A Small Glossary of Quiet
Terms we use often on this site, defined plainly and without jargon. Most come up in one essay or another — follow the links to see them in context.
- Attention residue
- The lingering pull of a task you've stopped, which reduces how fully you can focus on the next one. Covered in depth in Attention Residue.
- Single-tasking
- Doing one thing at a time on purpose, as distinct from simply not having anything else to do. See What Single-Tasking Actually Feels Like.
- Ultradian rhythm
- A cycle of roughly ninety minutes that the body appears to move through across a day, alternating higher and lower capacity for focus. See Ultradian Rhythm and the Myth of the Long Push.
- Sensory load
- The cumulative demand a space places on attention through clutter, noise, and visual stimuli, before any task begins. See A Room With Less in It.
- Transition ritual
- A small, repeated gesture used to mark the boundary between two parts of a day, such as leaving work or arriving home.
- Slow first hour
- A stretch of morning kept free of messages and screens, spent on something chosen rather than reactive. See The Case for a Slow First Hour.
- Closing ritual
- A short, repeatable action at the end of the day meant to give it a definite ending, rather than letting it trail off. See The Small Ritual That Closes a Day.
- Ambient silence
- The absence of background media — no radio, no auto-playing video — as opposed to total, sealed quiet. See In Praise of a Quiet House.
- Fixed-page reading
- Reading on a medium, like paper, where the text does not scroll or refresh, which changes the rhythm of attention. See Reading on Paper, Again.
- Reactive morning
- A morning that begins by responding to other people's messages before any thought of one's own has formed.
- Task-switch cost
- The measurable slowdown that occurs when attention moves from one task to another, even briefly.
- Quiet hour
- A deliberately protected block of time, of any length, kept free of notifications and open-ended browsing.
- Cognitive load
- The total amount of mental effort being used at a given moment, which rises with interruptions and unfinished tasks.
- Micro-ritual
- A very small, consistent action — lighting a candle, making tea a certain way — used to signal the start or end of a routine.
- Unhurried commute
- Travel time between two settings treated as a transition to be experienced, not a delay to be minimized. See The Unhurried Commute.
- Deep work window
- A block of time set aside for a single demanding task, free of meetings and messages.
- Digital sunset
- An informal, self-set time in the evening after which screens are put away for the rest of the night.
- Idle attention
- Unstructured mental time with no task or input, which some find uncomfortable at first and restful afterward.
Looking for the essays these terms come from? Start on the home page, or browse quick answers in the FAQ.