Joseph McCormack - 26 Nov

living and leading when nobody can focus

Cover design/Art direction: Megan Palicki
Illustration design: Joan Bueta

Copyright 2020 by Joseph McCormack. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Names: McCormack, Joseph, 1965- author.
Title: Noise : living and leading when nobody can focus / Joseph McCormack.
Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2020] | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019030965 (print) | LCCN 2019030966 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119553373 (Hardcover) | ISBN 9781119553359 (ePDF) | ISBN 9781119553366 (ePub)
Subjects: LCSH: Distraction (Psychology) | Noise. | Leadership.
Classification: LCC BF323.D5 M33 2020 (print) | LCC BF323.D5 (ebook) | DDC 153.7/33dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019030965
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019030966

This book is dedicated to all of my brothers and sisters (Mary Carol,
Jean, Matt, Peg, Annie, Kate, John, and Patrick), a constant
source of encouragement, laughter, inspiration, and love.
From my childhood to the present day, they are the best
family one could have. In particular, I dedicate this book
to my late brother Johnny, my best friend and closest
collaborator, whom I miss dearly every day and work
hard to honor.

Joe graciously mailed me a pre-release copy of NOISE, the book youre now holding. After reading it, I conducted a little experiment:

I disabled my e-mail alerts, shushed my social, and nuked (most of) my notifications.

Muzzled. Gag-ordered. Zipped.

Mind you, I didnt delete any of my accounts. Ive in no way pulled a Henry David Thoreau and left the digital city for the analog woods altogether. This is neither a Finished with Facebook! freakout, nor a malaise of modernity manifesto. Rather:

I simply realized I was done with being distracted.

Field Notes from Three Months in a Quiet Place:

• Once you get below a certain threshold of omnipresent sound and fury, you start to take more notice of those few distractions that do sneak through. Like a single person gabbing in a library, you hear them more intensely than any single, screaming voice in a crowd. Case in point: I found myself wondering, Is it in any way acceptable that Yahoo! Sports is daring to bother me about Florida Atlantic Football Coach Lane Kiffin right now? On a Tuesday morning? This is a library! So, I turned off those notifications, too.
• You start to develop a calming, confidence-building sense of flow and control. You begin [Scouts Honor: As I sit here writing this, my Apple Watch taps me on the wrist to let me know that Americans eat 554 million Jack in the Box tacos a year, and no one knows why. Sorry WSJ Youre now shushed too.] Nuts! I lost my train of thought. What was I saying? Oh yes: You begin to realize that context-switching is a productivity killer, and that every time youre dragged off course by an unexpected distraction, youve just lost real time and money. Your mind takes time to accelerate into whatever it is youre focusing on next. Too many nexts, and youre forever stuck in first gear.
• My various digital assistants had become my digital bosses. By constantly demanding my attention, my phone had pulled rank and began to call the shots. Id really like to finish this Foreword right now, but bossypants has swooped in and demanded that I focus on tacos. By simply resetting my relationship with my devices to pull as opposed to push, I find that theyre profoundly less pushy. Suddenly, my phone is back to taking orders as the trusty personal assistant Id originally hired way back in 2007.

This important book, NOISE, is ultimately about Attention Economics. About the idea that a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.

Nobel Prizewinning economist Herbert Simon wrote that quoted bit in 1971. Before smartphones. Before the Web. Before cable TV.

Nearly 50 years on, Joe McCormack brings us the means to prosper in this poverty. NOISE isnt a radical license to unplug and live in an uninformed bubble, but a playbook to help us be radically intentional about the sourcesand formatsof information worthy of our precious time and attention. Not earplugs: a hearing aid.

Consider NOISE both a challenge and an encouragement to attend to your plannot the next ding.

Mike Bechtel

Futurist, Deloitte

Professor of Corporate Innovation, University of Notre Dame

Moving beyond digital interventions, Ive since posted a paper sign outside my home office door that says: Dads Busy Earning Your Roof, Meals, & Allowance. Emergencies Only!

I hear racing footfalls of my 7- and 9-year-olds, building to a crescendo.

Knock Knock Knock.

Dads working, guys. Is it an emergency?