Every lifeguard has a slow, boring afternoon. The test is whether they’re still scanning at four o’clock.

Attention is the job when nothing is happening, and that is the hardest version of any job. Hours of calm quietly train you to expect calm, which is exactly when the thing you are there to catch tends to happen. Staying alert through boredom is a skill with no visible output, so nobody applauds it. Most of the value in a watchful role is produced in the hours that look empty.

Build a rhythm into the part of your work that is dull and consequential: scan in a set pattern, check the same things in the same order. Take your breaks properly so you have attention left at four o’clock.