Juggling attention with a full bladder
100% timing for a body break
An unexpected advantage of working from home is being able to drink the bulk of your required water intake during working hours and being able to go to the toilet without having to think about it.
This is something I took for granted.
But if you’re the only person (hu)manning the reception desk (or I suppose, a stop-and-go point on Clarence drive between Gordon’s Bay and Rooi Els!), you need to
🚰 limit your water intake – because it would be SUPER embarrassing to have a glipsie. (You know? A little accident like a two-year-old being potty trained.)
🚾 plan your visit to the toilet – When is a stand-in available?
I could, of course, take the chance and just leave the desk. Because, let’s be honest, most of the time I’m either looking out the side window at the guineafowl running a very competitive race in the garden and/or twiddling my thumbs.
But because of my experience of exactly 12 shifts, I can tell you that it’s weirdly probable that either nothing will happen, or everything will happen at the same time:
The phone will ring.
There will be someone at the outside gate, demanding attention through the intercom.
Two different batches of visitors will want to sign in.
Juggling your attention so that nobody feels disrespected while having a full bladder is a formidable perplexity, to say the least.
Here are some attention-worthy notes:
More of it
✨ You get more of whatever you give attention to. ~ Shane Parrish
Narrow and wide
Narrow attention is when you’re on the look-out for lions in the Kruger and therefore miss the cheetah right next to the road.
✨ Marion Milner describes narrow attention as a ‘questing beast’, keeping its nose close down to the trail, running this way and that upon the scent, but blind to the wider surroundings.
Like in this video where you’re asked to count the number of times the ball is passed by players wearing white.
Wide attention is when you’re open for whatever you’ll find – and then you’re not surprised by invisible gorillas!
[Found the idea of narrow and wide attention in Austin Kleon’s newsletter.]
Control it
✨ The more control you have over your attention, the more control you have over your future.
And it starts with having enough courage to protect your time.
It's so easy to say yes.
We want to be agreeable, helpful, liked.
That's how time disappears and attention becomes fragmented: not in big chunks, but in a thousand small concessions.
What you trade your attention for is what your life becomes. ~ James Clear
100%
✨ The single most powerful thing you can do in a relationship, whether it’s personal or professional, is to give someone 100% of your attention. ~ Brad Jacobs
Your wisdom
✨ You don't need to look for answers outside yourself. No, you truly don't. You've enough data and information and knowledge and wisdom in the stories of your own life to keep you busy for a long time, if you can but pay attention to them, be mindful of them. ~ Patti Digh
These days d’lightedly “nil per mouth” Wednesdays from 22:00,
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