Although the internet economy and expertise development are fueled by deliberate practice, mankind does not have a universal, sexy currency symbol to tally the 10,000 hours required to become a deeply experienced domain expert. The time symbol (t) used in physics and chemistry courses just doesn’t cut it. How can the lowly letter t gain ground on the unmistakable, almighty dollar ($)? The letter t has too many other responsibilities to be chosen as the the proxy currency symbol for intense focus. The currency unit for focus and time could use a makeover.

Why not use a pictogram to represent units of attention? I’d like to propose the use and adoption of ‘⇲’ as the universal code for human attention. The symbol comprises a single, nose-down arrow ploughing its way forward. And just as the dollar is abbreviated as USD (United States Dollar), attention can be abbreviated as ATTN.

Here’s an example of how I’m using the ATTN sign to track my weekend practice hours.

David’s Weekend Investments (9/18-9/19)

Biology Class: ⇲6
Biology Practice: ⇲4
Organic Chemistry Practice: ⇲4
Physics Practice: ⇲4
Technology Integration:  ⇲1.5
Design: ⇲3

Total Practice Hours: ⇲22.5

Last weekend I made ⇲16 total, so ⇲22.5 is a marked 40% increase in applied focus. From here, it’s a simple matter to imagine deploying the tools of financial analysis to your attention. Imagine creating the following each year:

1. Time balance sheet
2. Time income/outcome statement
3. Statement of retained time
4. Statement of time flows

But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, try denominating your attention for a few days, using paper and pencil to mark your daily ⇲ income and ⇲ outcome. Are you receiving a strong return on invested attention? How much of your attention is bartered one-on-one? How much ⇲ is devoted to developing your community? How much community ⇲ is devoted to developing you?

Availability

The ⇲ sign is already widely available on all modern word processors that support Unicode*, including Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, Pages and Google Docs. You can begin using it for personal use immediately; it’s easy and fast to draw, and the symbol is already available in your favorite software packages.

To see this currency gain steam, a first step may be to pitch the Microsoft Word development team to include ⇲ within the special currency symbol set, with an appropriate descriptor.

Finally, for those with a technical bent, the ⇲ can be found as Unicode character U+21F2.