--- title: "The engineering manager's attention budget" url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-engineering-manager-s-attention-budget-7wsh1lp2g source_url: https://newsletter.manager.dev/p/the-engineering-manager-s-attention-budget type: article source: "Manager.dev" published: 2026-04-21T06:56:16.798Z updated: 2026-04-21T06:56:49.463Z tags: ["career", "leadership"] reading_time: 9 upvotes: 77 comments: 10 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The engineering manager's attention budget **[Manager.dev](https://daily.dev/sources/zaidesanton)** · 9 min read · 77 upvotes · 10 comments ## Summary Engineering managers have 100 'attention points' to distribute across five key areas: Delivery, People, Customers & Support, Technical Direction, and Team Future. Most EMs default to only 2-3 areas out of habit rather than intentional allocation. The '10-60 rule' suggests keeping at least 10 points in every area to prevent degradation, while avoiding going over 60 in any single area to prevent neglect elsewhere. Each area is described with minimum viable behaviors, examples of deeper engagement, and the failure modes of under- or over-investing. The framework encourages EMs to periodically audit their attention distribution and adapt to what their team actually needs at a given moment. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@a\_meb\_a** · 6 upvotes > true Story **@joncoe** · 3 upvotes > Accurate. I lived through this recently. Everything suffered except for the tech. **@akkitto** · 3 upvotes > Yes **@summonair** · 2 upvotes > Good post ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The reality of being an engineering manager](https://daily.dev/posts/the-reality-of-being-an-engineering-manager-4ewlu1nyv) · LeadDev · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career), [#leadership](https://daily.dev/tags/leadership) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-engineering-manager-s-attention-budget-7wsh1lp2g)