Surfers in a soldiers world

Most advice about productivity assumes everyone works the same way. It’s built on the idea that you can divide the day into neat little boxes, each filled with a task to be completed. This works great if you’re what I call a “Soldier” — someone who thrives on routine and can power through work regardless of how they feel. But there’s another type of person out there. Let’s call them “Surfers.”

Surfers don’t move to the rhythm of the clock. They move to the rhythm of inspiration, energy, and flow. A Surfer’s productive periods come in waves, and when they hit, they can produce an astonishing amount of work. But between these waves? They might seem maddeningly unproductive to the outside observer.

I’ve been mentoring a lot of software engineers lately, and I’ve noticed something: many of them are Surfers struggling to fit into a Soldier’s world. They beat themselves up for not being productive from 9 to 5, especially now that so many are working from home. But here’s the thing: trying to force a Surfer into a Soldier’s routine is like trying to surf on a parade ground. It just doesn’t work.

The 9-to-5 workday is a relic of the industrial age, designed for assembly lines and offices where work was largely about being present. But for creative work — programming, writing, design — presence doesn’t equal productivity. A Surfer might spend days doing seemingly nothing, only to work through an entire weekend in a burst of inspiration and productivity that outstrips weeks of steady plodding.

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