Sprinting is Good!

Today I have received advice on how to manage my inbox, the best ways to run effective meetings, who to hire and who to fire, what to eat and how to compress a workout into three minutes.  You may receive some of the same advice from your networks.

A few months ago I received some advice from a colleague that has made a profound difference in how I structure my days.  The short story, according to Andrew, is that we can manage our days in two distinct ways, marathons and sprints.  In the marathon approach we are efficient and regulated in what we do – economy of effort. Conversely, the sprint is much more deliberate.  Just as purposeful as the marathon, but with a heightened sense of urgency.

With nothing to lose I tried each approach for a few weeks.  The marathon style of managing my energy and efforts worked really well and seemed a natural fit with how I had always done things.  The sprint method was not so successful.  It seems my buddy left out some details about recovery time between the sprints.  Yes, in hindsight it seems pretty obvious.

It took a week to get the hang of the sprinter style.  The discipline required to operate at pace took a little getting used to, but I found my creativity spiked and more importantly, my ability to identify opportunities.  The thing that pushed me into adopting the sprinter style is the speed to action. Where paralysis by analysis might have been an inhibitor in the past, the sprinter approach is about action.

I am a month into my “long term test” and no real fall out.  Final results of my experiment to follow…

SDG