TN50#77, An Audit You Might Like, 27 June 2022

Happy Monday and welcome to The Next 50 #77.  After spending 5 years at a Money Movement Company, I can tell you audits suck.  So imagine my surprise to be recommending an Attention Audit to all of you.

First a little house cleaning; based on feedback or lack thereof I am guessing almost no one listens to any podcast I ever reference in a blog, if you listened to either pod I referenced last week please take 5 seconds and let me know.  With that in mind, I am happy to say #77 is also going to recommend you listen to a podcast! Oh man, I crack myself up!

The Founder of The Life Coach School, Brooke Castillo, just released episode #427, last week and it is all about conducting an Attention Audit.  I imagine you all have done a calendar review to see where your time is going, I know this is a tool in every big consultant firm’s tool box; I have done a few sponsored exercises over the years but this one is different enough to share.  One thing that I have learned over the years as Husband, Dad, Soldier, Coach, et cetera is that everyone hears or understands differently, I personally like the idea of focusing on what I give my attention vs. time because we all know we can have 2 hours blocked for the “ONE THING” and not get jack nor crap done in those 2 hours because of a lack of attention – or is this just me?

Here’s the basics:

  1. Imagine you have 100 units of attention to use every day. 16 hours divided into 100 units; a unit is about 10 minutes, 9.6 minutes for you accountants and lawyers.
  2. Split a piece of paper into 2 columns; business and personal
  3. Write down the following in both columns:
  4. What I choose to give attention
  5. What demands my attention
  6. What I want to give attention to but don’t
  7. Decide what’s out of balance, this should be easy:
  8. Doing too much of this
  9. Not doing enough of that
  10. What do you intend to spend 1 unit of attention on that turns into losing 10 units?
  11. Reorganize your attention:
  12. Take one unit you waste on SM and call your mom or text your kid
  13. Take three units you waste on SM and walk your dog
  14. Delegate things that you can to kids and employees
  15. Allocate a few more units to work on the business instead of in the business
  16. You get the idea

Some other cool ideas:

  1. Filter for what energizes you vs. what drags you down, if these are unavoidable you can plan them to align with your natural daily rhythm.
  2. Look at where you can save units by being future focused, this will actually give you more time in the present. Making dinner reservations 2 weeks out instead of the night of.
  3. Write a thought down load to capture your initial surprise based on the results of what you are giving your attention too, then use the audit and the thought down load to check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Now I personally think you should still give the pod a listen during your commute or elliptical time, but I also understand that this might be 4 units of attention that you can’t spare.

As always, please let me know any thoughts or comments you have on this and share the post with your team or anyone who might find it useful.

Have a good one, Alex