productivity:creativity

May 6, 2007 by  

I’m a fitness buff and competitive rower, and always interested in research on training. This NYT article is about the results and benefits of interval training.

But new findings suggest that for at least one workout a week it pays to be both tortoise and hare — alternating short bursts of high-intensity exercise with easy-does-it recovery.

Reading this, I had a flashback to my last ‘real’ full-time job, as a strategy consultant for an agency. One evening, my manager came bounding into my office thinking she was catching me slacking off because I was sitting still, staring at the wall. She quickly became sheepish when she turned around to see my 6′ whiteboard filled with the strategic map that I had created for a large client project. I was far from slacking off, I was being very still and “seeing” the solution.

Remembering this story got me thinking of another way that intervals are important: in the creative and production process. That agency was a good example of denying the importance of the “tortoise” segment, or the quiet still time when the ideas and solutions just seem to come in.

This alternating fast-slow technique, called interval training, is hardly new. For decades, serious athletes have used it to improve performance.

I think its also a metaphor for how solo professionals, and their clients, can improve performance and continually raise the bar for the value of their ideas and content. Its good to remember that you can’t be a great hare without being a great tortoise.

intervalblog.jpg

Fitness: A Healthy Mix of Rest and Motion: “New findings suggest that for at least one workout a week it pays to alternate between short bursts of high-intensity exercise with easy-does-it recovery.”

(Via NYT > Most E-mailed Articles.)

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