I've previously wasted it in the past, so I can avoid wasting it in the future. It's one thing to say that certain things are a waste of time, but if I can identify what gets my attention, I can work to address the issue of wasted time upstream.
For example, checking Facebook is a waste of time to me. I still do it on occasion, but there has never been a time when I checked and thought to myself 'That was time well spent.' So one might think that it's easy to just.. not check Facebook, right? For a while, I had the app installed on my phone, so I'd get notified by the blinking light that something 'needed' my.... (wait for it)... attention. But once the light was going, it was over - it already had my attention and was diverting it from more important things. The solution wasn't to resist that urge to check - it was to uninstall the app and remove the attention grabbing mechanism as a whole.
We live in an attention-grabbing society, and our consumer-focused economy is based on things vying for the limited amount of attention we have available. By being conscious of where we put our attention, we can be more focused on the things we care about and that matter to us.
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