Opportunity Cost in Business: Why Your Attention Is the Real Asset

Something that’s been on my mind a lot lately is opportunity cost in business.

I still remember learning about opportunity cost back in college at James Madison College at Michigan State University. The concept is simple. The cost of doing one thing is that you can’t do something else with that same time or resource.

If I schedule an interview on Monday at 9:00 AM, that hour is gone. I can’t interview someone else during that time. I can’t be with friends. I can’t work on another project. That hour is allocated.

That part is easy to understand.

Where it gets more complicated is when we look at smaller increments of time. Ten minutes scrolling on Instagram is ten minutes I’m not calling someone back or connecting in person. Fifteen seconds watching a video is fifteen seconds I won’t get back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9WXYy_b_-w

I’m not saying social media is bad. A lot of my audience and clients are there. I genuinely enjoy engaging online. I put Instagram in my bucket of things I like doing.

But opportunity cost becomes critical when you struggle to say no to things that don’t move you toward your mission.

Saying Yes Used to Be Easier

Early in my career, I said yes to almost everything.

When I was in finance for over 14 years, that made sense. If a CEO client invited me to an event, I knew other high-level people would be there. The number of invitations was manageable. It was easier to evaluate what was worth my time.

Then I moved into media.

Instead of 20 or 30 people wanting my time, it became 500 or 1,000. That forced me to develop a new skill: deciding what actually deserved my attention.

This isn’t just a media problem. More people are being forced to develop this skill because of AI.

Opportunity Cost in Business: The Fight for Your Attention

Think back to the early days of email. You’d get a few messages. Your inbox wasn’t overflowing.

Then newsletter tools and automation arrived. Suddenly, more people could reach your inbox. More emails meant more time opening, reading, and sorting.

Then social media arrived. Now your attention wasn’t just in your inbox. It was in endless scroll feeds, ads, and content competing for seconds of your time.

I’m guilty. I’ve clicked on something and thought, why am I watching this right now? There goes fifteen seconds I’ll never get back.

Now add AI to the mix.

Email outreach is more personalized and better written. Social media content is more polished. The volume has increased across the board. Even if the content is higher quality, it’s still competing for your attention.

And then there’s AI itself.

Yes, it can make you more productive. I’ve talked about that before. But there are still only so many hours in a day. If I’m more efficient, that’s great. But I’m also spending more time inside AI tools.

When you add it all up, the real issue isn’t productivity. It’s attention.

Choosing Where to Slow Down

My personal goal right now is to be more intentional with how I allocate my time.

I’m moving faster in some areas. I’m deliberately slowing down in others.

A clear example is my latest book, 1 Billion Podcasts: The Future of All Media.

We give the book away for free at 1billionpodcast.com. On that same page, people can purchase a paperback directly from us.

From a purely efficiency standpoint, this does not make sense. Amazon already handles fulfillment. It’s easy and scalable. We wouldn’t have to mail books ourselves.

But when someone buys directly from us, I sign it. I write a personal note. We ship it in-house.

That takes time.

That’s opportunity cost in business.

While I’m signing books, I can’t be doing something else. But here’s why I do it.

When someone buys on Amazon, they are Amazon’s customer. I don’t get their email. I don’t get a direct connection.

When someone orders directly from us, I get to connect. I get to make it clear there’s a real person behind the book and behind the brand.

In a world where AI can pump out unlimited content as fast as you want, I want to slow down where it matters.

I can’t quantify the return on signing those books right now. But I believe going deeper with the people who are already bought in is worth the time.

If the mission is long-term relationships, then that trade-off makes sense.

The Real Asset

The more tools that compete for our attention, the more intentional we have to be.

AI will continue to evolve. There will be more content, more tools, more things vying for our focus.

At the end of the day, the one thing we actually control is our attention.

That’s the real asset.

The question isn’t just how to move faster.

It’s where it makes sense to slow down.

And that’s what I’ve been thinking about.