Knowledge Athelete

For the last few years my wife Denise and I have each selected a word that would symbolize our hopes for the year ahead. I start the process a few days in advance, writing lists in my journal, talking through the options on a walk or over a beer, and then letting them sit, waiting for the winner to magically elevate to the top of the stack.

This year I struggled a bit, so I came up with a new tool to help me find the right word.

I made a list of helpful questions. Here are a few of them:

1) What animal will you be most like in 2012?
2) What number will best represent you in 2012?
3) What city will you be most like in 2012?

Denise added the one that might have been the most fun to the list:

4) What garden vegetable will you be like in 2012?

We answered each question about ourselves and then also gave an answer for each other. I highly recommend trying this.

One of the side-benefits to the game was that it helped me to answer my original question, what word will symbolize your hopes for the year ahead?

I settled on Athlete.

I like the way that athletes devote as much energy to recovery and practice and they do to performance. Athletes actively manage their energy levels. They recognize that eating, relaxing, and sleeping are critical to their job and treat them as such.

Athletes, at least most of them, have off-seasons, which is where they invest in prolonged recovery. Performing is tough on their bodies and some injuries may even require rehab or surgery. The off-season is planned maintenance.

Athletes also use the off-season to develop new skills and push their fitness levels even higher.

I’ve been thinking about seasons for several years, largely due to the year we spent living in Point Reyes, where the seasons radically change, not simply shift, as they do in San Francisco. As the seasons change in Point Reyes, so do the inhabitants and their routines. For example, the farmers market in Point Reyes is now dormant, not to return until June. In San Francisco, the farmers market is year round.

Our lives, and our work, used to reflect the seasons. Could they again? Can we carve out off-seasons, not only individually, but also organizationally?

I’d like to try. I’m working on a book, which requires sustained focus. Denise is working on a book as well, and one thing I’ve learned from observing her is that travel really disrupts long-format writing. Once you have the themes, structure, rhythm, and story loaded in your head you want to keep going, to explode through the work.

I’m going to treat this summer like my off-season. No travel. No performing. Just recovery and practice. I need time to develop new ideas and recover for what I like to call “conference season,” which runs from September through April. By scheduling an off-season I’ll hit conference season fit and sharp, ready to perform again.

Like an athlete does. A knowledge athlete, if you will.