One of the best habits I picked up during my time at Celo was working in sprints.
The idea was simple: instead of spreading your time and energy thinly across everything, you deliberately focus your resources on a specific goal or KPI for a defined period.
Then you reassess, reset, and sprint again.
It clicked with me because it reminded me of something I learned much earlier from football.
The lesson of the short run
When I was younger, my football coach used to drill me on making short, explosive runs.
Sprint into space. Stop. Reset. Sprint again.
I hated it at first.
It was exhausting, especially when you would make a run and the ball never came.
Eventually, though, I realised I had misunderstood the exercise.
The goal wasn’t simply to run more.
The goal was to learn the game well enough to know when to run.
I had to understand how each teammate played. Who looked for forward passes. Who preferred to carry the ball. Who would pass early. Who needed me to create space before they could make a play.
Once I understood that, my runs became different.
I wasn’t running everywhere.
I was running with purpose.
And sometimes, the most important part of the run was not the sprint itself. It was knowing when to sprint.
Life works the same way
I’ve started thinking about work and life in much the same way.
There is a strange pressure today to optimise everything simultaneously.
Build a career.
Start a company.
Exercise every day.
Learn new skills.
Travel.
Build relationships.
Read more.
Sleep better.
Be present with family.
Grow your network.
The list never ends.
The problem is that you have a finite amount of energy and attention.
Trying to sprint in every direction usually means you aren’t really sprinting anywhere.
Instead, I’ve found it more useful to think in terms of seasons.
There are seasons for building.
Seasons for learning.
Seasons for taking risks.
Seasons for family.
Seasons for travelling.
Seasons for getting healthy.
And sometimes, there are seasons where the most productive thing you can do is recover.
None of these seasons have to last forever.
The mistake is assuming that because something matters, it needs your maximum attention all the time.
It doesn’t.
Focus is also about timing
Working in sprints taught me something I think is easy to overlook:
Focus isn’t just about deciding what to do. It’s about deciding when to do it.
A goal can be important without being your priority right now.
You might want to learn a new skill, but perhaps this isn’t the season for it.
You might want to build a company, but perhaps your family needs more of your attention right now.
You might want to push your career forward, but perhaps you’ve been running hard for too long and need to recover.
The opportunity doesn’t disappear because you aren’t pursuing it today.
Sometimes, you’re simply choosing the right moment to pursue it.
Just like football, the objective isn’t to run constantly.
It’s to understand the game, read the situation, recognise the opening, and then make the run when it matters
Don’t confuse consistency with constant intensity
I still believe in consistency.
But I don’t think consistency means operating at maximum intensity every day.
There is a difference between showing up consistently and going all out consistently.
The first is sustainable. The second usually isn’t.
Some of my most productive periods have come from giving one thing disproportionate attention for a relatively short period.
Not because everything else stopped mattering. But because I temporarily decided that one thing mattered more.
Then, when that sprint was over, I could shift my attention elsewhere.
That feels much more sustainable than trying to maintain the same intensity across every part of life simultaneously
Know what deserves your sprint
Perhaps that’s the real lesson I took from both football and my time at Celo.
You don’t need to run all the time. You need to understand the game you’re playing.
Know what season you’re in.
Know what matters most right now.
Then, when the opportunity comes, sprint.
Because sometimes the best way to make progress isn’t to do everything consistently.
It’s to know what deserves your full attention right now.
And when that season changes, be willing to change with it.