The Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan and the Princeton psychologist Eldar Shafir, authors of the book Scarcity, have concluded that we make bad decisions when we are strapped for time, too busy to think, and struggling to manage our obligations. Even if we take only a few hours a week of unplanned time, we can develop a bigger-picture focus or strategies for how our business actually runs.

...it’s about creating an environment in which you refuse to accept mediocrity. You instinctively push back against the urge to say There’s not enough time, or I don’t have the energy, or This requires a difficult conversation I don’t want to have, or any of the many other ways we can convince ourselves that “good enough” is good enough.

Time and attention are not something we can replenish. They are what our life is. When we offer our time and attention, we are not merely spending and paying. We are giving our lives.

As the philosopher Simone Weil once wrote, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

By learning to pay attention to what’s happening in front of us, we gain more than the sensations of life; we also increase our ability to act. We’re not thinking about what’s already happened, about what might happen, about what we have to do later; we are alert to the moment, which is where any action must take place. If our intention is to connect with other people, being present is what makes that possible.

But are we missing something here? Is the separation we perceive between work and life helping or hindering us in our quest for the good life? What if the value of work—even work we dislike—lies not just in getting paid, but also in the moment-to-moment sensations of being alive in the workplace, and the feeling of vitality we get from being connected to others? What if even the most ordinary workday presents real opportunities for improving our lives and our sense of being connected to the broader world?