When the Noise Becomes the Signal
Kevin O'Leary has been talking about the Signal and the Noise quite a bit on social media lately. He attributes the idea to Steve Jobs and suggests that Elon Musk may be the best at putting it into practice.
The Signal is what we must focus on to move our goals forward. The process is simple: identify three critical things that must get done that day. Everything else is the Noise and gets ignored.
I’ve been employing this technique, and here’s what I have discovered. This method works. It moves the needle. Nobody can argue that Jobs and Musk built extraordinary things by staying locked in on what mattered most. But what I also noticed is that while I accomplish remarkable things using this approach, it often comes at the expense of life itself.
My office gets cluttered to the point where the disorganization starts slowing me down. Emails pile up until the inbox becomes a burden rather than a tool. Family, friends, and the dog all take a hit when high performance has me up at 6:00 AM and working until late at night.
That is not performance. That is missing my boat because I am hanging out at the airport.
Here is what I recommend. Build your list of three Signals each day, but occasionally let one of them be a life task. Clean up the clutter. Return the overdue emails. Watch a show. Take the dog out. Not as a reward but as a requirement. A disorganized life creates drag on everything else, and a family that’s lost connection with you is not a success story.
The goal is to perform at a high level for a long time. That requires maintenance, not just output.
Win the game.
Just make sure your life isn’t a mess when you get there.
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