Earlier this month I wrote an article called “What I Learned About Life From Watching Roger Federer”.
Roger Federer, as you may recall, is the number one male tennis player in the world — the Michael Jordan of tennis. In the article, I talked about how his economy of motion, equanimity in the face of difficulty, and deep consistency are inspirational and instructive in ways that transcend tennis and have relevancy in various aspects of life.
Ever since then, I’ve been giving thought to how one can “Federerize” one’s productivity, and I’ve coined a phrase for it: The Federer Swing.
What is the Federer Swing? It’s bringing the three qualities I mentioned above — economy of motion, equanimity in the face of difficulty, and deep consistency — to one’s productivity. Let’s concentrate on economy of motion.
The more I thought about economy of motion, the more I noticed how much wasted energy I expend while working. Now, as someone who follows the principles of GTD pretty closely, I thought I had a fairly streamlined workflow (eg. not keeping my file cabinet in a different room than my desk — what had I been thinking), but upon closer inspection, and with the economy of motion of Federer’s swing in mind, this turned out to be an area I can refactor significantly.
For example, while writing this post I notice I waste time and precious energy (even if just a bit — it all adds up) by checking the Preview habitually. I write blog posts in TextMate using Markdown syntax (which increases my economy of motion and efficiency), but then I reflexively hit ctrl-option-command-p every so often for no apparent reason — just a behavioral tic. True, sometimes I really do need to see the post-Markdown preview. For instance, when I’ve used a Markdown syntax I’m not used to, and I want to see if it worked. But, most of the previewing I’m doing is just pointless. An equivilant action on the tennis court might be twitching the racket in some habitual way just before swinging. If the twitch serves no purpose in the context at hand — hitting the ball — then the twitch isn’t economical motion and must go. Likewise, seeing a post preview a dozen times isn’t economical and must go.
For another example, let’s say I’m programming. And, let’s further say I need to look something up about a method I’m trying to use. I switch to my trusty browser to find information, but suddenly it dawns on me that I could take a minute to pop on over to Google Reader and see what’s new in my feeds. Just “a minute.” Now, obviously, stopping to check news feeds is counter-productive, since the goal at hand is programming, not feed surfing. But, let’s look at it in terms of the swing metaphor. When Federer dashes across the court to hit the ball, does he stop along the way to check his cell phone voicemail? Preposterous! Un-economical? Yes. In the extreme. And yet, I know for a fact I’ve stopped to check feeds in the middle of another task. Perhaps you have too.
All that said, I think there’s a danger to being too draconian or rigid about economy of motion. There are times where being a little loose, a little scattered, is advantageous. Sometimes wandering off the path for a bit leads to serendipitous discovery. But, generally speaking, when bearing down on a specific task, refining economy of motion is useful and desirable.
