Recovery from High Intensity Work

I like to work intensely, where I immerse myself into problem solving for days, evenings, and sometimes weekends. This is how startup founders operate. Working intensely does not mean long hours, instead it means working harder i.e. with greater focus, purpose, and at the optimal times. I generally do this during what most would consider normal business hours. However, it must be fluid & adaptable; some days I work less hours, and others more but no matter how many hours, the more important thing is that I am driving value to the organization and working intensely is often the best way to do that. Immersion in work means I am bringing in as many perspectives and consuming as many types of media I can to learn about all the different facets of a problem or solution including the motivations, the business model, team and people dynamics, the available technologies & solutions, the market landscape, and much more. In practice it means I am listening to podcasts about the subject to and from work, reading books on the subject in the evening, and interviewing or spending time with people familiar with the subject for lunch, dinner or over cigars or drinks, in addition to what may be a normal 9-5.

A good PM can synthesize a lot of information quickly, enabling them to springboard leaps ahead by working intensely & with purpose.

To work intensely means you also have to plan your weeks. You align your calendar with specific outcomes or goals to achieve within time windows. For example, I like to do my customer research & product discovery in batches, where I plan to talk to as many people as I can fit on my calendar in 3-4 days. Synthesize that data, determine if what I learned was valuable and what else I may need to learn, and do it again for the next 1-2 days. By the end of those days I am generally feeling both spent and also accomplished, and ready to do it again after recovering. That could mean 1 night of sleep, a vacation day, or when the intensity is very high, and with more frequency, I will usually need a vacation.

How intensely you work is proportional to how much recovery you need. An athlete that completes a 6 month block of training at higher intensity than usual may need to completely defect from the gym for a week, or even 2, for both their mental and physical recovery. They will not be able to work at that intensity again until they have fully recovered.

Onto the recovery! I generally like to take 4 vacations a year, one for each quarter. These vacations can vary in length, I don't always need a week, and rarely do I want or need 2 weeks. Sometimes 3-4 days is enough. It just depends on how under-recovered I am feeling, and what it takes to heal from the stress. My two most important qualitative metrics are:

• Am I ready to go back to work?

• Am I excited to go back to work?

I ask myself these during my recovery times, and adjust the length of vacation when I can. One of the goals is to come back refreshed, and to be ready to continue high intensity work.

To do your best work, you have to find an organization that aligns and supports the way that you work best. Organizations that offer unlimited PTO are very important for me because the way I work requires great flexibility in how often I need vacation to recover. It allows me to work most optimally for both my lifestyle and working style.

If you're dialed in or introspective enough to know how you work best, make sure to find an organization that is aligned and supports you in that. You will be happier, and they will be happier too.