Preparing Better
Estimated Reading Time: 5 Minutes
Mechanical Preparation
For years, I struggled to grasp the importance of "preparation." It didn't really seem like I was preparing for anything other than the task I should have already been doing, like “preparing” for school by doing my homework. I had to do my homework to understand and pass the class. That’s not preparing, that’s just participating. It seemed that preparation was just another mechanical component of the machine required to execute the task.
This began to change when I began taking tennis lessons. Instead of adding new components to my tennis machine, I was surprised that most of my machine actually remained the same. At first, I didn’t see the benefit - I knew how to play tennis! I thought that I needed a new machine to do it better.
My machine, however, although roughly the same, started behaving very differently. Things started to become automatic, which meant things happened a lot faster. It also meant that I could turn my focus to parts of the machine that weren't automatic.
Lubricant Preparation
Before, I was too busy running the basics to use any of the more complex machinery that was available. I didn’t have to focus on getting my feet in the right spot and could instead focus on my aim (it needed it). It felt like I had an entirely different machine, but it was just running better. This was the difference between mechanical and lubricant preparation. This was revolutionary, but it was really doing a very simple thing. Lubricant preparation reduces decision fatigue.
The brain is powerful, but the old adage still stands: there is an amount of straw that will break the camel's back. Lubricant preparation frees up the mental load taken by seemingly small decisions. When you add up the 40-50 "small" decisions for any machine to function, we rarely get to use the full extent of our machines because we’re too focused on running the basics.
Parallel Preparation
I loved tennis, but school was far more important. I found myself sometimes distracted while playing, thinking about my homework I had left to do. So, I started doing my homework before tennis and, to my surprise, I became a better tennis player!
Even though school had nothing to do with the task at hand, it was taking away my focus and not allowing me to run the tennis machine as best I could. This helped me consciously think about the fact that the brain is a system. All our machines use the same resources to work toward the same goal: to make us function! To work well, they have to share well.
Even if we make one of our machines as efficient as possible with mechanical and lubricant preparation, the entire system of our brain may still be bogged down by another machine that isn't up to code. It's like closing an open Excel window to make Word run better, but keeping 47 tabs open in Chrome. This is the focus of parallel preparation. By working on other machines, we can make them all run better.
Like most things, this is seemingly intuitive once it's explained, but the three-part system has helped me to fully understand what preparation is. And, to fully understand something is to be able to fully apply it.
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, wrote, "We don't rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems." To ensure that we fall on something good, we need to mechanically build a good machine, use it, and lubricate it so it works to the best of its ability, and then look for parallel machines that are pulling resources unnecessarily.
What machine are you most focused on making run better? Does that machine need better mechanics, lubrication, or is something else pulling resources away from it?