The term “signal to noise” comes from engineering, describing how strong the signal that carries information is relative to the interference. I often heard one of my coaching clients talk about increasing the “signal” as he worked on figuring out what the needs of users were for his product.

The idea is simple, that we want more useful information relative to all the information we have to process in order to be effective. If we spend our time on useful information more often, we have the opportunity to produce better results. I have written in past posts about focus and prioritization. The tactic of narrowing down what is important is basically increasing the signal on your productivity.

One overlooked tactic to improving your signal to noise ratio is to eliminate as much noise as possible. It seems straightforward. I have many clients that do not accurately judge the impact of all the noise. Many people feel they must check e-mail constantly. Or they have notifications set for text messages, Slack and instant messaging. The continuous flow of inbound notifications dwarfs the few messages that are meaningful. The noise masks the signal.

Consider how you can reduce the noise in your communication system. Can you eliminate notifications that ping you whenever you get an e-mail? Can you stop being notified of the continual chatter on Slack or other group messaging platforms? Would you consider replacing the constant notifications with a regular schedule to check for new messages two or three times daily?

One suggestion I made for a client recently was to consider turning off notifications entirely, and communicate to his team how to get in touch with him in case of an emergency. As you might imagine, he is worried he will miss a critical communication if he stops checking his messages. And when we consider the value in the continuous flow of notifications, it has become clear that he runs the risk of missing something simply due to the sheer volume and low signal-to-noise ratio.

Improve your results by finding distractions and notifications that add to the noise of your day and week. Reduce or eliminate the noise, and replace it with high fidelity signal through deliberate channels. Tell your team how to engage you when they need you. Talk to your colleagues about how to get your attention (maybe a phone call). Eliminate the large volume of low quality notifications and improve your focus.