PART 1
My sleep has been the #1 priority for me lately, since I see how rewarding it is for my physiology.
Addressing my mechanics is also a priority, but while doing so is not easy, I feel I have better control and discipline over my training regimen.
Whereas with my sleep, this is probably my weakest link of all because If I don’t intentionally pay attention to it, I’ll reproduce the same patterns that I inherited from my mom and get 3-5 hours of sleep a night only.
Now, I KNOW that I can achieve top sleep because I did it in the past.
But the problem for me is that in order to achieve this sleep quality yesterday, I had to stop everything work-related at 7:00 pm and focus on chilling the rest of the evening.
It’s ok.
But it’s not great.
It’s not great because this is the same thing as saying that you’re “pain-free”, but only as long as you don’t do anything with your body.
Ok, you’re pain-free, but your resilience is bad, and you’re still stuck.
The idea is to be pain-free AND to have the CAPACITY to achieve things.
Otherwise, what’s the point in simply being “pain-free” if you can’t do anything?
That said, the keyword here is “possibilities”.
Now, going back to my sleep…
I CAN sleep very well, but in order to do so, I have to restrict my possibilities.
Now, at some point, I DO acknowledge that you can’t have it all in life. I, in fact, wrote about this often.
For instance, you can’t drink alcohol and expect to thrive with your health. You also likely can’t do yoga and run a marathon a month and expect your joints to be top-notch at 60 years old.
That is to say, if you want optimal health, there’s a bunch of stuff that you will have to let go of. So, I get the part that you always have to trade something to achieve another thing.
And in the end, since we’re all genetically wired differently, it’s our job to figure out what our “thresholds” are and and where’s our boundaries.
I’m getting better at mapping mine, and I find it humbling sometimes because I WOULD like to sustainably wake up at 4:30 am and be ABLE to work until 7-8 pm without having any negative consequences.
I know I CAN do it because every year, I’ll have 2-3 periods where I’ll wake up at these hours and be able to push through the day.
My productivity and my mindset are high, and I feel like I’m on a constant high. (And I achieve this with no external substances… including coffee).
But as I said, I can’t sustain those periods for too long without feeling some impacts on my health
Now, I’m open to the idea that this may just be a “normal” thing… But a part of me wants to consider the possibility that IT IS NOT and that this can be improved.
In other words, can we marry productivity and performance with sustainability?
It seems to me that most influencers or health methods out there either push for one or the other:
Either you’re a grinding entrepreneur who only thinks of monetary profits, no matter the cost… Or you’re a chill hippie who’s disconnected from reality.
But could we have the best of both worlds?
Could we be very productive and high-achieving monks who can switch off at will and fall into regeneracy mode on demand?
As I said, I would like to believe that yes, it is achievable.
I’m not 100% sure how, but I would tend to believe that part of the equation is about quality decision-making and efficient thought processes.
I’ll be thinking about that ad follow up with my thoughts if I ever come to a conclusion. _____________________________________________________
PART 2
So, I’ve been thinking about the question “How can I increase my workload capacity without taxing myself?” The more I thought about it, the more complexe I found the question. This is, in fact, the third text I’m starting from scratch because I always found flaws in my thinking in the previous versions.
And to be fully honest, I still don’t feel like I have the full answer to my question, but having thought about it for a few days, I think I at least have some pointers to what I can accomplish to move in the right direction.
That said, In this text, I am in no means stating that this is “the” answer.
I will only be sharing my thoughts and the kind of process that works for me, but I am open to the possibility that I am missing something in my analysis.
Here goes:
First off, my question was a bad question.
It was bad, because I was focusing on the bad metrics.
More specifically, the metric I was focusing on was “the number of hours spent working, whereas the metrics I should’ve been focusing on were “the outcomes that I want.”
I believe this to be a crucial mistake on my end, one that might stem from a lack of maturity or maybe just some lack of awareness.
But in any case, it’s not the first time I have done it, so I’ll have to find a way to account for this in the future and find systems for me not to make the mistake again.
That said, let me explain WHY it’s a mistake:
There’s a social law called “the Goodhart’s law”.
In short, this law states that “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
Differently said, when a metric is chosen as a goal or target, individuals or organizations might start adopting behaviours to hit that metric instead of orienting their behaviour around the desired outcomes.
This distorts the whole process, and you end up doing things simply for the sake of doing things… as opposed to doing things that will help you attain a specific result.
A good example of this would be school and studies:
The reason why you go to school is to become a competent, trained professional.
Now, in the process of being at school, so much emphasis is being placed on the exams and the grades that the target often shifts from “becoming a competent professional “ to “getting good grades.”
If this shift occurs, your actions will be oriented around studying to “get good grades” instead of studying to become a “competent professional."
The same goes with the professor: If the grades become the target, then the professor’s lectures might be oriented around teaching students to get “good grades,” as opposed to focusing on making them competent professionals.
The nuance is slight, but the implications are massive.
This example is a simple one, but if you start paying attention to what’s going on around you, you’ll notice that this phenomenon is taking place literally everywhere. I personally find it concerning.
Now going back to my original idea:
By focusing on “the number of hours” I wanted to work, I was putting into effect the Goodhart’s law.
Differently, I was “counting my hours” instead of looking at better ways to achieve my outcomes.
I was essentially mistaking “activity” and “productivity.”
By doing so, I was involuntarily limiting myself to think better and coming up with more efficient systems because the target had now become “the number of hours.”
Don’t get me wrong, there will be times when I will need to push a bit, and this will involve me working more hours, simply because more time will be required. But in this case, working more hours will be the by-product of wanting to attain a specific target.
NOT the target in itself.
So, with all this explained, if I start thinking strategically, I will keep my energy for when those periods are needed, but when I don’t need this amount of output, I will spend my time refining my systems to make them more efficient - and, therefore - NOT have to work more hours than I actually need to.
Having said all this, as I said at the beginning of this text, my conclusion might be flawed.
However, it’s a good enough conclusion for now, and most importantly, one that will allow me to take action and move forward.
Because, at the end of the day, it’s not about getting all the answers right;
It’s about getting enough right to keep moving forward and correcting those we were wrong about along the way.