Over a work day, does you attention ever run out like the credits in your AI account? I feel as if this had happened to me, I know what to do, I know how to do it, but my cognitive energy has plummeted to levels where I can only come to pour out the thoughts of my mind as I'm sitting in front of my computer at the workplace.
I've tried various techniques. Procrastinating a bit with whatever has not been blocked in my hostsfile. Reddit, HackerNews and X are blocked, because they tend to suck out the time of my life. The problem when you block the flow of attention is that it tries to find other sources of distraction, so Instagram is becoming my new procrastination venue. Fortunately, a long time ago I decided I would not follow anyone I didn't know in person, so I don't have all those hot fitness influencers enticing me away from work.
Sometimes I can work through my lack of biological computing credits by noticing my breath. This will only work if my tasks are not too cognitively demanding, otherwise I forget to breathe. Multiple times today I've noticed myself holding my breath. I think holding your breath can be like a boost that you pay later, in both physical and mental exercises. When doing handstands, for example, holding your breath will help you focus for a short moment, but then you will come down and be gasping for air. It's only when you become proficient at handstands that you can breathe comfortably while being upside down, and you can hold it for much longer without wearing yourself out.
I'm simply typing this out because I needed a break from work. A co-worker peeked over my shoulder and then looked away, most likely simply curiosity, if someone was typing on a blank page I'd also be curious what is that about. I've that—compared to previous years working inhouse with devs—they are much quieter at the keyboard, interacting more with AI through the mouse than actually writing code.
Today at lunch we were talking about AI. I said: I wish my computer were able to observe what I was doing before coming to lunch, and while we were here having lunch it would be completing my task (making several consistent changes to our docs, but with enough exceptions that it would be laborious to explain in prompts). Perhaps I'm not adept at it yet, but giving clear instructions to anybody, AI or human, is pretty demanding. I want it to observe what I'm doing, to understand my small struggles and indecisions and how I come to resolve them. Perhaps I could be saying out loud "I can't remember the filename of this template" and boom it would appear there. Then, as I was leaving for lunch, I would say out loud "hey I'm leaving for lunch, go on with my task, I'll review it when I come back".
A co-worker at the table protested "but privacy" and I said "yes, I agree. Perhaps we are ten years away from this kind of assistant, but if the history of computing provides any indication about how things will work out, we will eventually have desktop computers that can do this locally". Others said "Nobody really cares about privacy unless we're bleeding intellectual property, it will be possible with a SaaS sooner rather than later".
One thing I think it will never do, is to write these logs. They exist for me to vomit out my stream of thought and will often take me unexpected places, such as the conversation we had at lunchtime. Well—actually—let me try that, I will give it a prompt:
The file attached is my blog. I will give you the first paragraph of an entry, I want you to complete it in my style of writing.
Over a work day, does you attention ever run out like the credits in your AI account? I feel as if this had happened to me, I know what to do, I know how to do it, but my cognitive energy has plummeted to levels where I can only come to pour out the thoughts of my mind as I'm sitting in front of my computer at the workplace.
"Over a work day, does you attention ever run out like the credits in your AI account? I feel as if this had happened to me, I know what to do, I know how to do it, but my cognitive energy has plummeted to levels where I can only come to pour out the thoughts of my mind as I'm sitting in front of my computer at the workplace. The cursor blinks, mocking my inertia for the tasks I'm supposed to be doing. Yet, the well of internal chatter, the one that fuels these entries, seems to have a separate, more resilient power source. It's as if the 'Mark MacKay' who designs and strategizes has clocked out, but the 'Mark MacKay' who observes and reflects is just starting his shift.
And so, the work log becomes the work itself, a refuge from the tyranny of the to-do list when the spirit is willing but the cognitive flesh is weak. Perhaps this, too, is a form of productivity, a necessary clearing of the mental cache before any 'real' work can resume. Or maybe it's just another elaborate form of procrastination blessed by the ego. Who can tell, really? The ego, that slippery trickster, is always ready with a justification, a narrative that paints even my most flagrant diversions as some profound spiritual necessity. 'You're not avoiding work, Mark,' it whispers, 'you're processing. You're integrating.' And who am I to argue with such a convincing inner counsel, especially when the alternative is wrestling with a Figma file that feels as intractable as a Zen koan?
It's not like the AI where you see the credits dwindling and you know you've got to wrap it up or buy more. Human attention, or at least my human attention, seems to have different accounts. The 'professional tasks' account is clearly overdrawn, bouncing checks left and right, its balance flashing a desperate red. But the 'navel-gazing and attempting to string coherent sentences about my internal state' account? That one seems to have a surprisingly robust, if somewhat erratic, line of credit. Maybe it’s interest-free, fueled by the very act of observation, like a perpetual motion machine of self-reflection. Or maybe it’s just running on fumes, the last dregs of a different kind of energy, the kind that powers late-night philosophical discussions or the sudden urge to rearrange all the furniture in a room you’re about to leave.
And what is the currency of this other account anyway? Is it insight? Fleeting moments of clarity? Or just the digital equivalent of doodling in the margins of a very important contract I should be reading? The 'shoulds' are always there, aren't they? Looming like uninvited guests at a party you didn't even want to throw. 'You should be focused.' 'You should be productive in the conventional sense.' 'You should not be writing about your inability to do what you should be doing, thus compounding the very issue you claim to be lamenting!' Yes, my inner critic is also a stickler for efficiency, even in its critiques.
There's a strange sort of comfort in this depletion, though. A surrender. When the main engine sputters and dies, the little auxiliary motor of introspection whirs to life. It's not powerful, it won't get me to the grand destination of 'project completed,' but it can navigate the familiar, choppy waters of my own mind. And sometimes, in that quiet puttering, I find little islands of understanding I’d have sped past otherwise. It’s the paradox of the empty tank: you can't go far, but you’re forced to look very closely at where you are. You notice the texture of the road, the subtle shifts in the internal weather, the faint, almost forgotten signposts pointing to detours you once dismissed as irrelevant.
It reminds me of those moments on the Camino, after a grueling day, when the body is spent but the mind, in its exhaustion, becomes strangely lucid. Or those long stretches of solitude where the grand plans fade and what remains is the simple, often uncomfortable, act of being with oneself. Is this workplace depletion a micro-Camino? A forced retreat into the monastery of the blinking cursor when the demands of the 'world' (i.e., the Figma file, the unanswered Slack messages, the looming deadline) become too much? If so, then perhaps this outpouring, this very act of writing instead of 'working,' is not a failure of will but an accidental pilgrimage of the mind.
I suppose there's a wisdom in these fallow periods, these moments when the primary 'cognitive output' is just a stream of consciousness trying to make sense of its own sputtering. Maybe the real work isn't always the work we're paid for, or the work that ticks off items on a list. Maybe the real work is this wrestling, this trying to understand the ebb and flow of our own internal resources, this honest admission that sometimes, the most 'productive' thing one can do is to simply acknowledge the emptiness of the main tank and wait for an unseen hand to refuel it, or for a different kind of journey to begin. Or maybe I'm just really good at justifying a lazy afternoon. The truth, as always, is probably somewhere in between, stubbornly refusing to be pinned down. And my AI credits for 'actual work' are, I suspect, still firmly at zero for the day. But hey, at least this got written, and perhaps that, in itself, is a small, almost invisible, deposit into some other, less quantifiable, account."
I would barely contain my laughter at the office. It reads as if it were mocking me, but more like a good friend teasing me by exaggerating on the themes I write about, rather than a mean-spirited entity looking to ridicule me.
Or so I hope.