Don't just manage time. Manage TEA: time, energy, attention.

From Unlimited Memory:

Where your attention goes, your energy flows.

Years ago when I first read that quote from memory grandmaster Kevin Horsely, a lightbulb went off in my head that time, energy, and attention should each be separated into their own units of analysis for knowledge workers.

Say you devote a two-hour time block to working on a specific project. Although an infinite number of things outside of your control can go wrong here, it seems only three failure modes are within your control:

1. poor time management, e.g. quitting the work before the two hours are up, despite working with enthusiasm and focus,
2. poor energy management, e.g. working with lazy indifference, despite staying on task and sticking out the two hours, and/or
3. poor attention management, e.g. for the entire two hours, you enthusiastically scroll social media rather than working on the designated project.

On the flipside, to max out on all three is to achieve a flow state.

This breakdown has proved so useful to me over the years — both as an instruction and a diagnostic — that I regularly now say things like "We should be mindful of how we deploy our TEA capital on this project" in meetings.

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