Avoid the Pinball Syndrome

When was the last time you played a pinball game—not on an app—but on one of the masterfully crafted machines of the 70s? For those born post-pinball era, here’s how it works: the player uses “flippers” to launch a metal ball toward numerous physical targets to accumulate points. Lights flash, bells ding, and bumpers thump as the points rack up—making it easy to focus on the game and lose track of everything else. Eventually, the ball slips past the frantically swinging flippers and drops out of sight. But there’s always a new ball ready to ratchet into place—just pull the plunger and send the ball on its way again.

Hitting and scoring points in a pinball game is a lot like tackling and achieving the urgencies that demand your attention every day: phone calls, texts, emails, meetings, etc. You may not feel like your urgent tasks are a game, but you might feel attracted to the rapid pace and focus that’s required to get them done. Add a small endorphin rush as you check off your to-do’s, and urgencies start to feel like scoring big in pinball: downright gratifying and even addictive at times. If you’ve ever reached the end of your day and felt like nothing of real value was accomplished, you might be suffering from what I call the Pinball Syndrome.

Continue reading this article on the FranklinCovey blog.