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Relax for the Same Result (2015)

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Re: Relax for the Same Result (2015)

#41

Post by pritovido »

artsyca wrote: post #11

Totally analogous to every single self-styled agile software development environment I've ever worked in. People pushing themselves to the breaking point when they could get better results by just stopping whatever they're doing and take the week off.

There is the related story of "Amundsen vs Scott" race to the South Pole.

Amundsen had studied human behavior and efficiency under stress. He knew a constant pace every day was way more efficient than doing epic effort. So he will restraint his people and not let them do more than a given distance each day, I think it was 30 miles or so.

This gave his team an edge against constant epic efforts on Scott part.

A week off is probably too long. What I do, because I can, is taking days off just when I consider I need it. This day or days off is a day you enjoy life and after them you feel plentiful and strong.

Much better than wasting the day being forced to work and generating very little work and burning yourself off.

I actually measure the actual time I do meaningful work so I know exactly how better it works.

Re: Relax for the Same Result (2015)

#42

Post by dredmorbius »

redelbee wrote: post #36
dredmorbius wrote: post #18

For many physical efforts, overpacing and poor form can both rob you of results. In particular, exceeding your aerobic threshold for any period of time will require recovery time --- you can pull this off at the end of a ride or in a critical effort (breakaway, hill ascent) where you'll get a chance to recover afterwards, but full on and you're simply sabotaging yourself. Perceived effort is a very poor guide. In som…

Thank you for the Hitchcock anecdote about creativity under pressure, that idea is new to me. When it comes to the physical realm, perceived effort (or “rating of perceived exertion”) was shown to be as effective as heart rate for pacing interval training in this study and others it references: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4296211/ From my layman’s perspective it makes sense that perceived effort woul…

Perceived effort, and ability to self-monitor it, varies greatly. An experienced athlete may be much better at this, though often with some form of outside assistance: pace clocks, splits, speed measurements, heartrate monitor, etc.

The inexperienced or untrained athlete may mistake effort for result, often sacrificing form (which may be none too perfected to begin with) in the effort. This especially is where the perceived effort vs. actual attained performance diffrence manifests.

For activities such as swimming, formal coaching involves an extraordinary level of focus and time on stroke technique. The biomechanics of moving through a dense fluid make proper execution of stroke, recovery, turns, starts, and breathing critical to efficient and effective performance. I've had the experience of sharing a pool with swimmers who were faster through the water but worse on turns --- I'd recover the half-bodylength they gained on me each lap with tighter turns and a more efficient kick and glide off the wall. Coach noticed too.

Even more ... pedestrian ... activities such as running, or mechanically-integrated activities such as cycling and rowing have a significant element of technique involved, though in my estimation probably less so than swimming. The remarkable deviation in styles of elite and novice or poorly trained athletes is starkly evident to even casual observers.

In high-skill sports, from ballet to tennis to golf, the requirements for form over raw strength are even greater.

And I'd argue in each case that a tremendous effort exerted with poor form will virtually always result in a lower achievement --- slower speed, longer oveerall time, shorter distances or hights jumped, less weight moved, etc. All the more so at the limits of performance or ability.

Re: Relax for the Same Result (2015)

#44

Post by hellofunk »

valuearb wrote: post #38
hellofunk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that Steve Jobs had pretty much the opposite approach to group collaboration and pressure, yet got good results from them as well. At the expense of an often very miserable working environment.

I’m not sure what that Jobs style was the opposite. He was the industries leading example of taking your time to get it right. Like when he canceled the iPad just prior to the launch decision, and told the team to take a few years to try to make it into a phone instead.

The extraordinary pressure he put people under on a daily basis, especially as deadlines approached, his biographies are full of reports of working long weekends, sleeping in the office, having him push push push push to the breaking point.

Re: Relax for the Same Result (2015)

#45

Post by artsyca »

devchix wrote: post #13
artsyca wrote: post #11

Totally analogous to every single self-styled agile software development environment I've ever worked in. People pushing themselves to the breaking point when they could get better results by just stopping whatever they're doing and take the week off.

Last 10% of bug fixed, 90% of total effort. I'm with you. This COVID-19 thing has changed my perspective on work, (although I'm not so sure about my employer's.) We're split into A/B team, one week in, one week out. I really happy, probably the first time in my working life I've achieved the nominal "work/life balance". The office feels more productive, I'm more productive, fewer people making ad-hoc demands on my ti…

It's more than the 80/20 rule, it has to do with how people perceive the notion of work. It used to be we would let the computer do the work for us and we'd kick back and read mad magazine. Now it's the other way around and the tools are driving us instead.

And it's because in our rush to not get corporate like those people we despise, we've become even worse than them and our desire to fit in and gain acceptance and recognition have caused us to go all out like the fellow on the bike and we're just causing pile ups which would be better off if we cleared the road.

Everyone has several people on their team who would do well to just stay home and let the others do their thing.

Re: Relax for the Same Result (2015)

#46

Post by artsyca »

pritovido wrote: post #41
artsyca wrote: post #11

Totally analogous to every single self-styled agile software development environment I've ever worked in. People pushing themselves to the breaking point when they could get better results by just stopping whatever they're doing and take the week off.

There is the related story of "Amundsen vs Scott" race to the South Pole. Amundsen had studied human behavior and efficiency under stress. He knew a constant pace every day was way more efficient than doing epic effort. So he will restraint his people and not let them do more than a given distance each day, I think it was 30 miles or so. This gave his team an edge against constant epic efforts on Scott part. A week o…

Exactly! There's always going to be that one guy trying to prove he's a 10x that'll trek out all on his own into the wilderness in the middle of the night and then a bunch of others who will follow because that's she start-up way

Re: Relax for the Same Result (2015)

#48

Post by CuriouslyC »

tasssko wrote: post #40
mlok wrote: post #12

This is very similar to the Pareto principle : 80% of the highest result is obtained through 20% of the highest effort. To get to 100% of the highest result you will have to deliver four times more effort. Most of the time, 80% is good enough. Save your resources for other endeavors.

I’m sure you mean well but you’ve liberally modified paretos principle. In general it is a macro indicator of outcome not effort! Something like 80% sales come from 20% of customers.

The Pareto principle is just a contextualized way of describing the dynamics of a system with diminishing returns. If you could say anything has "low hanging fruit" then it has diminishing returns.
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