In today's fast-paced digital world, we're finally realizing that "brain time" isn't just a quirky concept but a crucial economic asset. Sure, the clock on the wall is ticking, but what about the mental clock inside our heads? We're all spending a lot of "cognitive time" to complete tasks, solve problems, and come up with innovative ideas, but no one has really figured out how to manage this resource effectively. That's a big problem, especially when you consider that how long you think about a task isn't necessarily the same as how long that task actually takes in "wall clock time."
 Enter our new tech solution: Cognitive Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing, or CTABC for short. It's like a software upgrade for the well-known time-driven activity-based costing method, which many businesses already use to figure out how much their activities cost. What sets CTABC apart is that it factors in human cognition—the mental effort it takes to get stuff done. It's like having a mental stopwatch that actually keeps track of how much brainpower goes into every project, task, or activity. And guess what? It's a game-changer. Why? Because CTABC reveals a hidden glitch, or what we like to call the "hidden lever effect," that has been messing with economic efficiency. You see, most traditional costing methods overlook the cognitive load, or mental effort, it takes to complete tasks. As a result, businesses can seriously underestimate costs, leading to all kinds of inefficiencies and budget headaches.
 We're not just throwing theories here; we've run tests that show how CTABC can shine a light on these hidden costs and inefficiencies. For example, it reveals how old-school costing models often underestimate the real costs by ignoring cognitive time. Just think about it—how many times have you or your coworkers misjudged how long a task will take, not because you can't tell time, but because you didn't account for the mental effort involved? Exactly. So, what's the big takeaway? Our CTABC tech doesn't just give a more accurate picture of costs; it provides a roadmap for businesses looking to streamline operations, allocate resources more wisely, and get the most bang for their buck in a digital economy that prizes mental agility. And from an academic standpoint, our research adds a fresh perspective to ongoing debates about cost accounting tech and the evolving digital landscape. It's especially useful for tackling the age-old problem of why we're often so bad at estimating how long tasks will take. In a nutshell, CTABC is like having a new set of eyeglasses that lets businesses see the world, and their own operations, more clearly. It's high time we started paying attention to cognitive time, not just clock time, and CTABC is the tool to help us do just that.