The Full Student Excerpt

Comparison #2: Consistent Variety Over Intensity

I love sports and I believe that coaches deserve way more recognition than they receive. Coaches make or break a team with their wisdom and their leadership. I love speaking with great coaches because they always have something in common – the ability to see a path towards a better future and get others to believe it can be done. With this in mind, I set out to find out how coaches think about workout schedules for their athletes and eventually settled on asking a simple question. Which one of these options is more effective for muscle growth? 

1. Working out arms on Monday, core on Wednesday, and legs on Friday to the point of severe soreness each time.

OR 

2. Working out on Monday, Wednesday and Friday focusing on arms, core, and legs each day. 

I also added that for either scenario, the workout sessions lasted for two hours on any given day. That way, the only variables we had that mattered were whether it was better to pace oneself, targeting more areas of the body each day, or to go all out on a single day. The answer probably would not surprise anyone who goes to the gym regularly. The second option won without contest. The first option was even deemed risky. In fact, I wouldn't recommend that someone try the first option above for fear that you might spur on an injury. The body asks us not to push it to the point of no return, but to stress it in multiple areas for them to grow simultaneously. Likewise, consider the child learning to play two instruments. Playing the piano for 6 hours one day, then the drums for 6 hours the next day, does not get that student to progress as fast as the student who practices each instrument for 3 hours each, daily. 

What does this mean for Sustained Attention? Well as an extension of Comparison #1, not only is the brain able to take on varying types of tasks in a single day, but you are recommended to do so rather doing one thing intensely all day33. I do not mean that you necessarily need to have more than one overarching goal. Working all day on developing your business is totally fine and required at times. But even within this encompassing passion, there are several different types of tasks. Let me make this example a bit clearer. Suppose you are working towards your own blog. You may choose to spend Monday writing, Tuesday marketing, and Wednesday replying to emails and researching. The alternative and more efficient way to go about building your blog is to do each of these things daily or at the very least more than one each day. That way, you will get better at them simultaneously since you’ll have more opportunities to go through the MGC. 

To remind you, the MGC is: 

Stress 

Rest to Assimilate 

Repeat 

The entire cycle must be completed to effect growth. Therefore, increasing the volume per week that you go through the cycle leads to better growth in any particular area than does intensity. If you have to choose between volume per week and intensity per day, choose volume per week for better growth. Our brains are not meant to go hours on end doing the same thing. There comes a point where completing more of a task makes little sense. You get to decide between consistency and burnout.

Comparison #3: Finite Amount of Energy Each Day

This final comparison gives the caveat. I would be remiss if I did not include this here. Psychologists would surely raise red flags if I did not warn you that just like working out, there is only so far your brain can be pushed before it actually does need sleep. Even for me in the gym, using the sets and reps I told you about, I get to a point where none of my muscle groups are up for even one more set. It does not matter what I do at this point. No water nor energy drink might work. The only option is to leave the gym and rest. 

The same goes for the brain34. I can spend 6 hours in Sustained Attention on a variety of fields of knowledge but at some point, after these hours I will not be able to go anymore. It would not be healthy for me to push past this point. Just like a coach would tell me that overextending my workout can cause a muscle injury. The same goes for overextending Sustained Attention, and there are only so many times you can go through the MGC in a single day. There is a limit. Each person has a different limit, and training can extend this limit35. I know people who can work on their business from when their eyes open until their eyes close with no break, but they certainly did not always operate this way. Others can only go a few hours at a time each day. Most of us can manage 8 hours of total Sustained Attention daily. However long you can achieve Sustained Attention each day, just know that the total number is not meant for dedication to any one task. Consistent variety beats sporadic intensity every time. It is up to you to increase your total Sustained Attention ability which will in turn make you more valuable. In the next section we will talk about the optimal time to spend on a single task. 

Sustained Attention Has An Optimal Time

To address the issue of how long any single type of task should garner our Sustained Attention, the optimal time is between 90 minutes to 2 hours. This is the simple answer. In reality, the time will depend on the task and the person of course, but it tends to vary towards larger amounts of time, rather than smaller. For example, I know program coders who can sit and write for 5 hours non-stop. I myself can practice cello for 4 hours easily (it used to be 6 hours!). The reason why it gets bigger for different mental tasks is really because the magnitude of some tasks cannot be done in smaller amounts of time. Take coding, for example. If the coder were to stop halfway through or before a certain key checkpoint, it might take some time to get the mind going again to produce smooth and coherent commands. For the programmer, it would be better for them to keep going for hours on end because the task demands it36. Generally, you will find that once you get near spending 90 minutes on a single task, you'll probably keep going until there is a reasonable point to stop.

What Does Variety Look Like?

In this final section I wanted to show you a few illustrations of what variety might look like. These models are not exhaustive; however, they will prove quite useful for your understanding of variety. There are different functions of your brain, all of which have the opportunity for growth. Your cognizance has analytical, creative, physical, social, spiritual and, necessary components, which all vary in needs. The necessary component of your mind includes things like eating food or using the bathroom. The necessary component has immediate needs that need to be met every single day. On the other hand, the social component of our brain still needs to be fulfilled, but not as often and not as urgently. Since there are different components to the brain, we can then begin to look at how we might exercise variety throughout our days in order to live a FULL life. 

In this case, I can move from analytical to physical, to spiritual, to social activities, and still have enough energy by the end of the day to revisit analytical activities. The reason for this is inherent in the MGC. More plainly, working on calculation for 90 minutes, preparing a speech for 2 hours, then listening a podcast for an hour is one way to employ variety. Employing the MGC in multiple areas of your brain allows you to stress multiple areas, while simultaneously allowing other areas to rest. 

From a broader standpoint, my charge to you is to find different endeavors that stretch your mind in different ways. While doing so, your mind will have a chance to improve itself constantly in multiple areas of itself rather than just one at a time. If all you do is analytical things all day, then find a hobby that makes you more creative. If you don’t exercise, then find something to make you more active like walking or running. If you spend all day behind the desk not talking to any colleague, then at the end of the day, try drumming up a conversation with someone you care about or literally anyone close by, or someone on the plethora of available social messaging apps. Be deliberate in the way you expand your mind and watch all areas of your mind grow beyond expectation.