Investing Your Attention

[Kristin Wehner]

Increasing the ROI on Your Time
“Those who spend too much time paying attention to trifling things
become generally incapable of great ones.”
–Francois duc la Rochefoucauld

Time is a great equalizer. There are 24 hours in a day regardless of whom you are, how much money you have, or the status you command. Not one of us gets more than 24 hours each day. And, yet, despite this absolute time boundary, many of us long for more. We fantasize about the ways we’ll live differently, and feel differently, when we reach that ever-elusive period of our lives where we have all the time we want/need.

We may not be able to generate more time, but how about getting a higher return on the time we invest in our businesses each day?

Drawing a Circle Around Yourself
There is a practice of maintaining physical health and mental creativity that Tibetan wise ones have used for centuries. In fact, it is not unusual to find Tibetan monks in their 60s and 70s who exhibit intellectual appetites, not to mention physical stamina and agility, that rival that of Westerners half their age. It is a practice called tsam.

Literally, tsam means “border” or “dividing line” in Tibetan. It’s the word used to describe the practice of drawing a circle around oneself; getting away from chronic busy-ness in order to open a thinking space which allows for new insight and creativity.

A daily practice of tsam allows you to see your business from a new perspective—innovative solutions emerge and chronic time-wasting actions are revealed.

Investing Your Attention
How often do you feel like you’ve spent an entire day just reacting or responding to the demands of your business versus growing it, streamlining it, or, heck, enjoying it? Seven or eight hours slip through your fingers and your attention has been given to email volleys and low-impact actions that have little power to move your business forward.

How different would your day look—and would you feel—if you created space each day to draw a circle around yourself? What would it be like to allow yourself to get quiet, to survey the landscape of your business and consciously decide where to invest your attention for that day -- instead of allowing it to be decided for you?

What’s the ROI you expect for the investment of time you make in each day of your life? Is it time to up the ante for your expected return?