Junk Volume: Why 16 Hour Days Produce 8 Hours of Work

A client of mine works sixteen hour days. Up at four, in the office by seven, laptop still open at eleven at night.

I asked him to rate the quality of that work out of a hundred. He said fifty. Maybe sixty.

So we did the arithmetic together. Fifty percent of sixteen hours is eight hours. He's producing one working day and paying for two.

Every endurance athlete already understands this pattern. You run every session at the same middling pace, too slow to build the aerobic base and too fast to build speed, and after eight weeks you're tired and no quicker. Coaches call it junk volume.

Business owners do junk volume at the desk, and fatigue makes it feel like something happened.

In this episode I break down why sixteen hours at full quality was never available to you, what the research on deliberate practice says about the real ceiling, and what changed for Dean McMahon when he stopped working more and started working on far less of the right stuff.

Two sets and reps at the end. Find your three hours, and write your not-to-do list.

If you recognised your own week in this, book a Mental Performance Blueprint Call at tomfoxley.me. Thirty minutes, no pitch, and if it isn't a fit I'll be the first to say so.