Signal-to-Noise

It's all about signal-to-noise! One foundational principle in the art of impact is that of constantly boosting signal (the important, the significant; those activities that add value, that are consistent with our aims and principles, that we care about) while relentlessly reducing noise (the trivial, the non-important, distractions and time-wasters). This is an analytical concept at heart; in all sorts of scientific situations we are trying to detect an effect or a thing in the midst of a sea of noise. The pentaquark [1], the icy plains on Pluto [2], or even primordial B-mode polarizations :) [3].  It's the crux of clinical research, demonstrating that medicines show a real effect in the face of massive human variability. This is the reason for the mathematical discipline of statistics, allowing us to give degrees of confidence related to whether our result is real or just an artifact of the background noise.

Thinking in terms of signal-to-noise is a simple and powerful mental model. Questioning whether we are boosting signal or boosting noise in every moment helps keep focus on the important, and develops habits that reduce the amount of energy we expend on tasks that are not adding value to our lives. Every day noise mounts its sensory assault: email, smartphones, apps, junk mail, stray thoughts and worries, radio, TV, the boss, our colleagues and friends; sifting through this morass to find the signal is a redoubtable challenge. To do this we must be clear on what constitutes "signal"; it's anything that matters, anything that contributes to our goals or aligns with our values, provides us material with which we can create and innovate, or gives us and our community pleasure or meaning. This implies that we must be clear on our values and our goals, establishing even fuzzy goals has a huge benefit in separating the worthwhile from the worthless.

For example, for the tech nerds among us, the amplification of signal requires us to think hard about how we organize our smartphone and tablet screen real estate. This layout should make it easy to access those apps and programs that contribute to moving us towards our goals, maybe a note-taking app, the camera, a music or radio service, or Waze to actually guide us to our destination. More importantly it pays to be ruthless in reducing technology-noise, removing all distractions by disabling badges for any apps that do not signal something important, and reducing the number of apps and screen pages to a minimum. This way we are not alarmed by pages of red badges signaling meaningless information, the badges actually represent signal rather than noise. If you think I'm being over-sensitive here, note that even the gurus at the Harvard Business Review concur, as a recent article on the reduction in productivity caused by the simple buzzing of a cellphone attests [4].

A signal-to-noise mindset helps in strategic decisions too. Coming back to the physical, in boxing or martial arts we are always looking for a signal--literally a telegraph--that lets us anticipate the opponent's next move and counter effectively. Conversely we work to dissimilate any signals we are emitting, not giving our adversary any advance notice of what's coming next, or using feints and decoys as noise in which we can hide real intent. In war, the use of smokescreens and chaff [5] amplify noise that impairs visual and radar ability to see the signal, the incoming soldier, plane or missile until their mission is accomplished.

So add this one to your mental model library; make sure you are hitting with impact, generating a strong signal with minimum effort, and not simply contributing to the background noise, impeding impact and wasting energy.

References
1. Pentaquarks: A New State of Matter: pentaquarks
2. New Horizons team baffled by discovery of Icy Plains on Pluto
3. How the Biggest Scientific Discovery of the Year Was Kept a Secret: primordial B-modes
4. Just Hearing Your Phone Buzz Hurts Your Productivity: Phone buzz productivity
5. Wikipedia, Chaff (countermeasure): chaff