If you wonder why everything made is defective, why everybody makes so many mistakes, why nobody can concentrate, why people seem stupid, and why productivity sucks, here is the very simple answer: according to recent research reported in Business Insider, the typical person checks their smart-phone at least 2,617 times a day. Also, 72% of people grab their phones immediately after waking up. 

In a 16-hour day; hours awake, there are 960 minutes. That’s all. If the stop, check something on smart-phone, re-start other activity requires an average of only 10 seconds (which I doubt), then 436 of the 960 minutes are now consumed by the smart-phone. 46% of a person’s day. Nearly half. 

The attention span of ferrets is falsely maligned. To ferret (verb) means to tenaciously search something out, named after the ferret, used in Europe to hunt rabbits, because of their ability to concentrate and pursue. The single-mindedness of the Willy Wagtails in my front yard is equally as fascinating. The ones readying for spring work diligently, systematically covering the entire area, unearthing nuts or twigs, etc., taking them to their under-construction nests. If there is a strange noise, they can freeze in place for many minutes, listening. If Willy Wagtails checked their smart-phones 2,617 times a day, they’d never breed, be extinct or be eaten. 

American entrepreneur and author Jim Rohn said you can erase the mystery of the highly successful person by following them around all day, every day for a week. 

You’ll say: wow, look at EVERYTHING they do. 

My bet is you won’t catch many disrupting their days checking their smart-phones 2,617 times. Not part of everything they do. You really have to decide whose behaviour to adopt. If the goal is exceptional success, adopting behaviours of the typical person or typical company, is likely a bad idea. Let’s be blunt: the typical person in general, in your industry, in your circle of family, friends, neighbours is likely not a super achiever or winner. 

On the flip side of Rohn’s observation is discernment. There’s a difference between “everything they do” and trying to do everything there is to do. 

Let this message be a call to more discernment. 

Who you listen to, read, associate with. What you try to do. Where and how you invest your resources all need to be carefully guarded. 

One of my best clients came to a meeting with four pages on which to take notes, each with a heading denoting the nature of information he was looking for, relevant to the projects he was working on. He told me when he heard something that fit one of those four, he captured the ideas, contacts, etc. – anything he heard that didn’t fit one of the four, he ignored. 

This is the same kind of discipline (few have ) that is required to actually make money.