// Mornin’. Hope everyone’s enjoying the Netflix/HBO drama.
If last week’s Attention Recession piece made you quietly panic-scroll your calendar, good news: this week we’re getting into the “oh… that’s where my time went” part of the story.
And for any new readers, welcome to Signal // Noise — the newsletter read by founders, CEOs, execs, and scrappy builders every Thursday. Each week, what I’m listening to, one deep dive, notes from the field, three links worth your time. No buzzwords, no bullshit.
While I Was Writing Today’s Signal // Noise:
This mash-up of “Bitch Better Have My Money” is the ultimate representation of a Rihanna meets front-porch hoedown.
🎧 Want the whole vibe? The running playlist is right here.
From sound to signal, let’s get this baby rolling with what’s on my mind…
The Signal
One big idea, insight, or take - grounded in the real work, not theory.
Part 2: The Founder Attention Recession
Last week I talked about the “Founder Attention Recession”, that slow decrease of your focus that turns your week into a shit storm of half-finished thoughts, Slack dings, and random fires that always end taking way more time than you every imagined.
This week I’m going to talk about how I diagnosed mine, and why it was so important.
Where’d the Time Actually Go?
Most CEOs I talk to say they spend their time on the important stuff, like strategy, hiring, product: the 3 pillars of professional CEO’ing.
Adorbs.
Too bad it’s not really true.
In your head, you might think that’s accurate, but when you actually track a week — not how you feel you spent it, but how your calendar shows you spent it — the picture is usually… no bueno.
Too many meetings because “we’ve always had this meeting.”
Too many fires because “we can’t help that xyz broke at the last minute”
Too many decisions that someone else could’ve made but it fell on you.
Too many reactive rabbit holes disguised as “quick questions.”
The research backs this up, too.
CEOs consistently overestimate time on high-value work and underestimate the cost of interruptions, context switching, and putting out fires.
So last year, I ran an Attention Audit — not because I’m some productivity junky, but because as I told you last week, I needed to find more hours in the week.
The Eisenhower Time-Tracking Matrix
Someone forwarded me this at the time, it’s a simple 2×2 grid:
Important / Urgent
Important / Not Urgent
Not Important / Urgent
Not Important / Not Urgent
Nothing fancy. Just a lil’ classic 4-quadrant matrix.
i looked at where my time went during a 4-week period, and it was way too much in the two left-hand quadrants; urgent, both important and not important.
I wasn’t spending nearly enough time in the important but not urgent quadrant - which is when you think about strategy, relationships, development.
It’s pure thinking time.
I think that’s pretty typical for early-stage entrepreneurs, before you start moving toward a more intentional approach; you’re drowning in “urgent not important,” which is like living in a constant state of uniformed chaos.
A big part of the attention audit is looking at the following two categories:
strategy vs. tactics, and
decision vs. implementation.
Strategy vs. Tactics
Here’s a quick refresher:
Strategy is where you’re going and how you’ll win.
Tactics are the moves that will help you get there.
Strategy is direction, differentiation, and what you’ll say no to.
Examples:
“We’re winning by being the fastest, simplest product in the market.”
“We’re focusing on premium software only for mid-market companies.”
“We’re building a high-touch, premium brand for HNWI.”
Tactics are the playbook, not the philosophy.
Examples:
Running a webinar series.
Launching a new onboarding flow.
A/B testing pricing pages.
Hiring a full-time sales team.
Most everyone I talk to thinks, at first, that they’re doing strategy work.
In reality, they’re eating a big fat tactic sandwich.
Decisions vs. Implementation
The other thing I see a lot is the difference between:
Decisions: set direction. What are we doing?
Implementation: get it done. How do we make it happen?
Most leaders jump immediately into implementation, and let that weigh down the decision; but, they’re two very different things.
Examples of decisions:
“We’re shifting our ICP from SMB to mid-market.”
“This feature is deprioritized until Q3.”
“We’re hiring a Head of Sales.”
“We need to focus our organic content on Instagram.”
Examples of implementation:
Building the new sales deck.
Re-writing the job description and running a hiring process.
Meeting with and hiring a fractional sales team .
Researching competitive content on platform.
Most leaders start making a decision, then immediately picture the 19 downstream tasks attached to it… and suddenly the decision gets watered down, delayed, or avoided altogether.
What the Audit Actually Exposes
The audit took me probably a full-day, maybe less. But seeing the results on paper made it impossible to ignore, also, it pissed me off i was slowed down by so many un-important tasks.
But the good news? There was time to change it. And some easy fixes, too.
Next week, in Part 3, I’ll show how I rebuilt my calendar, removed myself as the human router of all decisions, and gave my team the templates & guidance they needed to help me, help them.
Field Notes
Dispatches from the field - lessons, stories, interviews, experiments.
Build your 2026 Roadmap. It doesn’t have to be hard.
If 2026 planning feels like something you’ll “get to later,” I get it. Sometimes the hardest part is just starting.
I’m sharing my stupidly simple roadmap template built for the $0–$10M phase to make that first step easy. Get the free template here.
A few Jawns to Check Out
Smart reads, sharp tools, or internet gems.
Sean Ellis points out that AI flips the old freemium model around a bit. Users expect value instantly, not after a 10-step tour or some slow-burn nurture funnel. And according to him, there are three specific parts of your product experience that now make or break whether people stick, share, and eventually pay. He breaks it all down, and more. Check it out here.
A clean, no-BS breakdown for any founder or CEO who isn’t a born marketer. It spells out exactly what the Head of Marketing job is, what results actually matter, and how to tell whether the person in that seat is driving growth or just staying busy. A great gut-check, if you need it. Check it out here.
Look, I don’t love the taste, but as someone who went to college, I’ve probably taken my share of a thousand or more Jäger–Red Bull shots. What I appreciate way more now is the founder behind it. Hard not to love a guy who refused to IPO, hated the spotlight, treated his people well, and spent half his life off in the mountains. My favorite kind of entrepreneur; think Yvon Chouinard energy. Incredible episode. Check it out here.
I don’t run ads or sponsors. So, if you’re finding value in what I write, the best way to repay me is to pass it on - tweet it, drop it on LinkedIn, or forward it to a few friends.
And until next time, thanks for reading.
Jordan
P.S. Wanna work on something? Got a pod or content idea? → Email me | Need 30–60 min of advice? → Book here | Want a coach in your corner? → More info
