When my wife and I first met, she was mid-way through a Master of Education degree. She was also working full-time, running a ladies fastball league (with over 100 participants), working out every-day, and regularly socialising with friends. That year, she would also win an outstanding student award and we would take 5 trips (here’s to new love!), where she disconnected from all the other things. She was (and is) by all accounts, an overachiever.
But I almost never saw her stressed by this workload, nor even struggling to keep up with its demands. I’d met seemingly effortless overachievers before – people who appear to do it all and have a life. But never had the opportunity to see it this close up. This was an opportunity to understand the difference between these effortless overachievers and, well, those who struggle to achieve a lot (outside of work), namely, myself.
I’ve always been interested in performance and productivity, finding ways to efficiently increase one’s output. Crystal was an example of how this was accomplished. If I could figure out the formula and apply it, I figured I would have a recipe for a productive life.
One thing I noticed right away was our areas of focus. I liked to dabble and follow my curiosity to a fault. I would do something until something else captured my attention. Then I’d work on that for a while, then switch again to something new. It’s not that I didn’t have defined projects or that I left everything unfinished. It’s that I kept opening new projects – hoping I suppose that this one would provide me the long-lasting thrill of novelty.
Crystal, though, knew what she was working on. She didn’t shift from project to project in the hope of a curiosity thrill. In fact, when she lost the curiosity in something, she’d refocus within the project to find additional germaine paths of motivation and curiosity. She also knew the limits of her focus. She wouldn’t take on too much, only just enough to be satisfyingly busy.
Our early conversations exemplified this difference. While she would remain focused on the subject until it’s conclusion, I (shall I say frustratingly?) danced from subject to subject finding connections between the things we were talking about. We’d be talking about buying groceries for the week, and I’d start talking about meditation, philosophy, music, and a challenging work project. Needless to say, she’d sigh, and give me a loving but knowing look. This was torture for her.
We also differed in our micro focusing too. When I worked on a project, I fluttered between multiple things simultaneously. If I was working on a music project, I’d suddenly realize that I wanted to learn more about mixing and start doing some internet research on mixing.
When she set out to work on something, like writing a draft to a school essay, she was all in. She turned off her phone, went into her office and didn’t emerge until she had accomplished what she set out to do. I would sometimes send her messages during this time, just to test her resolve. She aced that test too.
For her, working on something meant largely a whole effort focus. As an accomplished athlete, she would undoubtedly think that focused work was “game time.” You never gave half-effort to games. You were there to win whether that was a provincial championship, or at a Master’s level research paper.
We differed on our rest periods too. Because I never felt like I had accomplished what I set out to do during my work, I often felt like my rest periods were shadowed by an overwhelming need to keep working. Crystal clearly differentiated between work times (especially focused work times), and rest and play times. Those two rarely mingled. Almost never when we would be watching another episode of Orange is the New Black, would she pull out her laptop and continue working on a paper. A laptop was always on my lap as I was trying to write, produce music, and/or program.
I began to realise that the difference in our productive output and overall enjoyment of stress-free play was the long-term focus and intensity in which we did our work. In future posts, I want to explore this further to come up with some guidance on how to drive focus and intensity into work and play.
Stay tuned.
Thanks for another great post.