One tool to regain your time, attention, energy and focus

Last week, I left you on a cliff.

I shared the modern systems stealing our vitality and keeping us stuck in urgency, disconnection and extraction.

Today I want to share one tool that can be an answer to those systems, and a way to regain our well-being, while working towards our most meaningful goals.

Most of us are living inside of one kind of time.

Chronos time: the ticking, scheduling, calendar-based time we try to manage, control and squeeze more into.

But there’s another kind of time.

Kairos time: the rich, meaningful, in-the-zone moments where time disappears and everything flows.

These two time philosophies date back to ancient Greece, where Chronos was the god of chronological time and Kairos the god of the right, opportune moment.

Over time, especially through the rise of industrialization and productivity culture, we came to revere Chronos, the time we can measure, control, and monetize, while Kairos was forgotten, dismissed as impractical or unproductive.

Chronos became the idol God of modern time. Kairos became a myth we long for, but rarely make room to experience.

We built our lives worshipping this linear time.

Productivity tools, time hacks, colour-coded calendars.

But without Kairos time, nothing we do feels worth it.

When we leverage the value of both, Chronos becomes the container and Kairos is what fills it.

And we can have both:

We do this by reclaiming something most of us were never taught about:

Our Ultradian Rhythm

It’s the body’s natural energy cycle that operates in 90- to 120-minute waves of energy throughout the day.

Your body runs on these cycles all day long, just like it runs on circadian rhythms at night.

But if you ignore these cycles (by pushing through fatigue, or skipping recovery), you activate your sympathetic nervous system, creating stress and burnout.

If you work with them, you enter flow. Consistently, repeatedly and without effort.

The key is to understand that WHEN you work matters just as much as HOW you work.

Every Ultradian cycle gives you a window of focus and peak performance if you align with it.

Each recovery phase restores your neurobiology so you can reset your capacity to focus again.

This is how Chronos time becomes Kairos time.

It’s how we blend the pre-Industrial Revolution mindset of purpose-driven, goal-directed activity, with the benefits of modern technology and advancement.

When you sync to your natural energy rhythms, effort becomes easy and output becomes meaningful.

Here’s how you can start to reclaim it.

Try this simple 3-day reset:

1. Set a timer to go off every 90-minutes, starting as soon as you wake up.

2. When it does, rate your energy, mood and focus (1-5).

3. Note when you’re feeling sharp and when you fade.

4. Begin shifting your work and highest output needs to match your peaks.

5. Honour the valleys of rest with short walks, stillness, and breaks from screens.

Overtime you will notice when you’re pushing through fatigue, and when you’re capable of flow.

You can then start to place your most meaningful activities inside of your peaks, and find restful practices to support your recovery needs.

These small shifts lead to massive gains.

Because when you align more to your natural rhythm, the more you work with your body, not against it.

You become capable of doing more, in less time with an insane amount of energy.

This is the key to ending time management, and increasing what I call time design.

If you’re interested in exploring this deeper, reach out.

I’d love to share how I am helping my clients reclaim 14+ hours a week with this technique so they can spend their energy on what matters most.

Much Love,

Cory Firth
Creator of One Minute Weekend

Let’s work together!