Work and swimming

Posted by Rafal | Filed under Productivity

Water is not a natural environment for humans, when we swim; there is a lot of resistance to overcome. To move forward and to limit the friction we need to streamline our body and ensure that maximum power is achieved from each stroke.
When you swim in chaotic and uncoordinated way you’re not getting far. The water is holding you back. To maximize efficiency of swim strokes need to be refined so that you rather slice through the water making as little movement as possible.

One of my favourite swim drills is to swim with a float between your leg and use arms to propel. I can focus in streamlining my body and making sure that each stroke gives me the best result. Because I like to drill so much I’m able to focus on it so much that I can swim 25m pool on a single breath. It’s a fantastic workout.

I’ve observed a very similar pattern doing my work, the more friction is in my work the less stuff gets done and the more disconnection and boredom I feel. The elements that cause this friction are mostly stress, lack of clarity, the nature of work. But pretty much anything that you can consider as "work environment" can create some sort of resistance.
Many times to overcome this friction I tend to stress more, put more pressure on, try to move in giant pushes of effort. As this is not leading very far, a feeling of exhaustion and burn out appears. It is like trailing the water in strong current, you exert lot of effort and power yet you’re not moving anywhere.

Reducing resistance at work is not an easy game but you can try. There are countless ways of decreasing stress and anxiety at work and some will work for one but not for the other. As I’ve been attempting to reduce the frictions that I experience, I’ve decided to try three items:

Focus – Most of the time, the work I do requires longer periods of time to achieve the right state of mind and concentration. I try to block out distractions as much as possible. Also I’m forcing myself to complete one single thing until it’s done. Sometimes technology can help you with that. You can use distraction free software (like Q10 my favourite) or work in the full screen mode. Other technique is to use a tool that’s so simple it can’t be any simpler hence I enjoy using Filofax or pen and paper in general.

Clarity – During the day many items will attract our attention, like an article in the newspaper, an email or a colleague. At the end of the day letting all these things to pull us in various directions leaves a feeling of incompletion and lack of progress. To counter that try to list one maybe three things you would like to complete in a day in order to be able to say that you’ve had a good day. Getting this sort of clarity even in such a small form definitely works and is a great start for introducing more direction in to live. Knowing what you want to achieve is much better that simply bouncing around like a free electron.

Doing what you love – Being in a place that is not right for you and working on stuff you have no desire for feels like a great waste of time and energy. Due to social conditioning, our beliefs, lack of clarity (again) it’s probably the hardest thing to achieve. Yet, as many have proven it’s possible. Making your way from the point where you don’t like what you do to the point of doing what you love may take some time. Best way to test how it is to be fulfilled is try to do it in your free time. Spend couple hours a week on those activities you enjoy most and see where does it take you. Perhaps you won’t make a living out of it but you will introduce a positive change in your live.

Streamlining your body and refining your strokes makes you a better swimmer, focus, clarity and working on your passion makes you a more satisfied person. Just like you need to do drills in the water to improve your swim technique you need to exercise focus and clarity at work so that you no longer in trailing in one place.

I’m pretty sure it will take me a while to make sure that I use these things and I will fail many times but I’m also pretty sure that trying one time after another will pay off.

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Permalink | Comments (0) | Jan 13, 2010

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