The Life-Changing Magic of an Attention Charter
In the war to reclaim your attention, some battles have clearer fronts than others, and these differences matter.
Consider, for example:
a request to hop on a call with an interesting person,
an offer to collaborate on a project that fits your interests, or
a new service that might make parts of your working life better
Not doing any of these activities might induce monasticism that would likely stall your career, or, at the very least, make it unbearably monotonous.
But packed schedules are almost always the result of the accumulation of a dozen yeses that each made perfect sense in isolation.
So how do you balance these competing concerns?
You use an "attention charter".
The idea is to create a document that lists the general reasons that you’ll allow for someone or something to lay claim to your time and attention. For each one, it describes under what conditions and for what quantities you’ll permit this commitment.
For example:
You’ll only allow one call per month with someone you don’t know
You can make one major change to the technologies you use (apps, gadgets, websites) per season
You might decide to fix in advance the slots you’re available for work meetings. When a request comes in from a colleague you don’t want to reject, you can reply: “sure, here are all the times I’m available this month: pick one.”
The attention charter works because it acknowledges that certain time-fragmenting activities are necessary, but it gives you the hard limits you need to engage in these activities without losing control.