{"id":5213,"date":"2016-05-09T18:42:40","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T18:42:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/?p=5213"},"modified":"2016-05-09T18:42:40","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T18:42:40","slug":"disciplines-of-effectiveness-control-or-filter-the-input","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/disciplines-of-effectiveness-control-or-filter-the-input\/","title":{"rendered":"Disciplines of Effectiveness: Control (or Filter) the Input"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you know the game Farmville<\/a>? It was launched on Facebook a few years ago and allowed the player to create an online farm complete with virtual livestock and plants. I like games that allow me to build virtual things (like SimCity<\/a>), and so I naturally ignored my inner caution and started playing Farmville.<\/p>\n

I virtually tilled, planted, and fed my animals. Before I knew it, I had a nice farm going. I checked on my livestock in the morning, and throughout the day – you never know when the animals may need you! I realized weeks or months that I had subconsciously been worrying about my virtual farm even when I was away from my computer and phone. It had infected my thoughts.<\/p>\n

Almost twenty years ago, I had learned this lesson. I used to play a first-person shooter called Unreal Tournament during my lunch hour. I then started playing it at night, and soon, I saw first-person shooting whenever I would close my eyes. I would close my eyes for a prayer and see me shooting an alien with a plasma rifle. I realized I had gone too far!<\/p>\n

Psychologists call this an after-image – the Tetris Effect<\/a>. Our minds can become so accustomed to a particular activity that an after-image begins to carry over into times when we\u2019re not directly engaged in the activity. The inputs that we believe can be kept in their moments become part of the rest of our moments. That can be used to good effect like we\u2019ve talked about before<\/a>. It can also be to our detriment when we become distracted from what could be a time of creating value.<\/p>\n

I believe that to be effective, we must develop a discipline of controlling the input into our minds.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Your mind has a limited capacity – let\u2019s call it 16 – numbered after the productive hours in a day. Some of your mind\u2019s processing capability is used in tuning out noise – determining what it should pay attention to and what it shouldn\u2019t. Another portion of your mind\u2019s capacity is in categorizing – putting things in buckets so as to make sense of what would be an overwhelming amount of stimulus. Some power is used in moving between tasks, getting started and winding down. Or, driving, paying attention to the road. The rest of your capacity could be used to do something productive – to create.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say that 20% of a would-be productive day is lost to \u201cstuff\u201d – driving, checking the refrigerator, getting coffee. We\u2019re left with 12.8 hours. Let\u2019s also say that family and friends, eating, doing stuff around the house, etc. take another 6 hours. Now, we\u2019re down to 6.8 hours of potentially productive time.<\/p>\n

If we spend two hours per day creating a virtual farm or shooting a virtual alien, we now have used 2 of our less than 6.8 hours – nearly 30%. We wouldn\u2019t know how to plant vegetables or tend to actual livestock. We wouldn\u2019t be able to actually fly to a space station and shoot a real plasma rifle any better. The time would be lost.<\/p>\n

Not only that, the 30% of our wasted time would carry over into the hours that we didn\u2019t intend to devote to it – the after-image. What would have been a productive 6.8 hours would then be a marginally distracted 4.8 hours.<\/p>\n

It legitimately bugs some people that I don\u2019t have auditory notifications on my cell phone. I won\u2019t get a ring if you call. I won\u2019t get a ding that you texted. I have one or two methods of communication that will display a small light on my phone if I am contacted. I will also get a small unobtrusive notification on my computer. I\u2019ve shut everything else off. No ringing, buzzing, nothing. I’ll get back to you when I want to.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not because I don\u2019t want to talk to people. It\u2019s because I cannot have their agendas become a distraction. I cannot be in the middle of working and hear a ding about something that I can attend to an hour from now. I cannot receive a Facebook notification that someone is happy about a comment. I only have 6.8 hours of potentially productive time. I know some of that will not be due to many factors outside my control, plus my own desire to be distracted from hard tasks. Tomorrow, I will have 6.8 fewer hours in my life to create something.<\/p>\n

To be truly effective, I believe that we must filter the input.<\/strong> I stopped tending to my virtual farm when I realized I could have nearly built a real farm – certainly a garden. Nearly twenty years ago I stopped playing the game until I didn\u2019t see shooting when I had my eyes closed. I had to take hold of the things going into my mind.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you don\u2019t take hold of the input, you become part of someone else\u2019s agenda. Your mind will respond to the notification. \u201cIt\u2019s only a glance down at the phone.\u201d No, you\u2019d be surprised. Farmville wanted me to keep coming back so I would eventually buy an upgrade, and Facebook could eventually use my time to show me ads. Both were agendas that I didn\u2019t want to become part of.<\/p>\n

We must recognize that the availability of information from outside our current moment depletes our ability to operate in the moment. You may have heard the phrase, \u201cbe present.\u201d That\u2019s what it means. You cannot be effective without being present, and you cannot be present if you don\u2019t bring some level of control, of filtering, those things that are not present.<\/p>\n

What would happen if you got to check on things outside of the moment on your own terms? What if you limited the ways to get immediate access to your precious brain power?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you feel some level of anxiety at the thought of disconnecting, or if you have a set of rationalizations at the ready, I\u2019d guess you\u2019re also a distracted individual, you feel like you\u2019re not accomplishing what you could in life, and people around you don\u2019t feel you\u2019re engaged.<\/p>\n

What are you allowing in? How is it affecting you?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you know the game Farmville? It was launched on…<\/p>\n

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