Ch. 1 BackPost

The part of chapter 1 that stuck with me the most was Allen's comparison of learning to be more focused and productive to an athlete training to be better at a sport.  When he mentioned using front-end decision making to establish a standard operating procedure for processing and dealing with all the "stuff" that accumulates in daily activities, the image of a quarterback going through his progressions came to mind.  A quarterback having just received the ball finds himself in an extremely chaotic situation; a wall of bodies is moving towards him, people are running around his sides, and all the while he has to maintain focus on the his receivers, monitoring their status while remaining aware of his own surroundings.  Similarly, a business man (or college student) is often overwhelmed by a number of tasks on any given day; assignments, relationships, career opportunities, all while keeping up with studies.  However, just as quarterbacks constantly train their minds to read, store, and act appropriately to the events of the field, professionals, with proper guidance, can establish habitual actions--using an in box,  keeping lists of actionable items, filing documents properly--that allow them to deal with the chaos of everyday life.