#114. Noise vs. Signal
Are You Progressing or Just Moving?
Welcome to the blog post #114! Click here to read more from previous posts.
Are you truly making progress - or just staying busy?
We all want to be productive. Time is limited. But for a while, I confused busyness with progress. I believed:
Free time meant I wasn’t doing enough.
Being busy meant I was moving forward.
But I was wrong.
It took me a while to see that motion - constant activity - isn’t the same as momentum.
It reminded me of the image of a rocking horse - something we loved as children. No matter how much effort we put into it, it rocks back and forth, but never moves. At a point, I saw myself in it. Constantly swaying, but stuck in place.
And that raised a hard question: Am I making real progress - or just staying in motion?
When urgency hijacks clarity
Our days are often filled with chaos. Unexpected tasks pop up. Priorities shift out of nowhere. Fires need putting out.
And that’s when I’d feel overwhelmed.
What I later realized was this: most of those “urgent” things were just noise. They created pressure, but didn’t create progress. They felt important — but only for a moment. And then they were gone.
That was the time I realized noise was the illusion of productivity.
Noise vs. Signal: What’s the difference?
Tim Ferriss said it well:
Being busy is a form of laziness — lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.
I was reacting to everything around me - inboxes, meetings, to-do lists, expectations - without asking a key question: What actually matters to me?
That’s when I started looking for the signal.
Noise is everything that screams for your attention but doesn’t help you grow.
Signal is quiet. It aligns with your values, your goals, and your long-term direction.
An example from the market: Volatility isn’t the signal
Investing offers a clear example of how easy it is to confuse noise with signal.
I still remember in 2020, when COVID-19 hit, the stock market plummeted. Panic was everywhere. Then, just months later, it surged in a dramatic V-shaped recovery. From extreme fear to boundless optimism — all within a year.
But by 2022–2023, the mood changed again - inflation, war, uncertainty. The market cooled.
Many people made emotional decisions based on daily headlines. But here’s the thing:
The noise was the volatility and news cycles. The signal was the underlying resilience (or weakness) of the businesses they were investing in.
If you zoomed in, the chaos felt overwhelming. If you zoomed out, you could see the bigger picture.
It’s also true in our life and work; zooming out often reveals that what feels urgent today might not matter in the long run.
Credit: Image by Julie Bang © Investopedia 2020
How to tune out the noise and focus on what matters
It starts with awareness.
Ask yourself: What is noise in your day-to-day? What steals your attention but doesn’t serve your goals?
Here are some small shifts you can make right away:
Instead of constantly checking notifications, carve out blocks of time for focused work. Do your most important tasks first in the morning.
Limit back-to-back meetings (although I know it’s not always the case). Protect thinking time like a scarce resource.
Don’t aim to complete 20 tasks a day. Prioritize 3 that truly matter to complete before moving to others. Progress isn’t about volume - it’s about value.
If you're seeking validation - through titles, praise, or possessions - be cautious. That’s often noise. Let your values and purpose guide your choices.
You’re not racing others. The real game is mastering your own path.
And finally, ask yourself honestly: Am I truly busy - or am I just avoiding the harder, deeper work?
A Better Way Forward
We live in a world overloaded with noise. More content. More urgency. More distraction.
But more isn’t better.
Sometimes, the real work isn’t about doing more - it’s about clearing the clutter, so you can hear what truly matters.
What if the goal isn’t to get more done, but to move with intention?
That’s the shift: From chaotic motion to conscious movement.
That’s all for today. Till next week!
Cheers,
Do Thi Dieu Thuong