Sunday Essays #14: Signal-to-Noise Ratio (Not a Boring Tech Bro Essay)
applied science for the creative mind.
You wanna hear about a mental framework used by Steve Jobs and Elon Musk to be a super mega billionaire?!
Make sure you’ve had your 10K steps and 4 gallons of water first.
Hope you had zero alcohol last night (or ever), too.
Got it?
Got it.
Now we’re ready to talk productivity in the year 2026.
Blackout curtains down, resting BPM 50<, earplugs in, let’s go.
This whole essay was inspired by a clip I saw of Kevin O’Leary, Shark Tank’s resident Mr. Wonderful, who spoke about a mental framework called “Signal-to-Noise Ratio”, and how much Steve Jobs loved applying it to his own life.
Essentially, it boils down to this:
Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) is not new.
It’s a term that originally comes from engineering.
Signal: The important information.
Noise: Everything distorting it.
Somewhere along the way, this escaped the world of radios and circuitry and quietly became one of the best frameworks for understanding modern life itself.
Let’s dive into it.
Why am I hearing about this from a disorganized creative who meditates under trees and lifts 5x a week?
Because that’s who this is for, silly.
I know.
You’d rather hear about something so cut-and-dried and scientific from an MIT engineering type who coded his first app in his bedroom at 14 and is a year into his Series B.
I’m probably the polar opposite of that guy.
I’d be laughed outta a16z, and I’m at peace with that (sort of).
The good news is, SNR actually benefits the less prodigious among us.
The answer is in your phone.
It’s Sunday morning on Memorial Day weekend.
I can practically guarantee you’re loaded with notifications from last night.
Snaps ranging from boating, beaches, “baby’s first BBQ!”, Parker House mirror selfies at 1:47AM… it’s all in there…and that’s before you take 27 business minutes swiping through hundreds of IG stories.
Then it’s the group chat civic duty.
“You’ll never believe who I SAW ln..”
20 minute cosplay of your inner-circle’s Page Six ensues.
Whew.
That was a lot.
Back to scrolling…and your ex-whatever posted.
They look good.
Is that a new tattoo? Was that there the last time we…..?
Now we’re doing two-finger zoom forensic analysis.
WE HAVEN’T EVEN GOTTEN OUT OF BED YET!
Now you see why I was drawn to write about this?
I wrote an article months back called Give the People What They Want, but I’ve since switched my ethos to Give the People What They Need.
Practical Applications of SNR (Abbate, 2026.)
Here’s how I’ve employed SNR since I’ve found it (which was very recently).
It’s simple af.
(I’ve gotten so obsessed with this I’ve literally scribbled SNR in Sharpie on my hand until it became habit)
Take the day’s goal.
One or two words.
Creative and Health.
Family and Rest.
Recovery.
From there, simply take any input into your life (look down at the scribble on your left hand if you have to) and ask yourself:
Signal or Noise?
Yeah, curveball, I know.
You thought this was going to be all about business, bowing to the altar of your goals, ignoring your family grind grind grind type stuff.
No.
If you’ve been here for more than a month, you know I value human interaction, and reject the 2020’s-era interpersonal skills degradation.
Does SNR have business/life goal application?
Obviously yes, and use it there too.
But that framework is rather obvious.
Think of today.
Memorial Day Sunday.
Family BBQ.
Well, the group chats/legion of notifications?
Noise.
Maybe you want to bang out a super long workout, get right because you got the time to recover on the extended weekend.
Brunch invite that’ll derail you?
Noise.
Answering the red number bubble-infested Apple machine in your pocket between sets?
Noise.
Watching Sam Sulek Reels of him overhead pressing the 150’s, procrastinating while sipping your preworkout a bit too slowly?
Big Time Noise.
It should be stated that Noise is contextual.
A family BBQ can be Signal and a business opportunity can be Noise, and vice-versa.
A hard workout can be Signal one day and BS Noise the next.
(You don’t need two arm days a week)
The point isn’t becoming some dopamine-starved monk who stares at drywall all day.
The point is alignment with whatever it is you want in that moment.
SNR IRL (Guy who can lose entire days writes an essay)
Creative brain + verbal ability + high EQ + ADHD is my brain’s main OS.
Sure, I wouldn’t trade any of the life experiences that particular cocktail has given me for anything.
That doesn’t mean the drawbacks aren’t really, really ugly.
My major fascination with SNR is that I can sometimes lose entire days if I get scattered.
>Wake up
>Check CoinMarketCap
>Substack responses/article rabbit hole
>Red bubbles on phone with horrendous crooked numbers
>Call from really smart friend with biz idea
>AI biz idea rabbit hole
>Healthy lunch
>Triple check healthy lunch’s macros
etc etc etc.
It feeds a vicious cycle.
Hours go missing, anxiety heightens.
Worst case is you go to bed having accomplished less than half of the previous day’s to-do list, thus triggering a “lying in bed spiraling and self-loathing” episode, which leads to less sleep, which makes you more tired for the next day, which makes you more susceptible to….
Noise.
Yeah, not pretty.
Makes more sense a Silicon Valley mental framework is so endearing to this East Coast creative, now doesn’t it.
Of course I had to share it.
Sometimes You Have to Skip Overtime
I wrote this late Saturday night.
Sometimes Sunday Essays get written on…Sunday.
That’s not the idea.
So, I employed my new best friend and got to work.
Phone on DND.
No late night FT’s, no answering the “Bro guess what!” texts, no acknowledgement of Solana’s 5m price action, no dropping at Latte Landing, missing out on “for your eyes only” type snaps.
Hell I even skipped out on Montreal-Carolina Game 2 OT.
That’s how you know it’s real.
The result?
No rush project.
No proofreading with the painful feeling in my chest of “maaan this could’ve been better, but it’s 4pm on a Sunday and this has to get out…”
The Signal for Saturday night:
Writing.
Everything that wasn’t writing, save for rare exceptions like a fire alarm or Iranian scud missiles?
Noise.
Hope this one helps.
Happy Memorial Day, and enjoy the weekend.
🇺🇸 🫶🏻
-John Abbate
5/24/2026