Being intentional with your time when everything is busy

I’ve noticed something recently that I don’t love.

My hill walks with my dog Gibson have turned into “content time”.

It used to be simple: I’m out with the dog, I’ll do a quick video.

Now it’s starting to feel like I’m going up the hill to make a video… and Gibson happens to be with me.

That’s the bit I want to catch.

Since becoming a dad, Gibson gets less attention than he used to. That was always going to happen. We knew it would.

But the time I do have with him should actually be with him — not him on the sidelines while I’m thinking about what to say to a camera.

I’m not saying I’ll never film on a walk again. I just want to do less of it.

And I want the default to be “walk the dog” again, not “make a post”.

The more I’ve thought about it, the more I don’t think this is just a personal habit thing.

It feels like a wider pattern in modern work. We’ve become very good at doing two things badly at the same time.

Laptop open, call on, Slack flashing, half listening, half thinking, fully tired.

And because it looks busy, we just accept it.

It’s not only meetings and screens either. It creeps into everything around work. Home becomes office. Walks become content time. Gym sessions become podcast-and-thinking time. Even a quiet hour starts to feel like something that should be “used properly”.

I’m not anti-flexibility. Far from it.

But I do think a lot of people are living in half-attention now, and it has a bigger impact than we admit. Not just on output, but on mood, patience, and whether work feels satisfying or whether it just feels endless.

The workplace isn’t only the building.

It’s the set of conditions around your attention.

The half-attention trap

You can see it in smaller ways too.

The gym is the easiest example.

Podcast on. Great.

Except half the time I’m properly listening and the workout is a bit lazy. Or I’m focused on the workout and I realise I haven’t taken in a word.

So I’m not really doing either.

It’s not deep.

It’s just busyness turning everything into half-attention.

Reset points

A few years back I was working with a personal trainer and he drilled one point into me:

If you’re going to do something, do it intentionally.

Otherwise you’re just coasting through it.

Annoyingly, he was right.

So I’m going to give myself reset points.

Nothing fancy. Once a quarter. Half an hour. Just to ask: what am I spending my time on, what’s actually giving me something back, and what’s just quietly become background noise.

I’m not trying to become some perfect, present human. I’m just catching this drift before it becomes the new normal.

One caveat

One caveat before someone shouts at me though…

If you’re on a long drive, put a podcast on. Or an album you actually want to listen to. It makes the miles go more quickly.

There’s not much value in “being present with the drive” unless you’ve got a really nice car and you’re doing it for fun.

In which case…

What are you driving?