Microcycling and Regimentation
DATA/LOG
Batman and Regimentation
Microcycle Priming
More on Microcycles and Regimentation
BACKGROUND
One of the weird things about Batman is that he has infinite willpower. But he also has the ability to mechanically go from one task of training to the next without any sort of lag. This is usually quite difficult and I've noticed a lag time in myself when I switch between tasks.
I wanted to see if there was a method by which I could more effectively do more with regards to switching tasks.
METHOD
I decided to test if there was a better way to manage time and do more by testing very small increments of reading. Instead of reading for half an hour or an hour, I read for 5 minutes, then switched several times, checking to see if I anything change in terms of my mental exhaustion or the number of pages I read.
CONCLUSIONS
I read much faster and more efficiently.
The number of pages increased despite reading 4-5 books.
Furthermore, I felt it had a number of side benefits. There was no hesitation or procrastination when launching into the next task due to the small size of what was expected in terms of minutes. I felt addicted to the task, mainly because I felt prematurely ripped from it when the timer went off, making me even more eager to get back to it when I cycled back again. It made me feel good because it just felt like I was doing a lot because I was constantly cycling back to things. I had this feeling of racing the clock, which put a wind at my back trying to do more.
TAKEAWAYS
Ideally I'd like to repeat this experiment. The actual times and pages read were on a file that got deleted.
I also mixed different tasks together, and felt I still obtained the same results. There is something called a task switching cost in psychology that deals with the minds ability to move from one type of task to another type. There is some sort of lag time in this. I can see this becoming more of a problem as I build up a list of skills I'm working on in any given day. It would be interesting to study this delay, and see if this kind've microcycling can overcome it.