Knowledge is Shaped by Time, Energy, and Attention

Knowledge is not a static possession, a Confluence page waiting to be discovered. Knowledge emerges as we invest our time, energy, and attention in meaning-directed, practices , taking feedback-informed action.

Time is not a uniform, one-way line. Decisions cause ripples, not fixes. A single event can trigger time loops (recurring decisions), delays (blockers), acceleration (emergencies), and cascades (fire drills) in a chaotic way.

Rather than managing time, controlling it with Gantt charts and set-in-stone project plans, we adopt practices that treat time as a living medium we are moving through.

This is called temporal intelligence: the organizational capacity to design asynchronous systems.

Navigating temporal currents is the path we follow. On that path, we develop the temporal intelligence needed to design dynamic patterns rather than linear fixes. We design meaningful responses to real-time events. Not one-size-fits-all responses, we also respond in context.

An example of temporal intelligence is Async Event Response Design:

When a single significant event happens (e.g., the internet goes down, a big sale launches, changing shipping vendors) we can design an asynchronous response plan.

We can keep meaning coherent across roles and times; as information flows, we understand how every context is impacted. We understand what each person or software system need to know. We don’t think of this as an emergency to control. We enable operational pattern to shift how do they respond, depending on what they experience. We encourage other parts of the system (software and teams) to consider impact and design ways to support each other.

Chances are, you have already designed temporal intelligence. Whenever a system talks back through feedback, like querying a database, that’s an example! Whenever you expand simple give and receive transactional patterns into dynamic listening patterns, you are taking a step towards flow. And paying attention to the impact of “who is paying attention to what”, in real time.

Consider this:

Are you facing a problem that sometimes happens – dependent on circumstances? How do you figure out the patterns involved?