One thing that I wonder about in the model you've laid out here is the distinction between "writing for practice" vs. "writing for output".
I find that when I'm actually trying to output my peak performance, flow is essential. If I'm "pushing" too hard or things are feeling to hard and creating anxiety, I scale it back. If I'm not pushing hard enough or things are feeling to easy and creating boredom, I scale it up. For instance, in martial arts, I won't use new moves during a match, UNLESS I'm against an opponent that is easy for me, in which case I'll bring in the new moves to challenges myself.
On the other hand, when I'm practicing martial arts, while I try to have an undercurrent of the enjoyment of the practice, I'll often let myself slip down into the boredom zone, or up into the anxiety zone. Drilling the same move a hundred times to make micro-adjustments might make me slip down into the boredom zone, meanwhile "interleaved practice" where I'm never letting myself get too comfortable with a move before switching to another one may move a bit up into the anxiety zone.
Thanks for writing this and sorry for the late response - I read it a few times and wanted to think it through!
I guess this area is one area in which I’d bring up that bit of wisdom that ‘you become good at the specific thing you practice’. So like you’re saying, you need to be aware of whether you’re ‘flexing the muscles’ that lead to consistent output or those that lead to peak performance. You could reframe this and call each of these different types of ‘peak’ performance - maybe quality vs consistency. Racecar driver (rare high skill execution which is more risk tolerant) vs chauffeur (frequent execution which needs to be low risk and always work).
In theory you could decide to just specialize in one or the other! And be the guy who has a few masterpieces, or more like an Asimov who wrote like a book a month.
Great post!
One thing that I wonder about in the model you've laid out here is the distinction between "writing for practice" vs. "writing for output".
I find that when I'm actually trying to output my peak performance, flow is essential. If I'm "pushing" too hard or things are feeling to hard and creating anxiety, I scale it back. If I'm not pushing hard enough or things are feeling to easy and creating boredom, I scale it up. For instance, in martial arts, I won't use new moves during a match, UNLESS I'm against an opponent that is easy for me, in which case I'll bring in the new moves to challenges myself.
On the other hand, when I'm practicing martial arts, while I try to have an undercurrent of the enjoyment of the practice, I'll often let myself slip down into the boredom zone, or up into the anxiety zone. Drilling the same move a hundred times to make micro-adjustments might make me slip down into the boredom zone, meanwhile "interleaved practice" where I'm never letting myself get too comfortable with a move before switching to another one may move a bit up into the anxiety zone.
Thanks for writing this and sorry for the late response - I read it a few times and wanted to think it through!
I guess this area is one area in which I’d bring up that bit of wisdom that ‘you become good at the specific thing you practice’. So like you’re saying, you need to be aware of whether you’re ‘flexing the muscles’ that lead to consistent output or those that lead to peak performance. You could reframe this and call each of these different types of ‘peak’ performance - maybe quality vs consistency. Racecar driver (rare high skill execution which is more risk tolerant) vs chauffeur (frequent execution which needs to be low risk and always work).
In theory you could decide to just specialize in one or the other! And be the guy who has a few masterpieces, or more like an Asimov who wrote like a book a month.