When Josh Watizkin competed in national chess tournaments at a young age, he would go into bouts of intense performance. This meant days of uninterrupted focus in training and strategizing his matches. But while it seemed best to keep him undistracted, he did suffer. He felt his first few matches or days were amazing, yet he would soon lose steam and decline.
What did he employ to remedy this? After a severe loss he experienced, it was assumed he would go back and train even harder for the next tournament. But he didn’t. Instead he took a month off to spend time fishing in the ocean with his family. He could’ve directed his focus to even more chess. Yet he felt it necessary to take a break. And it’s a strategy he still employs today to succeed at the highest levels [1].
The Cycle of Learning
It is easy to conclude that more time practicing something leads to better performance. But this isn’t necessarily the case. Take exercising for example. If you exercise continuously for too long, you’ll end up hurting yourself. At the minimum your growth levels will decline due to exhaustion. This is why even top athletes take rest days to recover their muscles.
This may seem like an obvious point for our bodies. But it also goes for our mind. It would seem intuitive to say that by continuously learning we are absorbing more information. In fact, one study teaching Spanish-English pair revealed that “cumulative learning is faster with shorter intersession intervals,” meaning students learned more by continuously absorbing information[2]. So that means the less breaks the better right?
However, a later study was conducted those same students 8 years later. And those who had 30 day intervals, versus learning nearly continuously, between their learning sessions had much greater memory retention [3]. It appears optimal learning actually happens when we take gaps in the process, not when we keep pushing until the end.
Stops > Continuity
The same system also applies to general productivity. In order for Watizkin to get back to his peak during matches, he’d completely relax and restart his mind. This meant even letting go of 20 minutes of deliberation for his next move. But this was necessary in order for him to think more clearly and intelligently. Watizkin describes this practice as an undulation between peak performance and rest. It’s this start and pause that allows him to never wear down to what he describes as simmering 6 work.
It was interesting for me to read about this because I too implemented similar practices unconsciously. Whenever I’m about to take a test, I always use the two minutes prior to the start to take deep breaths and calm my mind. Initially this was a tool to generally reduce my stress around test-taking. But I realize now it also allowed me to focus and perform much better when I needed to. And when I didn’t do this I felt my performance suffer, likely due to my more erratic mindset.
Research also seems to support the idea that we should have stop points in our work. Adam Grant, one of the foremost researchers on high-performance individuals, actually promotes the idea of strategic procrastination. He references a study in his book Originals from CMU which gave a LEGO architecture challenge to two teams with 50 minutes. However, the condition was that one team could only strategize after 25 minutes. You might think that the first team would be able to complete much more with double the time. But actually the second team ended up being 80% more efficient with their work [4].
It is clear that there is something wrong with our model of continuous work. Whether our brain is recovering or able to put something to more unconscious attention, relaxation is essential to tackling new mental challenges.
Hitting Your Peak
There are four primary levels which I believe you can incorporate this type of practice, all of which would allow you to hit your peak performance:
- Long-Range: Ensure that after months of work you are able to take a vacation or break for even just a week. For me it’s been a way to break out of mundane routine and refresh my mind to both new experiences and ideas when I return.
- Mid-Range: On a weekly basis, make sure to incorporate events where you break from your normal activities. They could be spread out like I usually do. Or they could be compacted into one day, a system which David Goggins usually does to focus for the rest of the week straight. It’s up to your schedule and preferences.
- Short-Range: Throughout the day itself it’s good to relax your mind. And to actually relax it. I used to view eating times such as lunch and dinner as relaxing moments. But as I was eating I’d just watch TV or check social media. This still engaged my mind too much. Now I make sure whenever I’m eating it’s quiet so my mind can relax. Try to slot in specific times to do the same to do the same.
- Seconds: This is the same tactic I employed with tests and Watizkin employed with chess and Push-Hands. If you know you’re about to do a heavy task or your mind is feeling overwhelmed, take a breather. Grab a drink. Maybe take a walk. Or even in your seat just focus on your breath while releasing any tension. This should allow you to relax and soon feel the energy to operate at your peak again.
I hope by employing these techniques into your schedule you’ll find your work to be more creative and productive. There needs to be a broader conversation on removing the outdated model of continuous hard work. It is much better if we are able to trade short breaks so that our work and learning is consistently at its best. We can find much more of our potential by focusing on the quality of our work rather than the quantity.
[1] The Art of Learning – Josh Watizkin
[2] Maintenance of knowledge: Questions about memory we forgot to ask (Referenced in [3])
[3] Retention of Spanish Vocabulary over 8 Years – https://www.gwern.net/docs/spacedrepetition/1987-bahrick.pdf
[4] Originals – Adam Grant
