In 2004, Dean Karnazes ran 350 miles / 560 km in just 80 hours. To put that in context, a marathon is ~42 km. Dean ran over 13 marathons in a row, without any sleep.

 

Funnily enough, for some of us, simply staying awake for that long might feel like a feat. Running that distance in a year might even be pretty decent — 10km a week is a pretty sound goal for an average person. Yet, there are people like Dean, who take distances that most of the population would consider to be impressive feats of endurance and make them look like warm-ups.

 

Humans are incredible. Feats of physical performance are often illustrative of this. Whether it’s Ross Edgley swimming around Great Britain, or Alex Honnold’s free climbing, there is no denying that watching people test the boundaries of human abilities leaves one in awe. You can, of course, be awe-inspired by examples of soldiers at war, mothers who have sacrificed all for their kids, or any one of countless intellectual feats. The point of this discussion is not the specific task, but rather, to encourage you to ask the following question… Why not you?

 

Seriously, why not? It’s a point that you have probably heard 1000 times in repetitive motivational videos, but why not delegate your efforts toward understanding what exactly you are capable of?

I’m not even talking about achieving “world record” stuff, or even “elite” status in any particular area, but simply the pursuit of your best self. I think it’s fair to say that a lot of us don’t have one specific thing that we want to be the best at. Rather, there are probably a number of things in your life that you are interested in. Regardless of what those things are, it’s likely that you are living your life at a very low level of efficiency compared to your maximum.

 

The reason that looking at extreme examples of human capabilities is important is not to replicate what they do, but to ask how exactly they go about getting to that point. From there, you can deconstruct their lifestyles and imagine a life in which you truly operated at 100%. Once you know what 100% looks like for you, you know where the benchmark lies, and hence you can create a new standard for yourself. Allow me to illustrate this for you.

 

Name: Sharon Black

Occupation: Lawyer

Family Status: Married, two kids (aged 7 and 9)

Sports/Leisure: Ultra-runner (100-150 km)

 

Daily Routine
 

5-7am: Run OR Gym OR Swim

7-8am: Shower, wake kids, school lunches

8-8:30am: Drop kids to school

9-4pm: Work (Mon-Fri)

4-6pm: Collect kids from granny’s, cook dinner, eat with family, drop kids to sports (husband collects)

6-8pm: Study / continual professional development / case preparation

8-9:30pm: Play with kids, watch TV, misc.

9:30pm: Sleep.

Weekend: Longer run Saturday, longer study time, more time with kids.

 

Name: Joe McDonagh

Occupation: Student

Family Status: Single

Sports/Leisure: Video games

 

9-10am: Wake, scroll social media

10-12am: Lecture

12-3pm: YouTube/Netflix/Video games

3-4pm: Lecture

4-6pm: Kick ball around with the lads, watch TV, misc.

6-8pm: Video games

8-midnight: Cans with the lads, joint or two

Weekend: Out Friday and Saturday, part-time job Sunday, sleep in later at weekends

 

Breaking It Down
 

If we take Sharon’s example, I would consider her to be a pretty impressive person. I have used such an example because it is actually realistic, but still impressive enough to give us something to work toward. Don’t be fooled, these people exist, and they are every bit as incredible as the soldier at war. They are taking their life situation and squeezing every last drop out of it. She has goals, both in and out of her career, and despite the presence of other life commitments, she effectively uses her time to chase those goals. I would consider her to be living with close to 100% efficiency. From looking at her day, there doesn’t seem to be a moment spent without purpose. That, in my eyes, is the ideal — to live with purpose. It does not mean that you live like a monk. Playing with her kids, preparing them for school etc. is purposeful. The key to designing a life that is as efficient as possible is for it to be purposeful, not torturous.

 

On the other hand, if we compare that to Joe, who I have modelled based on the way that lots of students live, we see a very significant contrast. This doesn’t make him a bad person, as this is generally the way one might live if they were to just follow the norms as a student. Unless you are going out of your way to deviate from what may be a normal expectation (at least from my college experience), it’s not unlikely that you might live like this. While we can argue that time spent with friends and engaging in leisure activities (gaming) is helpful as part of a healthy lifestyle, I don’t think that is what we are seeing here. What we are seeing here is lots of indulgence, with very little investment. The main purposeful tasks seem to be the attendance of classes, which is actually pretty optimistic (most students don’t attend all of their classes, and it’s not uncommon for total class time to be <15 hours in some courses), and the fact that we don’t see any additional study time featured does not bode well for his academic outcomes.

 

However, rating Joe’s efficiency is a little more difficult. What does he want to achieve? Right now, it’s likely that he is not moving toward any particular intellectual or physical goals, so we don’t really know what he wants. He is likely in the state of limbo that lots of students experience. If we take the 3 hours of lectures as being the purposeful time, we can say that 20% of his waking hours are spent on purposeful tasks. It’s not a lot, is it? Could we get to 50%, and if so, how?

 

Admittedly, we don’t know what Joe wants to achieve, but we know that certain things like exercising and reading are likely to benefit the lives of most people, as it’s never a bad idea to be healthier, fitter, and more knowledgeable about the world around you. So, let’s say we added in an hour of exercise and an hour of reading. That’s two more purposeful waking hours, bringing us to 33% efficiency. An hour of exercise and an hour of reading really adds up over time, yet it seems like nothing on a percentage basis when compared with total waking hours. If you are living like Joe, is this something you could do?

 

 

The Ticking Clock
 

Time is ticking, and anyone in their older years will warn you about how quickly life passes by. There is no one way to live a good life, but I don’t think anyone would argue that spending a decent chunk of your time on purposeful tasks is a pretty good idea. The great thing about thinking of it like that is that it’s up to you. Sure, things like exercise, studying, preparing healthy meals, upskilling in your career etc. are likely to benefit virtually everyone, but the relative weighting of those tasks for you as an individual will vary.

 

Moreover, the message of this article is not to tell you how to live your life. Rather, we simply want to get across the fact that most people are living at a very low level of efficiency. You don’t know what you are capable of achieving until you try. The average adult spends 3.5 hours on their phone per day. That’s the average, but there are likely some of you reading this who are closer to 5+ hours. If you take the extreme example of 5 hours per day, that’s 35 hours per week before you even go near your laptop or television. Imagine spending 35 hours per week studying? Obviously, very few do that, and most would say they don’t have the time, but if you wanted, you could literally study degrees in your spare time. Hopefully, after reading this, you will take a little of that screen time (or time spent on other useless tasks) and delegate it towards tasks that are likely to make your life better. After all, we all want our lives to get better over time, but that can only happen with the investment of time, effort, and money in the interim.

 

There is no reason why your life can’t be better, but you are in control.