Note to self: 15 minutes of attention

If you could pay attention to just one thing over the next 15 minutes, what would it be?

The list of categories of potential things to be alert to is too long, so it doesn't make sense to sort through them to find the right type of thing. Don't start by reviewing the list, because the list is too long to review without making that the one solitary task.

It's always good to remove things from the desk or desktop, particularly if that can be done quickly and ruthlessly; similarly, closing applications is helpful. Reduce the choice space.

If the inbox is open at all, it will quickly absorb 15 minutes just in care and tending. Thus any sub-task that involves the inbox will likely overlap the whole time span with the need to fully tend to that collection. Similarly, any review of any statistics, any perusal of any stream of novelty or items of possible interest, will easily consume that stretch of time just in picking through the list or going through it.

Some aspects of online life lend themselves to the 15 minute burst. A quarter hour can manage a few additions or subtractions to a mailing list, a few wiki pages tweaked harmlessly, a series of essentially mindless but unautomated two-minute tasks strung together until time runs out. The burden of diligence, to be certain, useful especially when maintained daily for years, but not the contemplation of one moment.

I've used systems for task-reminders (the infinite todo list) that let you pick a task at random and then use that as the suggestion for the next thing to do. Taken to some logical extreme you might want a machine to prompt you for the next thing that you wanted it to remind you of and just iterate through that until some pile of tasks got managed into submission. (Pity you if you fill the system with the wrong tasks.)

In 15 minutes I can walk about 1600 steps, about 1/6 of my daily stated pedestrian quota. If the ground is level and not too slippery, some of the tasks requiring diligence can go with it, the walk through the quiet neighborhood allowing email deletion and some amount of phone calling as possible.

Not coincidentally, this post took about 15 minutes to write the first time through. I'm expecting that another 15 would give it a good edit more suitable for publication (links! references to witty bloggers! links to lifehacker so that I get some traffic!) but that's less important than getting home to family right now.

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