No one likes the feeling that other people are waiting – impatiently – for you to get back to them.

At the beginning of the day, faced with an overflowing inbox, a list of messages on your voicemail, and the to-do list from your last meeting, it’s tempting to want to “clear the decks” before you start on your own most important work. When you’re up-to-date, you tell yourself, your mind will be clear and it will be easier to focus on the task at hand.The trouble with this approach is that you end up spending the best part of the day on other people’s priorities, running their errands, and giving them what they need. By the time you finally settle down to your own work, it could be mid-afternoon, when your energy has dipped and it’s hard to focus on anything properly. “Oh well, maybe tomorrow will be better,” you tell yourself.

But when tomorrow comes round there’s another pile of emails, phone messages, and to-do list items. If you carry on like this you will spend most of your time on reactive work, responding to incoming demands and answering questions framed by other people. It’s a never-ending hamster wheel. And it will never lead to remarkable work, in Seth Godin‘s sense, “worthy of being remarked on.” We don’t find it remarkable when our expectations are met – only when they are exceeded, or when we are surprised by something completely unexpected.

The single most important change I’ve made in my own working habits has been to start doing things the other way round – i.e. begin the day with creative work on my own top priorities, with the phone on silent and email switched off. And I never schedule meetings in the morning, if there’s any way of avoiding it. This means that whatever else happens, I get my most important work done – and looking back, all of my biggest successes have been the result of making this simple change.

We don’t find it remarkable when our expectations are met – only when they are exceeded.

These days, I have two brands to manage and 10 partner brands to work with and manage expectations for. I am soon to release by first e-books, already doing training programs, and soon, a new brand to launch as well. On top of this, I have built a great network of great contacts I can call on for help. All of these things are assets that create ongoing value for my partners and sponsors. Yet there wasn’t a single day when I sat down to write each individual essay, blog post, training plan, or e-book chapter, without a string of people waiting for me to get back to them.

It wasn’t easy, and still isn’t, particularly when I get phone messages beginning “I sent you an email two hours ago…!”

By definition, taking this approach goes against the grain of others’ expectations, and the pressures they put on you. It can take an act of willpower to switch off the world, even for an hour, during the working day. For some strange reason, it feels “unprofessional” to be knuckling down to work in this way.

The thing is, if you want to create something truly remarkable, it won’t be built in a day. A great novel, a stunning design, a game-changing software application, a revolutionary company – this kind of thing takes time, thought, craft, and persistence. And on any given day, it will never appear as “urgent” as those four emails (in the last half-hour) from Client X or Colleague Y, asking for things you’ve already given them or which they probably don’t really need.

So if you’re going to prioritize this kind of work – your real work – you may have to go through a wall of anxiety in order to get it done. And you’ll probably have to put up with complaints and reproaches from people who have no idea what you’re trying to achieve, and can’t understand what could be more important than their needs.

If you’re going to prioritize your real work, you may have to go through a wall of anxiety in order to get it done.

Yes, it feels uncomfortable, and sometimes people get upset, but it’s much better to disappoint a few people over small things, than to sacrifice the big things for an empty inbox. Otherwise you’re sacrificing real productivity for the illusion of professionalism.

Here are a few tips to help you make the switch:

1. Creative work first, reactive work second.
Either start the day on your creative work, or make sure you block out time for it later in the day – preferably at a time when you typically feel energized and productive.

2. Tune out distractions.
You know the drill – email off, phone off, work from home if you can, stick your headphones on if you can’t.

3. Make exceptions for VIPs.
Don’t be reckless. If you’re working with a client to a deadline, or your boss needs something urgently, treat them like VIPs and give them special access – e.g. leave the phone on and answer if they ring (everyone else gets the voicemail).

4. Be really efficient at reactive work.
You can’t ignore everybody all the time. The better your productivity systems, the more promptly you’ll be able to respond to their requests – and the more time you’ll have free for your own work.

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If you can get those 4 simple things right, I believe you are more than halfway to creating remarkable things.

Please share your stories and tips – that way we all grow, including myself.

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Just watch that over and over. That kid took 27 strokes per 50m for 1450m of the 1500m. That is unreal. I actually cannot fathom how economical that is. He looks to hardly be moving but he is swimming 58 seconds per 100 meters. On an efficiency level, Grant Hackett, the previous world record holder, was 31 stroked per 50 meters. This kid is about 15% more efficient. On a world level, that is HUGE.

If you doubt the effect of efficiency, stop. If you doubt economy of movement, stop it.

Believe.

Practise form again and again. Every swim. Every ride. Every run.

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image from Marc

Yesterday, I set a crash course program for Challenge Cape Town, now that O till O is complete. It’s quite a scary one, I have to admit but hey, I`m happy to fail from time to time and this certainly will have me in the failure area if I am not 100% diligent with recovery. In the run-up to O till O, I focussed on specific elements that take more time to get right (swim economy, for instance) and got in as much winter riding as possible, whilst remaining healthy and having a mad work schedule.

So now, we have a 5 week block based very much on maintenance of swim and run form and supercharging the bike leg for the race.

This involves early mornings, weekends spent in a post-endorphin-haze and being ultimately, focused on economy of movement for the next few weeks. Whilst I cannot work much on the testing aspects, protocol aspects and the fine tech that could help, here is a short list of things I DO control:

- Quality of sleep
- Stability of body weight
- Mood
- Quality of nutrition
- Financial stability
- Emotional stability
- Illness and injury history
- Immune system function
- Accident assessment – shelled athletes crash, fresh athletes have close calls.

These are items that I can keep untangled as such. Very importantly from that article for me in the next few weeks:

What you can do, however, is work on yourself, is accept yourself as you are right now, is start to fuel your own personal inner fire of belief without any external sources. It’s not that you don’t value the thoughts of friends and people you love, but instead, that you accept them as simply that: thoughts and input from the outside world. If every time you speak to a group of people, they yawn and look away, accept that maybe you’re boring them, but don’t take it any further than that. Don’t read minds. Just take that information and decide what you want to do about it.

There are going to be but a select handful of people who will put up with me in the next few weeks. They understand the drive and value the commitment (and that I will return from the haze soon).

Thankfully, there is a relatively economic engine under the hood which I merely need to rev a little and I don’t have to put in months of hard work to get close to where I want to be. I will most likely not be in the best shape of my life come 6 November, but I will get close, if all goes well. I am content that in my sporting life, I have done the basics to be able to merely rev the engine a little to get Pareto’s Principle going for me. Doing the work, as I have always stated, is the basic foundation. Once it’s there (just Google 10 000 hours), it’s easy to rev it.

In the next few weeks, I will be reporting back to you on some movement exercises a friend has given me to try out, to do with improving movement and reducing energy waste whilst swimming, cycling and running. Improving response times and being able to maximise performance whilst having a full time job is essentially once of the key pillars to this blog. I am excited to try a few new things and share them with you.

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I believe I am going to be talking to my legs many a moment in the next few weeks as I absolutely do my best to obliterate them into being the strongest, leanest most economically endurance sports orientated pins in the world. Well, my world at least. The aim is to build a bit more strength for the purposes of going up the volcano in Maui on the mountain bike, but for me the greatest gain I wish to make is more economy at slightly faster speeds.

In true style, I am even going to tell you how I plan on doing it. Then you will sit back and watch and if it works, follow the rules, but if I crash and burn, laugh and point… right? You with me sunshine?

Swim:

I am going back to squad as of 1 August 2010. 8 weeks with squad should sort me out 1 shot in terms of open water swimming (by open water I mean in the sea with the turtles in Kona) for the Ironman swim. No wetsuits allowed, even if I will have an Orca RS1 Swimskin to help me along.

Last Kona I neglected my swim a little and I missed a key pack early on. 8 weeks of hopefully chasing the White Rabbit in the pool will make me a better man.

Bike:

So apart from having what will be the most tricked out Ceepo Katana in Kona, as well as the most tricked out Morewood Zula for Maui, I actually need to work on the bike, as I will have to do for the next 5-60 years of my life. Work on the bike never stops, contrary to popular belief.

Some of the key components to building a faster bike (Maui):

a. Threshold training (AT)
b. Weight Loss
c. Mental coaching (the pain means its good, right?)
d. Bike skills (learn to bomb down a volcano in the big ring like a Caveman or a Gollywog (when he doesn’t shave for 2 days))
e. More ME work (endurance power)

They key components for the Kona bike are different to the one in PE, by virtue that the course has about triple the climbing in. So here are my focus points:

a. ME work (sustained power) for the rollers, of which there are MANY in Kona.
b. Aero climbing, so staying aero over the rollers by teaching the body to remain aero and get the extra power to be as economical as possible.
c. Pack riding. I will more than likely be in a group of 40 guys in Kona, not on my own like PE, so I have to practise a bit of pace variance as the advantage of the pack is huge.
d. Economy. The run in Kona is freaking brutal. I need to bike as easy as possible, but want to ride under 5 hours again. This means I have to be stronger than in PE, but also that it has to be sustainable for 3 hours after the ride.

Run:

I have enrolled in a testing program at the Sport Science Institute here to learn a little more about my running. I outran best hopes in PE by 5 minutes, and almost outran it by 15minutes if I had just known a little more about my running. I am hoping the lactate testing, VO2max etc will give me a better insight into how I need to be training to achieve what I want to on the run in Kona. I will continue to use all the things which have taken me from 3:52 to 3:15 on the marathon at PE but I wanted to try something new, so according to the smartest people around, we are going to work on my ability to run more economically, not necessarily faster. The speed will come as a byproduct. More than anything, I want to be able to run stronger over the last 10km than I did in PE. Not by much, all I am looking for is a 10% extra at the end of the race. I faltered in PE due to a bloated stomach (too much sugar) and ill preparation (Sani2c and Cape Epic limited running in the last 8 weeks before Ironman) and this time around there are no excuses to NOT have that 10%.

Maui – realistically, I am going to be hanging on for dear life at that point, running a super tough 11km beach/rock/road/mud run 2 weeks after Kona, but I am going to try and remain calm and rip the legs off it.

In the middle, during this big block of training, however, my legs will come and go. Today, for instance, it hurts when I sit still (mean new gym set on Monday being the major culprit). I have hurt them this week already, but now need to manage the recovery process to the weekend where 10 hours of training await the poor pins. There is planned massage and floatation planned, so I should be ok. If I do blow up, you will be first to know, saying “I told you so”.

If I don’t push the limits out, I will never know how good I could possibly be. I am willing to risk the occasional blow out to know how far the rabbit hole goes, if you know what I mean?

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I am getting more and more comments on the amount and type of training I do. The conversation will go something like this…

Friend: “Dude, awesome race at Ironman. You must be racking up the hours. Why aren’t you pro?”

Me: “Thanks, but I have a normal job and train normal hours. I am not near pro level. Top age grouper and top pro are worlds apart.”

Friend: “Seriously, you must be racking up 25 hours a week?”

Me: “No, I average around 16-18 hours a week.”

Friend: “Liar!”

The argument goes on and as such I am going to put my weekly average miles on. My weeks start on a Saturday anyway, so posting them every Friday is a good way for me to reflect on the previous seven days. Fridays are also my days off in general. I will start this week with what I managed:

Saturday: Off

Sunday: 30min run to the gym, easy, followed by 60min indoor spin (100 cadence, 120hr). 15min run.

Monday: 40min (2km) swim and some minor core work (about 20min) in the Morning. Afternoon was a 35min jog on the promenade making sure I kept the HR down to being able to run with my mouth closed.

Tuesday: Slept in in the morning, was just too good. Afternoon session was a 45min spin (100 cadence, 120hr) and a 45min run, easy easy.

Wednesday: Morning swim, 40min (2km)

Thursday: 60min Vinyasa Yoga in the morning. Afternoon was 45min spin (100 cadence, 120hr) and a 30 session of core.

Friday: 45min spin (100 cadence, 120hr)

That’s it.

So not really a heavy week, right? I am still getting my body back into action and should be getting in my first longer outdoor ride this weekend plus a trail run out there somewhere, hopefully. The plan is to do 15 hours next week split as follows:

Swim: 2 hours
Ride: 7 hours
Run: 3 hours
Gym: 1 hour
Yoga: 2 hours

As the weeks go by, I`ll get more riding in and that will go up towards 14 hours a week, with 2 hours swimming, 5 hours of running and 2 hours of yoga per week. That’s really my biggest weeks in training, 23 hours. I might do 2 of those.

Average will be about 10 Hours of riding, 4 Hours of running, 2 Hours of Swimming and 2 Hours of Yoga. 18 Hours. Not more. I can’t do more than that and maintain health and work at full steam.

For what I am doing in training, well I am working on the following for the following 16 weeks:

Economy
Flexibility
Economy
Core stability
Economy
Power
Economy.

Quite a simple equation as to what I feel is most important for the successes I want to achieve in Hawaii at Ironman and Xterra World Champs. My goals have been penned but those I can’t share just yet…

Buy me a RealBeer and we can talk about it…

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This weekend I was lucky enough to have a bike ride with a real pro again. Now that I have a bit more power on the bike, I took it upon myself to take the Rural Rasta out for a ride with Dan Hugo, all round great guy and full time Xterra Pro.

Riding with a pro is a special experience not for how fast they go (we were able to hang on most of the way) but with how much ease they do it. I think you will find some answers to the cause in my posts on 10 000 hours of work.

It’s no different to a great graphic designer, who belts out the most amazing design with what seems like zero effort.

Dan is the same. Watching him tick out a pedaling action so smooth it’s comparable to water flowing over marble makes you remember why he is pro, and you are amateur. He is just SO good at riding a bike, the other two of us can merely ride along and marvel at the effort that has gone into achieving this.

It was the same when I had the chance to train with Team CSC back in the day. The guys were in off season, and they were so smooth (the Schleck brothers in particular) all we did was ride and watch them, and try to emulate them.

Now apply this to your work life. Have you tried to follow someone who puts together deals daily with such an amazing ease that it makes you sick? You think it was always this easy for them? You have to practice to be great. You can’t just sell. I bet people who can sell at a relatively young age hustled on the playground when they were 4 years old. I bet they hustled their parents for food when they were 2.

Economy is the secret here. Pro’s in sport, business, relationships all have it. But it takes practice. It takes effort, it takes time. It means you need to HTFU and get out there and be prepared to make an ass out of yourself from time to time in the name of all things economy!

I don’t need to go into the photo, it’s courtesy of Dan’s web page and from a training camp they held for one of their sponsors recently. In the photo, you can just tell these two guys are flying along, at no effort (seemingly). The other kwagga in the photo is none other than Conrad Stoltz.

But they do make effort. In all spheres of life. In business, in relationships, in friendships, it’s about the effort, even if it looks easy. Value the effort that’s gone into making it look that easy, and don’t judge others for making it look easy. I guarantee you that it’s still quite a bit of effort for them, as much as for you, they just go faster/sell easier/manage better but its still requires their total effort.

If you have economy at something, I applaud you.

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