Tony Schwartz is a pretty inspiring speaker, giving sage advice on the right side of the *self-help hemisphere*. His main area of expertise is in the space of life enhancement, and his SXSW chat was entitled “The 90 minute solution: live like a Sprinter” where he discussed managing time vs energy, focusing in on a theory based around supercharging your productivity and satisfaction by living in 90 minute waves.
Tony’s main theorising is based around managing your energy levels better, and he pointed out initially that “time is limited but energy isn’t”, and therefore it’s up to a person to work out how to best use / manage their energy levels to get more done.
Apparently there’s 4 types of energy:
- Physical energy: this is the foundation of all energy, and is based around certain factors like fitness, nutrition, sleep and rest / renewal.
- Emotional energy: as how you feel influences how you perform
- Mental (focus): the best way to get things done efficiently, is to do one thing at a time for an absorbed time. Distractions are bad.
- The Human Spirit (purpose): when you have a clearly defined sense of purpose, especially when it’s based on a vision, is the human spirit enhanced.
The heart of the problem relating to energy management comes down to, according to Tony, how we perceive our mode of operation, with people assuming we operate in the same was as computers – i.e. that we can operate at high speeds contrinuously for long periods all the time.
But humans don’t operate in the same *continuous way* as computers, but instead are *rhythmic*, with our energy levels fluctuating during the day. This natural rhythm is the Ultradian Ryhthm, which is a 90 minute wave our bodies cycle through.
So what this means is that the best way to get more work done is to align our natural bodily rhythms and create a rhythmic relationship between spending energy and renewing energy.
In practice this means working in *90 minute sprints*, aligned with our bodily rhythms and taking out time to *renew* (re-engergise) before starting over again. And there’s no more important form of renewal than *sleep* – which Tony says we should really make the most of, pointing out that the best virtuosos violin players in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra take on average 8.6 hours of sleep a day, which over a week adds up to 14 hours extra sleep a week compared to the average person.
In answering questions at the end of the session, Tony’s top tips to more productive life (which he lives himself) were:
- Work in 90 minute sprints
- Do most of your intense / creative work in the mornings, as you have more energy then
- Go to bed earlier
So there you go – according to Tony it’s not a case of “snooze you lose”, rather “snooze you win” . . .
