Your time is not homogenously valuable

over the span of a day, a lot of your time is of similar value. it’s pretty likely that the second from 3:51:28-3:51:29 is worth about as much as the second from 3:51:29-3:51:30. but some of those seconds are *many orders of magnitude* more important than other seconds.

for example: setting up hotkeys for your workflows. you have a pretty limited working memory, which is why being “in the flow” is so crucial for some types of work. finding something in a menu bar can knock you out of your flow. programmers know this — hence e.g. Vim — but there are bunch of other things (like writing!) that this sort of work applies to. i have a hotkey shortcut to look up synonyms & antonyms for words, so i can instantly find the most appropriate phrasing. i can resize my windows with a hotkey, so that i don’t have to knock myself out of the flow to show two different drafts at the same time. etc, etc.

examples:

• setting up hotkeys
• setting up “nym” on alfred
• The average hour on six hours of sleep versus eight hours asleep
• typing speed
• basic mental arithmetic
• Knowing all the jargon in a given field

more:

• also explains why it’s sometimes a great trade to spend many hours (that aren’t very valuable) deleting just a minute or two (at points in time that are very valuable).