Today my new puppy reminded me of a great quote by Naval:
"Forty-hour workweeks are a relic of the Industrial Age. Knowledge workers function like athletes — train and sprint*, then rest and reassess"*
At just over 8 weeks old, Astra is a mini Australian shepherd that knows more about productivity and focus than your average Joe.
Her schedule consists of short sprints—60 to 90 minutes—of really hard and focused work: she runs like crazy chewing and biting everything on her path.
Then, like a machine with an on/off switch, she collapses.
For the next 2 hours, she'll sleep as deep and relaxed as no other, recharging her batteries for another sprint.
This is how most knowledge workers should operate.
Perhaps not snoozing off for 2 hours every 90 minutes. No manager and agile sorcerer would allow it.
But we would all do better by training ourselves to do more deep work.
We should really focus on our tasks when we're on. Then rest profoundly when we're off.
But if you're like me you've spent lots of time in productivity limbo: never fully on and never fully off.
So, we would do ourselves—and our goals—a favor if we learned to work and rest hard like a puppy.