Becoming hyper-efficient as a player or coach
One of the most important aspects for players that decide to embark on the “Path to Pro” road, towards a professional career, is to find the key to becoming hyper-efficient.
What does it mean to be “hyper-efficient”?
Let’s start with what a typical efficient day can be like for an amateur team. Imagine that you and your team have a specific match-up you’re preparing for and you want to practice a certain strategy but it hasn’t gone well, so far. A teammate pointed out, in the last practice block, one or two issues regarding your tactical approach that are simply not efficient/yielding enough value for the time spent practicing.
Normally this is brought up one or two hours before scrims start the next practice day and maybe there’s a vod to watch as well. You talk it through with your team and you arrive to a unified conclusion about what has to be changed. You feel good about going into the scrims and have a clear idea of what has to be done and why it has to be done. This is regarded as “efficient” practice for teams that maybe don’t have a coaching team behind them. Imagine making your whole day efficient and satisfying, every day, for years.
The method to become hyper-efficient, that many of the current professional players chose back when they started out, was to learn by trial & error. This is the part where problems start to occur. Starting out with competing isn’t hard. Anyone can do it. Being able to regulate your energy and stress levels while practicing as much as possible and as efficiently as possible for years isn’t easy though. Both players and coaches will experience this type of struggle at some point early on in their career.
Criterion for being extremely efficient:
- Set high goals when you practice. A high goal could be to master dive with your team within three weeks. You don’t aim so high that you can’t achieve the goal, but you aim very high. This helps provide a purpose for your practice and climbing in the ranks. Keep in mind that deciding to practice 18 hours a day isn’t a goal, it’s a tactic to reach a goal.
- Break down your goals into reasonable sub-goals. If you do this, your goals that are very high up won’t feel as unattainable because of how easy it is to make small goals very clear and following them step-by-step.
- Find your maximum productivity and discipline yourself so that you know how to listen to your body and not only your head. Sometimes you won’t feel much enjoyment and it can be tempting to become lazy or even quit.
- Keep yourself at your maximum productivity that you can sustain over decades.
These points may seem very vague, but the exact tasks in day-to-day operations of a team can be very different depending on the individuals and team. Hyper-efficiency is basically being consistent with the efficiency every day, regardless of activities or challenges. To achieve that consistency, you need to meet the above 4 criterion, in that order.
How do I find the drive and energy to search for my maximum productivity?
It’s usually rookie players in their early 20's that struggle with this, but is also common for any type of person above the age of 20, in any type of field. Aiming high with your goals provides a purpose and having a purpose develops a drive. The “drive” is like a force that propels you towards the goals you set for yourself. It consumes a lot of energy and feels like you have almost infinite energy when you’re “in the zone”.
Do this to get the required energy in the first place:
- Wake up at a regular time. Try to be as consistent as possible with your wake up time.
- Eat a solid breakfast every day, even when you’re not hungry. You need nutrients upon waking up to be as alert as possible. This is no joke, eat the meal even when you think it’s a waste of time and you’re not feeling it.
- Go for foods that are low in carbs. Fats and proteins like cheese, meat and greens is the way to go.
- Take 10–15 min naps when you feel low on energy during the day. You don’t need more than that and you’ll feel the benefits instantly.
- Have a regular time for when it’s bedtime and don’t stay up for fun or because you feel like doing something that won’t benefit you tomorrow.
- Get enough hours of sleep. If sleeping 6 hours works for you long-term, then go for it. If you need more, then that’s okay too! Find what works best for you, there’s no magic number.
How much can I work and how hard can I go at it?
If you don’t know your limits, the best way to find them is to load yourself with as much work as you possibly can. Work as hard as you can to the point of exhaustion. Once you notice that you’ve reached your maximum, you back off of course! You want to find the fine line of sustainable maximum productivity. It should be sustainable for decades.
Wouldn’t this be a quick road to burn-out?
If you experience this, it means you either don’t know your limits and how to manage your routines or, that you actively decide to overload yourself with too much work. Tune down the intensity in either case and reflect over the experience. What caused you to end up there in the first place? Be honest with yourself, even if you might not like to admit the choices you made up to that point.
It’s pretty hard to avoid distractions, what should I do?
Only you will be able to help yourself with this. It doesn’t matter which industry or which line of work you’re in, you’ll encounter this multiple times in life. Be mindful of what your true limits are. You will find enjoyment in your career, but also a lot of suffering. Suffering is essential to know how to supersede yourself by each day. I like to think in metaphors, so here’s a good one for this case; shed off your bad sides today and emerge renewed tomorrow, just like how a Phoenix rises from it’s own ashes.
Later down the path, you’ll come back to these bad sides and develop them, but that’s a whole other topic. It’s called “developing the shadow”.
When you know: your limits, how to keep yourself focused on your goals, how to discipline yourself to keep working hard, how to eat and sleep regularly and last but not least, understand how to pace yourself so that you can sustain all of this for years to come; you’ve became hyper-efficient. Congratulations!
