Use the Sprinting Theory to transform your productivity
If you want to change your life, boost your self-discipline and apply the Sprinting Theory.
by: E.B. Johnson
A few weeks ago, I came across a great article from Scott H. Young. In the article, he discussed self-discipline and the way he boosted his productivity using a practice he called the “Sprinting Theory”. This theory centers around pacing and coming to understand your own psychology when it comes to how you handle life.
If you don’t understand why you do the things you do, then there’s no way for you to successfully change your future. You’ve got to get down to the root of your problems if you’re ever going to find a way forward. When you explore your self-discipline and the ideas you have around your willpower, you can unlock your full potential. Put your excuses aside and get productive by getting to know yourself and your rhythms.
Life is a marathon filled with 100-meter dashes.
Young’s theory asks us to consider our journey to achievement as we would consider running. If you’re running a race, you have to pace yourself or you’ll expend all your energy before you can cross the finish line. Running a marathon is not the same as running a 100-meter dash. You have to get the pacing right if you want to win the race, but that takes knowing what kind race you’re running.
Big tasks that take time, effort and organization are marathon tasks that should be approached with consideration and a keen sense of patience. The little stuff, all the in-between and fluff that can keep us caught up in the details — that’s the dash stuff, and we can get through that both quickly and efficiently when we take just a little time to honestly face what we’re dealing with.
Pacing is straightforward once you know what type of race you’re in. Sprinting Theory is all about setting a pace that helps you develop the best type of self-discipline for you and the tasks at hand. When it comes to tasks and the goals we are set on achieving, know how many laps you’ll have to make before the starting pistol fires. It’s a poor runner that doesn’t get familiar with their path before they take it. Put in the time and get to know what you need from your current circumstances.
Your discipline is a fuel.
There’s a lot of recent research out there that suggests that — rather than a state of mind — self-discipline is more of a fuel than just a state of mind. Some studies have shown that we actually use up our self-discipline as we transition from task to task.
When one task takes a lot of concentration and self-restraint, it actually eats into the self-discipline we contain overall; sometimes making it even more difficult (if not impossible) to concentrate on other tasks. Working with self-discipline takes introspection and it takes a lot of brutal honesty. You have to get to know not only yourself, but also the way you react to all the stimuli around you.
Coming to see our discipline as a fuel that feeds our action is a great way to get proactive about transforming it. It’s only when we learn how to harness our self-discipline that we can get the most out of ourselves — but it takes a little commitment.
What is the Sprinting Theory?
When we’ve come to know ourselves and our self-discipline intimately, we can apply the Sprinting Theory to get the most out of ourselves, no matter what the situation. It’s a great way to master our productivity and a great way to take charge of our self-discipline. The Sprinting Theory is all about 2 things: finding the length of your race and finding the critical period. Put those things together and there’s pretty much nothing you can’t conquer.
Figuring out the length of your race
When we spend our self-discipline up too quickly, we burn out, resulting a spectacular crash that leaves the neighbors talking for ages. Spend it too slowly and you miss those critical windows of opportunity.
In order to avoid burn out, you have to find the length of your race and you have to do that both honestly and brutally. Forming new habits takes about a month, and finding your pacing is no different. To determine the length of your race, you have to define the critical period and commit to the critical period.
Doing that isn’t always as cut and dry as it should be, but by setting yourself some realistic time frames and goals, you can build up enough force to enact some real and dramatic change in your life.
How to find the critical period and commit
Getting your pacing right is trial and error. The first couple of times you set out to conquer the monster that is your self-discipline, you might cut the race too short; resulting in a sputtering out before the critical period is over.
You might also make the race too long, pacing yourself for a marathon journey when all you needed was a gust of wind to scoot you over the finish line. In these cases, you might lose your motivation or lose focus on the things that exist in the present moment.
Allow for mistakes and accept that you’re probably not going to get it right the first couple of times. Discipline is hard and working on ourselves is even harder. When we do manage to get it right, though — look out. Young makes the point that there are 3 solid ways to get your bearings and set the length of your races:
- Keep track of your past: Keeping a journal of the things that work (and don’t work) is a great way to set yourself a baseline when it comes to determining what it’s going to take from you to get things done. Learn to identify habits like procrastination and the things that can trigger and encourage them.
- Learn from former athletes: Another great way to figure out “what it takes” is to speak to someone who has run the race before. Get to know what the journey was like for someone else and you might just unlock the truth of what the journey is going to take from you. Open yourself up to learning from the experience of others and you’ll make the going that much easier on yourself. Who really wants to do more work than they have to?
- Break it down into known races: Take a step back from what’s going and take a good hard look around. Consider yourself and where the threshold lies for you. Goals can be broken down into manageable chunks, but it takes knowing the game. If you’re finding yourself in unfamiliar waters, try to put things into familiar piles and work your way back from an ending point you have a history with.
Common sprints and how they measure up
The Sprinting Theory can be applied to pretty much any aspect of our lives and is helpful whether it’s applied to personal or professional goals. If you’re still feeling a little loss about this whole Sprinting Theory thing — never fear. Here are some common “sprints” and how we can measure them most efficiently.
Conversation sprints: 10 minutes
When we’re meeting someone new, we can make the most out of the moment by setting ourselves a time limit and sticking to it. They say it takes 10 minutes to get a conversation going, so give a conversation 10 minutes to get flowing and stick to the topics that matter.
If the conversation isn’t good by the time the minute marker is up, excuse yourself politely and walk away. There’s no use wasting your time engaging with someone who’s not interested in conversation.
Knowing that there’s an ending point makes it easier to engage new people, and having a time limit allows us to create a dialogue ahead of time which is comforting to our anxious state-of-mind.
Habit sprints: 30 days
If you want to take a habit, experts say it takes a minimum of 28 days — at which time it should take no effort to either continue the habit or quit it. This takes a little more effort than a conversation sprint, and for that reason you have to ration your discipline and make sure you have the steam to carry on for the days ahead. In just one month, you can radically transform your life, but it takes knowing when to take your foot off the gas and when to put the pedal to the metal.
Business sprints: 3–5 years
The longest of the sprints, starting your own company takes not only commitment and perseverance; it also takes knowing just how much you have in the tank and making sure it lasts for the entirety of the journey. Experts suggest that — when it comes to business — the average critical period is 3–5 years long. A lot of people overestimate their capabilities when it comes to business, but it’s important to remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was any Fortune 500 company.
Wake-up sprints: 10 minutes
A solid wake-up routine (minus exercise or meditation) should only take up about 10 minutes of your day. As soon as you wake up, commit to staying awake and get your day started by brushing your teeth, making the bed and drinking some water.
New skill sprints: 3–6 months
We often avoid developing new skills because we’re under the impression that you “can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. We tend to look at learning as an inconvenience, rather than a blessing, and scoff at the idea that we could possibly know any more than we do right now in this moment. That’s just our human hubris speaking, however, and it can be cataclysmic when it comes to our pathway to success.
If you want to build a new skill, you only need 3–6 months to work your way up to a baseline of proficiency in that skill. Whether it’s dancing or public speaking or learning how to write a short story — you can change your abilities in just a few months when you know how to pace yourself.
It might take you a month or two to get past the initial frustration barrier, but those emotions fade fast as you begin to see your new abilities take shape. Embrace the discomfort and look forward to a future that you have more skill to shape by opening up your mind to something new and pacing yourself to get there.
Work sprints: 15 minutes
When it comes to handling the chaos of day-to-day work tasks, we should keep our sprints to more manageable and enjoyable chunks of 15–20 minutes. Finding yourself in a particularly nasty procrastination mode can mean you need a few extra minutes to get into the flow of things. That’s okay. Let yourself focus for 15 uninterrupted minutes at a time and you’ll feel your focus coming back to you in no time.
Putting it all together…
Life is a journey, long and all-encompassing, but within it are a thousand tiny races, each different from the last. It is only when we are able to identify these races that we can navigate them successfully. That’s where the Sprinting Theory comes in, helping us harness the power of our self-discipline to fuel our success in work, school and life.
Learning to identify our tasks and the amount of effort they require allows us to identify the critical periods in our life. These critical periods are the make and break moments but they mean nothing if we know nothing about ourselves. Take the time to get to know yourself and the race you’re running or forever get left behind. Pace yourself and set goals that you can tackle easily, and within manageable timeframes. The choice is ultimately up to you. Are you going to survive and thrive? Or stutter and falter? Pick yourself up and put it back together. You can win this race, but you have to start now.
