Choosing what you attend to is choosing your life

Your experience is whatever you pay attention to. What fills your attention fills your days, and your days add up to your life. So deciding where your attention goes is, in practice, deciding how you live. The gap between what you say you value and how you actually spend your time is usually a matter of attention rather than values: attention that goes wherever the environment pushes it. Every interruption is a small decision about what you are going to experience, and if you leave it, your inbox, a message or the day’s urgent problem makes it for you. A leader who considers developing their team essential can go months without a single real conversation with anyone on it, without once changing their mind about how much it matters. Managing your attention is therefore something different from concentrating or producing more. It means noticing the moment something tries to take your attention, and deciding yourself where it goes, based on your priorities. The result shows less in…