One Apple A Day #689 - find your pace
Last days have offered me a huge opportunity to revaluate my relationship with productivity.
As I already wrote, it's an uncomfortable subject for me.
I would never describe myself as a productive person, that's for sure. Yet, it's a subject that fascinated me, maybe precisely because it's not a natural thing for me.
This morning, while I was doing a simple but effective practice to synch movements and breathing, a memory came back; my first motorbike riding course on track.
The program was straightforward. Six students, one instructor, a 20 minutes session on the track followed by 40 minutes offtrack to analyse what we did, repeated for five times.
During the session on the track, one of us was leading the group for two laps with the instructor just behind observing. Then all the others. After two laps, the one in front went to the back of the group.
When it was my time to lead the group, I wanted to impress the instructor straight away. So, I gave my best; full-throttle on the straight, braking hard before each turn and then accelerating as much as I could.
At the end of my two laps, I was exhausted but very proud of myself. When we stop for the debrief, I was drench in sweat but happy with my performance. The instructor feedback was like a punch to the guts. I was one of the slowest. Sure, I was fast on the straight, but that was useless, considering that there was one short straight but plenty of turns.
On the next session, the instructor forced me to do my two laps, always keeping the same gear. That meant that I couldn't accelerate much and I couldn't go too fast on the straight. But, surprise, during the debrief, I discovered that my lap time was way better.
Once my obsession with speed was out of the picture, I found my rhythm and with it the performance.
This story reminds me of two valuable lessons, that too often I forget.
One is to look at performance, and productivity, more holistically. If we focus only on one aspect, we may illude ourselves that we're going faster while we are just wasting energy.
The second lesson is that when we find our rhythm, we use better our resources and we can keep performing high for longer.