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Time and attention

Attention is the only currency you spend irreversibly. The Stoics thought most people guard their money carefully and their hours not at all. This topic is about where attention goes, who takes it, and what you have quietly agreed to give away.

42 exercises and cases on time and attention, from the Stoic practice of sorting what is yours from what is not.

Cases in this topic

Seneca and the eight years on CorsicaTime and attentionBoethius and the wheelTime and attentionThe statue that survivedTime and attentionSeneca above the bathhouseTime and attention

Cuts in this topic

Take the situation apart. Each piece goes in one box; there is no third option.

The situation
You notice your evening has gone entirely to your phone again.
Yours
  • Whether the device sits in another room.The cheapest intervention there is and entirely yours. The Stoics called this removing the impression before you have to resist it.
  • When you decide the evening has begun.An evening that never starts can never be eaten either. Marking that moment costs nothing and is yours alone.
  • Whether you do one thing differently tomorrow instead of only regretting it.Regret is a verdict on yesterday and changes nothing. One concrete agreement with yourself for tomorrow is action. Only the second sits in your box, and it is considerably lighter than the first.
Not yours
  • That the apps are designed to hold your attention.There are teams of people behind them, paid to achieve exactly this. That is not paranoia, it is the business model, and it is not yours.
  • That messages keep arriving.Other people send on their moment, not yours. That they arrive is not yours; when you open them is.
  • How much other people appear to be doing and living online.An edited selection from someone else's life, made to be shown. What you see of it is not yours and it is not the reality either.
The reasoning. This is the territory where most people feel most powerless and are least powerless. Of the six pieces, three lie fully within reach, and all three are small, dull interventions: move the device, mark the evening, do one thing differently tomorrow. The temptation is to fight the design of the apps instead, and that is precisely the column where there is nothing to win.
The situation
Your diary is full of commitments you agreed to yourself.
Yours
  • Whether you think before saying yes next time.Almost every overloaded week is built from separate yeses that looked small at the time. The place to intervene is there, not in the week itself.
  • Whether you cancel one appointment this week.Concrete and available today. Cancelling feels expensive and is almost always cheaper than the three other things suffering underneath it.
  • Where your attention goes in the hour you do have free.The free hour is rarely stolen; it leaks. What happens in that hour is the purest example of something entirely yours.
Not yours
  • That other people ask things of you.People ask; that is what people do. It is not a conspiracy and not an assault on your time, it is a question with two possible answers.
  • That a day has only twenty-four hours.The limit is not negotiable and that is not a misfortune. Every yes is therefore automatically a no to something else, whether or not you say that no out loud.
  • Whether the people you cancel on are disappointed.Their reaction is theirs. You can do it politely and in good time, and there your part ends.
The reasoning. Time is the territory where people most often cast themselves as the victim of something they signed themselves. The cut exposes that: other people's requests and the length of the day sit on the left, but the yes, the cancelling and the free hour all sit on the right. The diary is fuller than you want and it is largely in your own handwriting.
The situation
Your child asks you to come and play while you still have work to do.
Yours
  • Whether you play properly for twenty minutes or half-attend for an hour.Half attending is the worst of both worlds: the work does not move and the child notices. Choosing is the whole exercise.
  • Whether you put your phone in another room.Being present is not a feeling but a setting. Remove the impression before you have to resist it.
  • Whether you name a time you will come if now is impossible.You may say no; saying no without an alternative is what sticks. Naming a moment costs nothing and is entirely yours.
Not yours
  • That the work is still there.That is a fact and guilt does not dissolve it. There are a certain number of hours this evening and there are no more of them for feeling bad.
  • Whether he will still remember it in ten years.You do not know and it is the wrong measure. You are not doing this for the memory but for tonight.
  • That in a few years he stops asking.Children grow and the question disappears by itself. Not a threat but a given, and it is why the arithmetic tonight comes out differently than you think.
The reasoning. Time feels like a shortage and is in fact a distribution. The clock, the work and the growing up sit on the left and cannot be moved. On the right sits what you choose tonight: the length, the attention, and whether you name a moment if now is impossible. Three small things, and together they decide almost everything that remains of this hour.
The situation
You have the feeling of running behind on everything.
Yours
  • What you commit to and where your attention goes first.
Not yours
  • The pace of others and the inbox that is never empty.
  • That another list will be lying there tomorrow.
Read the full sorting
The situation
Your day gets swallowed by other people's 'got a quick minute?' requests.
Yours
  • Your yes and your no.
  • The irritation you carry for the rest of the day.
Not yours
  • That people keep wanting something from you.
Read the full sorting
The situation
Your flight is delayed by three hours.
Yours
  • What you do with those three hours.A book, a walk through the terminal, that one phone call you never got round to. You will not get the delay back; the hour itself you will, three times over.
Not yours
  • The three hour delay.Airline, weather or logistics: in any case not your department, and getting angry at a gate has never sped up an aircraft.
  • Whether you make the connection and the rest of the day.The onward flight, tonight’s appointment, the schedule tipping over: that is being recalculated elsewhere right now, by systems and desks you do not operate. The answer will come to you by itself; worrying earlier does not speed it up.
The reasoning. The airline took your departure time; only you can hand it the three hours as well.
The situation
Someone shows up late to your appointment, again.
Yours
  • The quarter of an hour, and your half of the appointment.Fill the waiting time usefully instead of staring out of the window at boiling point, and feel free to attach consequences to the pattern: starting later, meeting shorter, asking for an explanation. That is not punishment; that is taking your half of the appointment seriously.
  • The conclusion that you apparently do not matter to him.From a quarter of an hour late to “I do not matter” is a big jump, and you make it, not him. His behaviour says something about his diary; what it says about your worth is decided not by his clock but by your reading.
Not yours
  • His sense of time and his choices.However often you have named it: whether he arrives on time is decided by him, every single time. That pattern is information about him, not an assignment for you to repair it.
The reasoning. His quarter of an hour says something about him; what you do with that quarter says something about you.
The situation
You are stuck in traffic on the way to an appointment you are now late for.
Yours
  • The message you send now, and the remaining three quarters of an hour.Report it so the other person is not left waiting, and fill the time with something of your own. Eating yourself up is an addition that profits nobody, you least of all.
  • The defence you are already preparing.In the car you are rehearsing the story about the bridge, the accident, the navigation. But a good reason does not make you less late, and a bad one no later. Arrive, say sorry, and leave the plea in the car.
Not yours
  • The traffic jam, and the time you are losing.Honking has never shortened a queue, and the minutes will not return. Being late is by now a fact.
The reasoning. The queue decides your arrival; you decide the state in which you arrive.

Propositions in this topic

True or false? The answer is given; the reasoning behind it comes with the exercise.

Situations in this topic

Each situation below is already sorted: yours, not yours, or both. That sorting is the exercise.

Practice this yourself

Yours, Not Yours · A Stoic practice ground · All cases · Questions or suggestions