A powerful example of how we can be paralyzed by distraction was presented at Friday's Strategy Mastermind Group.

One of our members, who I happen to know is extremely intelligent and not easily flustered, couldn't hardly answer a group of simple questions.  She struggled with remembering her mother's birthday.  She incorrectly identified Green Day and Blink 182 as two of her favorite bands (they are not we later found out).  What happened that made a normally sharp individual have so much trouble?

I asked her questions in a strange order.  I gave her part of a math problem followed by the date question, followed by a question about her 3rd favorite band, followed by a random statement about Donald Trump's crazy hair.  The inputs weren't complex, but they were disorganized.  It was noise.  It was chaos.

We don't work well in chaos.  This exercise wasn't intended to pick on Megan (although that was a side benefit), it was designed to fluster anyone.  It was also designed to show what can happen to any of us in a typical day where the phone rings, emails arrive, news streams via the web, and people come to visit. 

Fortunately, we began to discuss a solution.  We talked about forming a system to help convert this noise into ordered and prioritized information.  We talked about some important tools like Gmail and Highrise (www.highrisehq.com) that can help you leverage the power of technology to bring order to your life. 

So... how is your system coming along?  Did you read this post at the right time, or was this just another distraction...  We are ALL works in progress!!!

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