https://x.com/Jaden_riku/status/2039002380524736531?s=20
You’ve had this experience — you’ve been lying on your bed at night and brushing your cell phone, and just trying to see if there’s any important news today, and it turns out that an hour has passed since you saw three big business guys sharing, two deep letters, five short videos, and then the moment you locked the screen, it suddenly felt like nothing had been done today.
I think the biggest dilemma of our generation is not that we are incapable, not that we have no direction, not that we have no time, but that our attention is cut to pieces, that each piece is small, that you can’t do anything with it that has depth, but you think you’re busy, that you’ve been learning and progressing.
This feeling is particularly deceptive.
What kind of “time anxiety”?
I look around, including myself, and it’s sort of a couple of types.
The first is a multi-trace processor. This guy runs eight projects at the same time, we talk to three clients, we run two programs at the back, we have a book on the side of the table that’s not finished, and everything goes a little further, but you ask him what he’s done today, and he can’t say it.I’ve been doing this for a while, feeling particularly busy, but by the end of the month, when I rewrite, I found that there were really few things delivered, that most of the energy was spent on “overturning,” that the task jumped from one task to another, and that the brain was reloading the context at each jump, which was a huge hidden cost.
The second is the deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-out. Once in a state, the person can write four hours of code or three hours of programme, with a high output, but the problem is that he is hard to start, and may be dawging, brushing his cell phone, making coffee, making up his desktop, and finally sit down and get ready to work, and it is 2:00 p.m.
The third is the message of thirst, anxiety, and the feeling that I’m missing something important, that I haven’t tried new tools, that I don’t know what’s going on in the industry.FOMOLike a hand pushing you behind your back, you keep looking, keeping looking, keeping collecting, but the collection is getting full and the content really digesting is getting less and less.
What kind of a person are you? Or are you just like me, like, a little bit of all three?
Attention is capital. You have to take care of it like money.
I did not original this idea, but I really understood the weight of that statement when I took up my own system of work.
We have a mature logic in charge of money: income, expenditure, budget, and double-tracking. But we’re focused. It’s completely pacified. You see, one message from a micro-fibre, you point in a circle of friends, you push into a hot spot, you see anything — that’s like you open your wallet on the street, you can pick up a little bit of it by the way, and you think, “I don’t spend much money today.”
Naval RavikantIn the Navarre Book, a phrase was said to the effect that: if you don’t even value your time, don’t expect others to. I think that this is more accurate — if you don’t even protect yourself, don’t complain that it is being consumed.
It’s not a question of “efficiency skills,” it’s a question of “how do you see your most scarce resources.”
I built myself a Time House.
I started to put myself in a management system when I thought that attention was capital. I called it the Time House — it sounds like a middle-class, but it’s a bond, it’s a noise that keeps the focus on the way.
The heart of the time house is not to make you more busy, but rather to keep you calm, because you know what to do with it.AII’ve sifted you. It’s time for your decision.AII’ve got you all figured out.AIYou’ve done it for you. You’ve got the rest of the time.
And I’ll take the whole structure of the system apart. If you just want to see the logic, just turn it off here. If you really want to change something, look down.
The four-storey structure of the time house.
I split the system into four layers, corresponding to four stages of the flow of attention: filtering, thinking, output, charging.
First tier: Convergence Console — the first place open every day
00-结界控制台/├── 每日仪表盘.md ← 今日注意力预算：输入和输出的比例├── 本周焦点.md ← 最多3件事，多了就是FOMO在作祟└── 噪音隔离清单.md ← 本周明确不看/不想/不碰的事This controller solves a fundamental problem: what are you doing today?
I used to turn on computers in the morning, read the mail, brush the social media, “Cool the machine,” and it got warm for two hours, and it went off in the morning. Now I turn on the computer first thing I do is read the daily dashboard, and there are three questions — what’s the most important thing today? How much attention I’d like to spend on input and output? What is it that I clearly didn’t touch today?
There is a concept in Atom Customs that is called “execution of intent” — not “I want to focus more on it,” but “when, where, what I do.” The daily dashboard is where it is: not vaguely thinking “do your job today,” but black and white writing the allocation of attention.
That noise-segregated list is particularly useful. You write “The Not-A-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-We-
This week’s focus is three things at most. This is a hard rule. If you find yourself in five or eight, that’s not your ability, that’s not what you learned to say no. I broke the rule my first week. The fourth project is, “Look, I’m just gonna do three projects.”
Level 2: Input layer — filtering before entering the door
01-输入层-过滤后才进门/├── AI精选日报/ ← 每日摘要存档├── 深读队列/ ← 值得花30分钟以上读的，排队进├── 灵感捕捉.md ← 闪念速记，不展开，不纠结└── 信息断舍离.md ← 退订/取关/屏蔽的记录This level is cure.FOMOCore.
The principle is simple: information is not to look, but to filter it into your eyes. I’m now all advanced in everything I want to see.AIThe filtering layer, which automatically generates summaries, I spend 10 minutes per morning cleaning it up, and I think it’s not really about reading it right now — it’s about putting it in the deep reading queue, sorting it in the line, waiting for the input time to be used.
Inspiring to capture this document is particularly important. I’ve just come up with an idea in my head. I’ve been working on it, studying it, and verifying it. I’ve been able to steal it all afternoon. My rule is now: “Adopt to write a sentence to this document, not more than three lines, not to start, not to get involved.
Cal NewportIn Deep Work, this is called “the attention residue.” You’re on mission.ASwitch to TaskBBut the brain still has a part of it.AEvery time “I look at it” leaves a residue in the brain, accumulates into the afternoon’s dissipation. The effect of inspiration capture is to give these remnants a safe landing, so that they don’t interfere with your line of work.
The message is a log sheet, one for each checkout.NewsletterAnd I’m keeping a checkbook here, and I’m keeping a list of the conversation. The purpose is not to back up, but to show you that you’re making progress — a change last month.12A public number. It’s off.20A account number, you’ll find the world is not different, but you’re a lot cleaner.
Level 3: Thinking layer + Output layer — think carefully, make it.
02-思考层-想清楚再动手/├── 决策日志/ ← 背景→选项→分析→选择→结果├── 思维沉淀/ ← 从输入层"毕业"的想法└── 本周复盘.md ← 哪些判断对了，哪些错了
03-输出层-只做能交付的事/├── 进行中/ ← 同时最多3个，硬性上限├── 已交付/ ← 完成就归档└── 分发记录.md ← 一份内容→多端分发追踪The thought and output layers are connected, because if you do not think clearly, you have to deliver.
The decision log is a new habit that I have developed. When I have to choose, I have to put my background, options, concerns out, do a structured pros and cons analysis, and then write down the analysis process and my final choice. Looking back at these logs in three months, you will see very clearly how you make decisions — which areas are intuitional and which are always misjudged.
It’s actually a method from…Ray DalioThe difference between a swather and an institutional investor is not an intelligence, it is whether there is a system to prevent a repetition of his own mistakes. The same is true of attention.
There’s a iron law on the output layer: no more than three projects are under way at the same time. More than three, you’re not pushing the project, you’re running around the project and pretending to be busy.Greg McKeownIn Preciousism, it is clear — if you want anything, you get nothing. Three are the ceilings I try to get over and over again, and once the fourth thing I want comes out, either I deliver one, or the new idea is to be in a row of inspiration.
Layer 4: The power layer - refining its own place
04-能量层-修炼自己的地方/├── 阅读笔记/ ← 不是摘抄，是"这本书改变了我什么"├── 技能修炼日志.md ← 刻意练习记录└── 散步灵感.md ← 离开屏幕后冒出来的想法Not on this floor.KPI/ No output requirement, simply charging itself.
I read the notes, and then I found out six months later why I felt that it was good. Now I write the notes and I answer only one question: Which one of my perceptions or behaviors has changed? If I don’t answer, it means that the book is information, not knowledge, for you, and it is a file.
The walk inspired the document is my favorite. The best ideas are not sitting on the screen, they come out of the air.Nassim TalebIn “Avert Vulnerabilities,” there is a concept called “the wisdom of wandering around” — systems that require a certain amount of randomness and laxity to keep their creativity, and you fill every minute with “efficient output” — and you become vulnerable. The energy layer is deliberately left with “inefficient time” — but it is precisely these time that makes the other three more functional.
Let the system run itself.
The document structure is not enough, and you need a few automated rules to keep the system from operating on your own:
Rule number one: Auto-generated dashboards every morning. Scanning is ongoing, deep reading queues, inspirational capture, and produces a survey of today. You just need to make a judgement: how the budget is allocated today.
Rule 2: Entering must be filtered to enter the thinking layer. Any information is enough to be “upgraded” to the thinking layer, and it is stuck with a particularly common bad habit — seeing something interesting immediately dives in, and two hours later discovers that it is getting further away from today’s business.
Rule three: Three layers of output, and no new items. Hard reminders: either deliver one or come back to the line of inspiration. This rule has helped me block countless impulses.
Rule 4: A weekly day automatically generates a redisk. This week’s input output ratio, key choices in the decision log, implementation of the noise segregation list — 20 minutes to see if the week’s attention is worth a lot.
The bookshelves of the Time House: these books have changed the way I manage my attention.
I’ve been doing this system a lot of books. I’m going to use the “Introduction to Bottom Awareness” to say three levels, not every one of them, just take it as you need it.
Introduction: building basic knowledge first
Atom CustomsJames Clear– Do not try to change behavior by will, by system. Every rule of the time house is essentially designed to make good habits happen.
“The Navarre Book.”Eric JorgensonCollapse — understanding of “leveraging” will change your perception of time completely.NavalThe central point is that you should spend your time on something that costs nothing marginal.AIThat’s the lever.
Deep WorkCal NewportThe concept of “remote” comes from this book. You’ll understand why “see a cell phone” is a lie.
Step: Understanding the system behind the system
“Pulsistism.”Essentialism) Greg McKeown- If Atom Customs teaches you how to do it, it teaches you how not to do it. It convinces you that “less is more” is not chicken soup, but a choice that requires courage. The core argument of the book is: if it’s not clear, it’s a point of view.YesThat’s one.NoMy “three project cap” rule comes directly from the book’s philosophy.
PrinciplesRay Dalio- The inspirational source of the decision log.DalioYou don’t need to do that, but you’re a habit of recording important decisions, and you’ll be grateful to yourself in three months.
“The Heart”Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi– Understanding what conditions people can take to deep immersion. If you’re a “deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-deep-dry-dry-dry-dry-dry-dry-dry-dry-dry-dry-dry-dry-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick-dry-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick-dick.
“The Nasty Courage” to Ichiro/Kupaga Skeak — apparently not about efficiency, but it solves a deeper problem: yours.FOMOHow many are from “fear of being left behind”? Adler’s psychology tells you that when you separate the subject, you’ll be much easier. What others do is someone else’s subject, you just have to mind yourself.
Bottom-level perception: re-understanding time, randomity and human nature
“Anti-Vulnerability”Nassim Taleb- The theoretical basis for “the wit of wandering” and “the energy layer.”TalebI understand why filling every minute is a fragile optimization, and systems need redundancy and randomity to remain resilient and creative.
“The Game of Limited and Unlimited.”James Carse- A very thin book but it changes the way you look at a lot of things.FOMOIn essence, playing an infinite game with a limited game — you’re racing, you’re comparing output, you’re comparing speed, but life is not a finish line, and your only opponent is yesterday’s.
The beauty of the system.Thinking in Systems) Donella Meadows– Read this and you’ll see everything in a systematic way, including your own attention management. The time hut is essentially a system with feedback loops – input, process, output, retweeper, adjustment, each level is signaling the other.
“Short”Sendhil Mullainathan– The book explains an intuitive phenomenon in behavioral economics: the more busy people make bad decisions, because the “cognitive bandwidth” is full, and you have nothing to think about what is important. The concept of “obstective bankruptcy,” you’ll feel deeper when you finish reading it.
No need to read it all. If one of the “multiline processors” type is the one who reads “Accentism,” “Deep-Deep-Deep,” “Info-Hungry” is the one who reads “Short.” It’s more useful than reading anything about the drug.
My toolbox.
The tool is a screw, not a lead. I’m using myself as a column, so you pick as you need:
Can not open messageReadwise Reader（AISummary + Read later)Perplexity(Simple search to replace 10 tabs)Feedly（RSS + AIFilter Rules)
Decision support:ClaudeDialogue (translation of vague bonds into structured analysis of pros and cons),Granola(Autolog + Summary of Meetings),Reclaim.ai（AI(Autoscheduled)
Accelerated implementation:Claude Code / Cursor(Criteria, reformation, documentation)NotebookLM（100PagePDFFive minutes digestion)
Distribution of:Descript (text to video),Gamma(Text as a Presentation)
These tools together are about three or four hours a day. But it’s not about saving time, it’s about saving time, what you did. If you save three hours and brush your cell phone, you just lose your attention in a different way.
And finally, say something real.
I used to be the kind of guy who was so anxious, and felt the world was changing too fast.AIOne day, without learning tomorrow, they’re out. And then I figured out one thing: real competitiveness is never how much you know, but you can turn what you know into real output.
A man spends 10 hours a day.AIThe news never moves, and it only takes 10 minutes a day to learn about the dynamics with another person, but to spend all the time left to do things. Who is the difference even greater after three months?
The answer is obvious.
If you do one thing today — open the memo and write down three things you clearly didn’t touch this week — that’s your first wall.
Close the door. Put your phone far away.AIHelp you secure the outside world.
And then you can finally be quiet and mend yourself.