Peaks Follow Troughs
Sustainable high performance is more about the trough than you think.
After a recent Performance Formula event, a CEO of a fast growing company shared this as his biggest insight: “I’ve traditionally focused on peaks of productivity, trying to push them higher and longer. Now maybe I think I’ve been missing just how important the trough is.
This is so common of many a high performer. The peak is where the sexy stuff happens. The big win, the surge of productivity, the big account. But what many miss is the fact that peak performance is facilitated by the trough that preceded it. Traditionally people who are driven tend to see troughs in energy and performance (wether on a small daily scale, or a larger annual scale) as irritating and unfortunate artefacts that need to be optimised away. Here I’d like to challenge that, and put forth a opposing view; that the trough is the lifeblood of the peak, and needs far more attention.
In order to ‘peak’, to bring forth your best performance, you need your resources maximised. Focus, energy, motivation, processing speed, clarity of goal, stress state and other physical and metal resources need to be in the sweet spot for you to draw on them, and produce the best thing you’re capable of producing. It is recovery, (the trough) that restores and replenishes these resources for later use. The better we recover, the more frequently we can peak, the higher that peak, and the longer we can sustain it.
Peaking, in turn, utilises and diminishes these faculties.
Extending peaks or trying to force more of them through sheer force of will, stimulants, or nootropics might provide what seems like a performance boost at the time. But not only will that boost be far lower in amplitude than that provided by recovery, but will also slow recovery, by further taxing the very resources it needs to replenish.
A better approach is to value the trough, and all the elements of recovery held therein. Ensuring daily space for respite, rest, and rejuvenating activities fills the fuel tank in myriad ways. More energy, motivation, will, and creativity. Better focus, concentration, emotional control, and discipline. Lower ambient stress, cognitive load, and background fatigue. All these conspire to allow you to access your best quality work, which is often worth disproportionately more than your average output. Furthermore, your per hour productivity will increase, bringing you the same or better net gains than working longer hours at lower rates of quality and density.
The benefits of being good at troughing extend beyond work. We are far more than our roles, and as such it’s worth touching on the personal benefits of embracing the ‘trough as a useful asset’ mentality. The above stated benefits of deep and effective daily down-regulation permeate not only our work life, but our personal life and relationships just as much. This honestly creates virtuous cycle. Things like quality home life, lower stress, deeper social connections and space for leisure not only make our home lives richer and more enjoyable (which, maybe, should be a central goal for us all), but if you really must justify such things in productivity terms, enhance our creativity and resilience in our work.
In closing my invitation to you is to spend a couple of weeks embracing the daily trough as a high performance practice.
How to trough for high performance.
Assuming you’re bought in, or at least curious as to how this may look in application. Here are some suggestions I myself and my clients have tried with good effect, along with some recommended reading.
- Hard cut off time. Picking a time that works for you set a hard cut off time. The work phone is away, silenced, and out of mind, so is the laptop. Give yourself a protected buffer of time in which winding down is the objective. Respite from work inputs is critical, you have to be all in.
- Actively do something that you find rejuvenating. Recovery is not just about curing off stressful or stimulating inputs, it is equally about engaging in things that refill your cup. This can be very different for each of us. Some suggestions follow, but please stay true to yourself on this one.
- Walking, preferably outside, preferably around nature even if only an urban park, no phone, optionally with a loved one.
- Playing a musical instrument
- Low intensity exercise like yoga or Thai chi
- Low physical intensity, high concentration activities like shooting, archery, or painting etc
- Reading
- Cooking, and ideally dining with loved ones engaged in conversation
- Building something
- Writing, or journalling
Notice, many of these things are things that will engage your focus and thus help you switch off the part of your brain thats still in work. Many of these things are better done with equally switched off friends and loved ones.
Consider subbing some of these actively engaged possibilities for the more passive forms of escapism and numbing that are easy and appealing. Television isn’t evil, but the lack f engagement of your body and brain in a task makes it less rejuvenating than the above options. Video games can actually help, but mind the risk of highly stimulating games and screen close to bed. Nothing will ruin your peaks like shitty sleep. Alcohol similarly will have significant negative impacts on sleep quality even after just one drink.
