Summary

The article emphasizes the importance of attention management over traditional time management, suggesting that focusing on mental engagement and where we direct our attention is the most critical skill for the 21st century.

Abstract

The article argues that in today's information-saturated world, the ability to manage one's attention is more valuable than traditional time management. It posits that with the abundance of information, attention has become a scarce commodity, leading to an 'attention economy.' The author, Alder Koten, critiques the outdated advice in many self-help books, which focus on scheduling and time allocation without considering the constant interruptions of modern life. Instead, the author proposes that true productivity comes from deep focus and attention allocation, suggesting practical tips such as limiting tasks to two per day and working on creative tasks early in the day. The article concludes by urging readers to master attention management as a vital skill for success in the current century.

Opinions

Time management advice is outdated and does not address the challenges of the modern, information-rich environment.
The true value lies in managing attention, not time, as our mental engagement is the limiting factor in productivity.
The author, Alder Koten, suggests that the concept of multitasking is a myth and that the human brain can only focus on one task at a time effectively.
The article criticizes popular time management strategies, such as those found in "Getting Things Done," for being written for a bygone era.
The author recommends focusing on a task by returning to it every 48 hours and limiting the number of tasks to maintain the 'focus zone.'
It is suggested that a workweek should be dedicated to professional tasks, with personal projects reserved for personal time.
The author believes that stillness is crucial for achieving high-quality focus and that creative tasks should be tackled when the mind is freshest, which for many is in the morning.
Alder Koten advocates for the concept of 'deep work' as a path to high-quality results and productivity, a concept also supported by author Cal Newport.

Today’s Most Important Skill

It’s not time management

Go into any bookstore in your city, and stop by the self-help section. What will you see? Heaps of productivity lifehacks, tips on getting more done (with less), and time management advice. The truth is, these topics are not relevant anymore.

What’s relevant today? Attention management. It may be the most critical skill of this century.

The Payment of Attention

It used to be that humans craved knowledge. When the industrial revolution began, people switched from manual labor to knowledge workers. People with specific skills and information suddenly became scarce, valuable, and were competed for.

Today, information is abundant. And because the human brain cannot digest it all, attention becomes the scarce resource.

Thomas H. Davenport defined attention as:

“Focused mental engagement on a particular item of information. Items come into our awareness, we attend to a particular item, and then we decide whether to act.”

There’s a limited supply of attention, yet there’s an ever-increasing demand for it from media, social networks, and (let’s be honest) the whole web.

Yet, there is only so much a human brain can focus on; recently, scientists figured out that it’s only one task at a time (there’s a switching cost to multi-tasking).

Think to yourself, reading this sentence right now. You’re not doing anything else. I’ve got your attention.

As Economics 101 teaches us, anything that’s scarce — has value (think: Bitcoin). We live in a world that’s slowly changing from classical economics to ‘attention economy.’ Soon enough, you’ll be literally paying me attention.

What matters today is not how you treat your time and schedule, but where we focus our mental energy. And what, as a result, you focus on and surround your life with.

Time management doesn’t work

People say they don’t have time. It’s not true. You, me, and Kim Kardashian — we all have the same 24 hours at our disposal. We’re just allocating them in different ways.

The problem with most self-help books on time management is that authors wrote them for the world of the past. Most of them, like the bestselling GTD, was written in (and for) the 20th century.

Today, allocating your time towards a particular task doesn’t guarantee that it will receive the proper attention due to constant disruptions and interruptions.

Hence, you’ve got to make the switch from time management to attention management.

How I handle my attention

Recently, I started to feel overwhelmed. Having to work two different remote-jobs, plus writing and allocating time for personal projects is difficult. So I automatically, on impulse, started to apply the old time-management techniques on myself.

I would wake up earlier. I would separate my day into 3–4 different chunks and try to cram various projects until I realized that it just doesn’t work. I couldn’t get anything done, and I got tired constantly.

Why? Because time allocation is not as important as attention allocation.

I learned a few things:

Focusing on a task is returning to it every 48 hours. If it takes longer, it’s not in the ‘focus zone.’
There is a cap of 2 different tasks that you can do within a single day. I learned that it’s not the work that exhausted me the most, but the switching between different types of work.
Workweek should be for work. And personal projects should be taken care of on my own time (e.g., on weekends and holidays).
The more creative a task is, the earlier you should work on it. I am a morning person, so I strive to write before breakfast.
Stillness breeds focus. Just telling yourself to do a specific activity five minutes longer than usual can help create stillness, and it leads to high-quality focus.

With the overflow of information and slow transition into the attention economy, the ability for deep focus becomes a superpower. Very few people can do it.

If you look at my takeaways above, you’ll notice that I said you could only handle two different tasks per day, and you’ve got to return to a job every 48 hours to keep it in the ‘focus zone.’

This means that your total focus is four projects, max. And less is more in this case.

It’s only the deep focus, the ‘deep work,’ as Cal Newport calls it, that leads to high-quality results and productivity.

Dedicate 2020 to mastering this vital skill. You’ll thank yourself later.

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