Noise

Chapter 8Mind-Filled Momentum at Work

As a young, ambitious captain in the military, Mark wakes up earlier than his team. His alarm goes off at 4:45 a.m., and he grabs his smartphone from his nightstand to shut off the annoying chirping bird sound.

He sees a few new texts and opens them immediately, almost instinctively. He’s already in a bad mood because his girlfriend was texting him late at night complaining that he wasn’t available to text her back at midnight.

He gets up with the phone in his hand and checks the device on his wrist to monitor his sleeping patterns. Mark goes to the app, sits back down on his bed, and checks when he was most restless last night.

He notices he has 30 new work e-mails since last night when he spent an extra hour cleaning up his inbox. There’s more to check, but he’ll get to them later.

Connected While Exercising

Mark gets up and throws on some training gear for an early morning run and workout. His phone and wrist device are with him to track his heart rate, steps, and reps. While he’s running, he is listening to a music playlist, also finding a moment to check his texts and scan his e-mail some more.

Because he’s not sure how and when to reply to his girlfriend, he starts getting stressed.

By the time he’s back home, he grabs breakfast and logs his calories into a nutrition app he’s using to help him prepare for an upcoming marathon. While Mark is eating, he looks at some news sites on his laptop, checking a few personal social media sites ...