Success often takes sustained effort.

No matter how hard you try, you can’t get in shape in a week. It takes adherence to a healthy diet and a consistent exercise routine.

If you try to do too much too soon, you’ll likely hurt yourself by exposing your body to more stress than it can handle without adequate preparation.

Same thing in the kitchen. If you suddenly stop eating, you’ll lose just as much muscle as you’ll lose fat. The only effective way to make significant changes to your physique is by making lasting lifestyle changes.

Going beyond fitness, it takes time to truly master anything.

Thanks to Malcolm Gladwell, it’s generally accepted that it takes 10,000 hours to master a given discipline. Obviously, you can’t spend 10,000 hours deliberately practicing anything without sustained discipline over several years, so some sort of sustained progress over an extended period of time is needed.

But steady progress alone doesn’t cut it.

Sometimes, there’s nothing better than a short sprint, or a “binge,” to finish a task or make significant progress towards a goal.

In particular, I’ve found that the following four situations offer great opportunities to utilize a binge.

1. When the thing you are pursuing isn’t one of your top priorities

Over the last year or so, I’ve been on a journey to become a better ping pong player.

I lost early in a couple of office ping pong tournaments, so I determined that I wanted to improve. I dedicated myself to trying to learn some new shots and improving my consistency.

But to say that ping pong has ever been a top priority for me would be a lie. I’ve been committed to improving, but only in a way that didn’t take away from my other interests.

At first, I tried a slow and steady approach. I’d play for a half hour or so every week, and I saw some progress.

But my improvement was astoundingly slow. I found that the first half of every session seemed to be spent trying to remember what I had learned the week before.

Eventually I got tired of the lack of progress, so I went on a binge.

Rather than playing 30 minutes per week, I started playing 30 minutes per day. On top of that, I committed additional free time to watch videos of professional ping pong players so I could learn new strokes.

And the progress was incredible.

I improved more during a two-week binge than I had over six months of slow and steady progress.

And the best part?

Even after I stopped devoting as much effort to ping pong, I’ve still retained nearly all of the progress I made. And once I find a reason to go on another binge, I’ll be able to see another instant improvement in my game.

2. When you’re performing a monotonous task

I have a very hard time cleaning at a steady pace.

If I wake up on a Saturday morning knowing that I have to clean the house, it can easily take the whole day. I’ll stop for a snack break while I’m cleaning the kitchen, or I’ll come across something interesting on the TV and get stuck on the couch for an hour.

Before I know it, my entire Saturday is gone and I’ve gotten almost nothing done.

But when I effectively go on a cleaning binge, the result is very different.

If I put some music out and shut out all other distractions, I can clean the entire house in no time. Once I get started, it’s easy to keep up the momentum, and I seem to move quicker as I go.

I see this with other boring tasks too. Things like administrative work, or replying to routine emails are so much more effective when they’re batched.

3. When the task you’re performing requires intense concentration

I write a new blog article roughly every week.

Sometimes, it goes smoothly. I sit down, get my thoughts in order, and put together an article in an hour or two.

But it’s rarely that simple.

If I try to write while there are any distractions around me, it can be almost impossible to form cohesive thoughts. Every time I stop writing to think about something else, it seems to put me back five or ten minutes.

So by far the most productive writing I do comes during binges.

That’s why I typically like to write either really early in the morning, or late at night. Those are times when I can block out the outside world, and just focus on my writing.

4. When you need a change of pace

When I did some renovations on my house last year, I started at a steady pace. I knew I had a lot of work to do, so I went to the house when it was convenient. I’d work a few hours here and there, and call it a day.

And for a while, it worked well. I had good balance in my life, and I felt like I was making progress.

But after a couple of months passed and I realized how much work there was still left to be done, I quickly realized that I would miss the opportunity to enjoy any warm weather at the new house if I maintained my pace.

So I decided to make a sprint for the finish line.

Rather than just a few hours every weekend, I started to spend what felt like every waking moment at the house.

Admittedly, this sprint period was tough.  There were times when I had to make sacrifices, and even some times when I questioned my approach.

But when I look back, I wouldn’t change a thing. I got more accomplished in a couple of months than I could’ve ever imagined. And I actually enjoyed it. When I immersed myself into the renovation process, it was a lot of fun watching the progress.

 

Overall, I still believe in the power of consistent progress.

But I’ve also come to appreciate that there are times when slow and steady simply doesn’t cut it. Sometimes you need to set aside an hour, or a weekend, or even a month to completely focus on a task at hand.

When effectively used in addition to the discipline and consistency that comes with sustained effort, binging can be incredibly effective.

-Brandon