The Attention Dividend

Why I have less time but more presence now

It’s been a few months since I walked away from my Big Tech job, and I remember the question I had at the start of this whole journey: So what now?

Here’s the thing about leaving corporate life: the absence of structure is both liberation and vertigo. “Time management” was never the problem. The problem was attention - where it goes, who owns it, and what remains when you finally reclaim it.

I have started to live day-to-day by being clear about my purpose. And this isn’t going to be a big social media zinger - I’m not trying to “change the world” or “disrupt an industry.”

My purpose starts from my core and radiates outward:

• Family and self first - Be a caring parent and partner

• Then community - Share what I’ve learned

• Then world - Maybe, if there’s bandwidth

This isn’t settling for less. It’s understanding that sustainable impact starts from a stable foundation. You can’t pour from an empty cup, and you definitely can’t pour from a cup you’ve smashed against the wall chasing goals that do not resonate.

The Daily Structure of Purposeful Living

Every morning, I spend time aligning with this purpose with a simple question: What would make today meaningful for my family and myself?

The answer is never “ship a feature” or “influence stakeholders.” It’s usually something like “teach my kid to make a sourdough starter from scratch” or “be able to start running on that uphill section of the trail.”

I’ve reorganized my goals into three buckets:

For Family:

• Science projects for my kiddos

• Teaching my youngest how to ride the bike

• Teaching my middle child how to vibe-code

• Cooking dinners that bring everyone to the table

For Myself:

• Run a 50K trail race in January, and all the preparations that entails

• Finally beat Noita (if you know, you know - this game is punishingly hard) - a game that had vexed me for years prior and now I finally have time to figure it out, for myself

• Tend to the garden

For Others:

• Just started “vibe-coding” again - building things for the joy of creation, not metrics

• Writing these Substack pieces (hi, you’re part of my goals!)

• Mentoring without the corporate ladder context

The Attention Dividend

I don’t have more time than when I was at Big Tech. I still have the same 24 hours. But I have something more valuable - attention.

When I’m not context-switching between chats, three “urgent” docs, and a calendar that looks like Tetris played by a sadist, I discover what focused attention actually feels like.

Teaching my kids to make sourdough from scratch doesn’t take more time than a product review meeting. But it gets my full presence. No laptop open “just in case.” No phone buzzing with escalations. Just flour, water, wild yeast, and the patient explanation of fermentation to a ten-year-old.

I am learning to let go at the end of each day. It’s not hard though given the alternative.

In corporate life, you never really let go. The email chains follow you to bed. The reorg anxieties wake you in the middle of the night. The performance review cycle is always humming in the background - as I liked to say, “Perf… I mean, GRAD or whatever it’s called right now, never ends”

Now, when evening comes, I practice actual closure. The sourdough is either rising or it isn’t. The trail run happened or it didn’t. The code I wrote for fun either works or needs debugging tomorrow. There’s no performance rating waiting at the end. No promo packet to optimize.

Every day starts and ends with nothing weighing on me. By letting go each evening, I paradoxically find my purpose each morning. It’s not about grinding toward some distant goal. It’s about living each day fully, purposefully, within the bounds of what matters most.

The Measure of a Life

Let’s be clear: This only works because I saved aggressively and was extremely lucky during my tech years. I’m not selling you a “quit your job and find yourself” fantasy. I’m sharing what becomes possible when you’ve built the financial runway to experiment with different definitions of success.

But even if you’re still in the thick of your career, the principles apply. You can define purpose beyond your OKRs. You can protect your attention in small ways. You can practice letting go, even if just for an hour each evening.

When I die (meditation practice keeps this reality close), people won’t remember my code reviews or strategic initiatives. My kid might remember that I taught them to ride a bike. That I showed them how to make a sourdough starter and patient instructions. They might even remember that I showed up to trail runs consistently, even when it was raining.

They’ll remember presence, not performance ratings.

So what now? Now I live. Not a life optimized for career progression, but one optimized for presence. For family dinners where we actually taste the food. For trail runs where I notice the fog lifting off the redwoods. For coding projects that make me smile, even if they’ll never scale.

This is what life looks like for me now: fuller, quieter, and infinitely more meaningful.

Design your days for your purpose. Start there. The rest is just noise.