Nonsense?

For Shmanske, it’s all about defining what counts as 100% effort. Let’s say “100%” is the maximum amount of effort that can be consistently sustained. With this benchmark, it’s obviously possible to give less than 100%. But it’s also possible to give more. All you have to do is put forth an effort that can only be sustained inconsistently, for short periods of time. In other words, you’re overclocking.

And in fact, based on the numbers, NBA players pull greater-than-100-percent off relatively frequently, putting forth more effort in short bursts than they can keep up over a longer period. And giving greater than 100% can reduce your ability to subsequently and consistently give 100%. You overdraw your account, and don’t have anything left.

Here is the underlying paper.  <Painfully repressing the theorist’s impulse to redefine the domain to paths of effort rather than flow efforts, thus restoring the spiritually correct meaning of 100%>

Cap curl:  Tim Carmody guest blogging at kottke.org.

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