This is Optimal Living Daily, episode 404, The Only Resource More Precious Than Time, part 2, by David Cain of Raptitude.com, and I'm Justin Malek. What's going on, oldie? Haven't said that in a long time. Let's not be calling it old, because old stands for Optimal Living Daily, see?
This podcast and the other three podcasts in my little network are where we read to you from some of the best blogs out there, and that's with permission from the authors, of course. And today's episode is a continuation from yesterday, so if you're new or jumping around, I'd recommend listening to yesterday's episode first, that's episode 403, otherwise this will be a strange reading for you. And that's all for now. Let's get right to part 2 of this post, and continue optimizing your life.
The Only Resource More Precious Than Time, part 2, by David Cain of Raptitude.com The value of your time fluctuates greatly depending on how you end up spending it. How much value you get out of it depends on your application of the real precious resource, your attention. Your attention is just as finite as your time, but it is a crucial ingredient that actually converts your time to something of use. If you decide to spend an hour of time working on a project, and your attention is only focused on the work itself for half of that hour, you've only generated a half hour of complete work with your hour.
What about that other 30 minutes of attention? Where did it go? Well, it's certainly spent on something, probably a number of things. Devices and people grab our attention quite easily.
Twitter, RSS feeds, colleagues, family members, texts. People commonly squatter themselves from these attention hogs while they work by locking their door, turning off their phone, or closing their web browser. These measures are useful for external distractions, but unfortunately the worst culprit doesn't need a phone to get a hold of you, and it followed you in before you lock the door. The biggest thief.
It's thoughts that steal the vast majority of our attention. By sending you on aimless tangents and wild goose chases, they pilfer enormous amounts of your potentially priceless attention from your life, bit by bit. Aimless thinking is incredibly pervasive in humankind. I'm not talking about an inefficient hour here or there.
I'm talking about years of your life gone without nothing to show for it. The 50% rate of wasted attention in the above example is probably very low. Thoughts jump from one to another so rapidly and seamlessly that time just disappears. Perhaps in that hour, your attention was captured by thoughts you had about your deadline, which led to thoughts about your boss's opinion of you, which led to thoughts about your future at your company, which led you to the worry that you'll get passed up for the next promotion, which led you to a fancy about working four hours a week and making a million dollars a year.
Then you look up and remember you're supposed to be writing a report. You begin to feel restless and go make coffee. Now 17 minutes later, and you've done nothing. That's just a simple example.
A real life wandering train of thought is usually more complex, potentially visiting dozens of topics in a minute or two, each one leaving its own residue of emotion and doubt. In addition to the considerable drain these attention-stealing thoughts place on your time, they can lead to troublesome and negative thoughts about yourself or your situation. They can leave you in a bad mood further taxing your capacity to be productive. Thoughts are particularly dangerous attention thieves because all thoughts claim to be important, not unlike a teenage drama queen.
They scream, Hey, look at me. I need you to deal with me right now. Be discriminant. You don't open up your wallet every time you see a for sale sign, so be similarly thrifty when it comes to spending your attention.
Most thoughts are useless and repetitive and have nothing of value to offer you, so get into the habit of returning your attention to the task at hand rather than attending to thoughts that arise. If a thought reminds you of something you need to do, write it down and continue with your work. When something has your attention, recognize that you are making a purchase. You are spending a finite resource, so make sure you're getting something in return.
Most people do not even think about where their attention is. A thought occurs and they jump right on it, either mentally or with their whole body, rushing to do something as soon as they think of it. Don't make impulsive purchases. Know what you're getting.
You can spend all the time in the world on something, but if your attention doesn't stay focused on it, that time is never converted into anything useful to you. Leverage Clever listeners may have realized that other people have this precious resource too, and if you give them a reason, they can give it to you. If you have captured someone else's attention, you can employ it to produce something If you are ineffective, you are paying for their time, but their attention may be mostly wasted. Very successful people are ones who can leverage the attention of thousands of employees and clients to contribute tremendous value to their company, and subsequently give value back in the form of wages for employees and useful products for clients.
But your own attention is the only attention you have direct control over, so focus on that first. I'll explore the idea of cultivating the attention of others in a future post. Remember, attention is more valuable than time, and time is more valuable than money. Surely you wouldn't toss around your money like it didn't matter, so keep your eye on where your attention is going.
Try this. Frequently ask yourself, where is my attention right now? Where was it before right now? Where is the best place to put my attention right now?
I think you'll find that very often it's been captured by something that isn't doing you any good, like an irrelevant train of thought or some other distraction. Attention loss is a serious habit that affects us all, but asking those simple questions begins to steer us in a much more effective direction. You just listened to part 2 of the post titled The Only Resource More Precious Than Time by David Cain of Raptor2.com And this all comes back to meditation that is the best exercise I've ever seen to really learn where your thoughts are and to focus your attention. You should definitely look into it if you've never tried it.
And like yesterday, I'm not going to mention anything self-promotional here at the end of the show. I will likely have support from a sponsor later this week, which is great for the show. So I'll give you a break from that kind of material for now. Instead I'm going to do something very unusual for the show, I'm going to leave you with a quote, especially since I didn't mention anything related to him earlier this week.
The quote is, Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.
Martin Luther King Jr. And I hope you have a great productive or even not productive day too. Those are just fine. Just a happy day would be good.
And I'll see you tomorrow where your optimal life awaits. Hey, this is Dan from the Optimal Finance Daily Podcast, which is a lot like this show, except more focused on personal finance. Optimize your financial life. You've been listening to Optimal Living Daily.
Be sure to hit the subscribe button to stay up to date on each new episode and head to oldpodcast.com. That's oldpodcast.com for a free gift as well as more actionable tips and resources to help you maximize your potential. Thanks for joining us. And remember, your optimal life awaits.