code/lab

To summarize these results:

• The average players are working just as many hours as the elite players (around 50 hours a week spent on music),
• but they’re not dedicating these hours to the right type of work (spending almost 3 times less hours than the elites on crucial deliberate practice),
• and furthermore, they spread this work haphazardly throughout the day. So even though they’re not doing more work than the elite players, they end up sleeping less and feeling more stressed. Not to mention that they remain worse at the violin.

I’ve seen this same phenomenon time and again in my study of high achievers. It came up so often in my study of top students, for example, that I even coined a name for it: the paradox of the relaxed Rhodes Scholar.

This study sheds some light on this paradox. It provides empirical evidence that there’s a difference between hard work and hard to do work:

• Hard work is deliberate practice. It’s not fun while you’re doing it, but you don’t have to do too much of it in any one day (the elite players spent, on average, 3.5 hours per day engaged in deliberate practice, broken into two sessions). It also provides you measurable progress in a skill, which generates a strong sense of contentment and motivation. Therefore, although hard work is hard, it’s not draining and it can fit nicely into a relaxed and enjoyable day.
• Hard to do work, by contrast, is draining. It has you running around all day in a state of false busyness that leaves you, like the average players from the Berlin study, feeling tired and stressed. It also, as we just learned, has very little to do with real accomplishment.

This analysis leads to an important conclusion. Whether you’re a student or well along in your career, if your goal is to build a remarkable life, then busyness and exhaustion should be your enemy. If you’re chronically stressed and up late working, you’re doing something wrong. You’re the average players from the Universität der Künste — not the elite. You’ve built a life around hard to do work, not hard work.

Study Hacks via Daniel Miessler

A few decades ago, career  paths were more linear. A good company boy or girl could work at the  same place for decades, climbing up the corporate ladder one promotion  at a time. These days, not so much. In an economy in which people change  jobs frequently and a time when many of us are creatively  self-employed, you really have to think through your next moves. Of  course, finding quiet time to focus is easier said than done when your  boss is constantly interrupting you, your coworkers are addicted to  meetings, and you have no self-restraint when it comes to Twitter.  Here’s how to carve out strategic thinking time in a busy schedule.

Log your time for a week. Soon you’ll start to notice slow times—maybe 8 to 9 a.m., before others  drift in, or between 1 and 2 p.m., when half the office is at lunch.  These are good opportunities to shut the door (metaphorically  speaking—or literally if you’re lucky enough to have your own office)  and be unavailable.

Treat thinking sessions like doctor’s appointments. When you  first start, aim for two one-hour sessions of uninterrupted thinking.  Mark this time on your calendar, and consider it the way you would any  other appointment or commitment you wouldn’t break without a good  reason.

Plan for your sessions.  Before these sessions, think through which questions you’d like to  ponder. Gather any research material you’ll need, so you don’t have to  go online to hunt for a document (which can lead to checking your email,  and your Facebook, and your Twitter account while you’re there).

Recognize that creating strategic-thinking time is a habit. And  like a habit, it may not feel natural when you start out. The first few  times, your mind might wander, or you may not get much out of the  experience. But over time you will. Remember: People who plan succeed. 

(Source: GOOD)

When Sara Mednick, a former Harvard researcher, gave her subjects a memory challenge, she allowed half of them to take a 60 to 90 minute nap. The nappers dramatically outperformed the non-nappers. In another study, Mednick had subjects practice a visual task at four intervals over the course of a day. Those who took a 30 minute nap after the second session sustained their performance all day long. Those who didn’t nap performed increasingly poorly as the day wore on.

When pilots are given a nap of just 30 minutes on long haul flights, they experience a 16 percent improvement in their reaction time. Nonnapping pilots experience a 34 per cent decrease over the course of the flight.

…

Napping won’t begin to take hold in companies until leaders recognize that it’s not the number of hours people work that determines the value they create, but rather the energy they’re capable of bringing to whatever hours they work.

The article concludes with tips on incorporating naps your company is resistant the idea.

(Source: blogs.hbr.org)