Family Tilt?

We've all been on tilt at some time or other but what about family induced tilt?

I start every weekday morning by making sure the girls are up and getting ready for school. This doesn’t seem to be a huge obstacle in the daily routine but you may be surprised. L, being the oldest child and 12 years old is beginning to desire extra sleep. You know, like sleep until 10:00 extra. Now I understand this yearning for supplementary slumber because I was filled with this same longing when I was her age. So my request for her awakening is invariably met with disdain as she pleads for additional snooze time. For the most part I know I could give her an extra 10 minutes but it’s fun watching her mope around as she lazily wipes the sleep from her eyes.

M, almost 10, is a different person all together. She will get up right away and is often already moving around when I make my morning request. Her issue is that she wants to play or watch cartoons. That would be OK if she got ready first but she likes to procrastinate her obligations for the pleasures of animated thought consuming morning TV. So as I prepare my self for the daily grind I have to reminder her to put on her sock, shoes, brush her hair, and so on just so we can leave a couple of minutes late. I have to admit that she has gotten better the last few weeks so in reality it only took 27 weeks of the school year for her to conform to my expectations.

I’m sure I could find a correlation to the poker world some place in the paragraph above but I’m not going to try. Well maybe I’ll try a little. It does show how outside influences can distract us from optimum performance. L is often distracted by coveting additional sleep. In this case it is a mere inconvenience and is over come without any effect on desired results. M’s situation is different. Her personal desires actually hinder the result process causing distraction for other people in the household. As this continues on, she now becomes diverted from the original goal and is afflicted with morning ritual tilt. This self-perpetuating slide continues into an avalanche of further delays and interruptions as she scrambles to regain focus. The detrimental affect from all of this is that it also inhibits the correct processes for others around her.

I’m sure many of you have had situation similar to this at some point in your lives and in many cases it can be a regular occurrence. I’m wondering if these instances of distraction have a longer lasting impact then the immediate moment. Can a morning disruption influence your results later in the day? The severity of the said occurrence is absolutely a factor in determining the answer to this question. A bombshell revelation or other major distraction would more then likely cause us to perform at less then optimum skill but would minor incidents, many hour prior, be a detriment to your performance? I would like to think that it wouldn’t hamper me but it may. How would this influence your poker game?

Tell me what you think?