Efficiency

Efficiency

I am far from the most efficient and focused person. This very post is currently being written while not reading an article for a class I have in just over fifty minutes from now. I will probably have to bull shit my way through the discussion again. The thing about efficiency and me is that we just don’t seem to get along. I still have a bit of an inner bad ass who likes to rebel and do whatever he wants, and well that damn efficiency bugger just doesn’t mesh with my style. We have been friends before, there are times when we will walk down the road, punch drunk with an arm around each other and celebrate great achievements and look to the future. It is a tumultuous relationship however, and we usually end the night by doing something that someone else doesn’t like and waking up in the morning avoiding each other.

I know it is a virtue to be efficient, but I just can’t get it through my thick skull. When it is time to get down to business I usually partake of my favourite type of procrastination: that of watching and reading interviews with famous athletes and successful and well “efficient” people. I think that I truly could be an unbelievable biographer, because I literally know most facts about most successful or interesting people. Or people that I find interesting anyway. I am damn good at reading interviews and doing research on generally meaningless things. But really in the long run, is it actually meaningless? I mean maybe I learn a lot of lessons from these stories and interviews, maybe I am just preparing for the future by learning all the habits of people who are successful in order to one day be successful myself.

I have written about being immersed in the moment in some of my previous blogs and of how I cannot force myself to do anything. I really can’t. If I genuinely don’t feel the want and desire to get something done, then it probably won’t get done. Lord knows this has left me with half finished essays and only an hour or two to write, but the point is that I am a creature of passion. When I am passionate about something I want to learn everything about it and master it and leave everything else to the wayside no matter how important it may be.
I find myself using an acronym from a Michael Phelps biography I read (see, it is paying off already) where Bob Bowman tells him to focus on WIN, the acronym being what’s important now? Is it really important for me to clean my room, or should I get this damn project done so that I can focus on things that I want to do. When I show up at the pool and feel like shit and know in my heart that I cannot finish the set on the board, what is important? Stepping up and surprising myself, that is what is important.

To be totally honest I think I am doing quite well at the moment and am becoming a very focused person thanks to all the patient and kind mentors and family that I have around me. I would be nowhere without the people who impact my life every day. I know that I am still not efficient with school, but the discipline will get there. I am trying to find more passion in it every day. The training is there again, I find so much passion within those acts of swimming, cycling and running and honestly am focused and happy to complete each set or workout. I have come a long way since my injuries and illnesses and just general disdain for everything that I was doing at the time. I will find a way to balance it all, and maybe even be efficient at it.

There have been bigger miracles in the world. Right?