Push past the tedium threshold

What is your tedium threshold?

When you’re doing a repetitive task, at what point does your boredom reach a critical level?

Some people possess a seemingly bottomless tolerance for these kinds of activities. One that verges on positively saintly behavior.

They will move a lot of rock to get at the nuggets of gold.

I have a friend who does research for a living, and he summarized this trait beautifully.

Think of me like a weary treasure hunter eager, after long days criss crossing the grind, to show off of his barnacle encrusted doubloons plucked from the ocean floor.

Wow, I never knew monotony could be so poetic.

What I find interesting is how repetition impacts outcome. Because pushing through a tedium threshold has certain undeniable scientific properties. When you do something over and over for long enough, eventually, your brain is forced to find new ways to engage with the past.

This is why cognitive breakthroughs tend to happen in the later stages of work. New patterns and insights emerge, once your brain shifts from routine processing to more creative thinking.

I often notice this in my songwriting process. Once I figure out the chord progression for my verses, I will play it for twenty minutes straight without stopping. Like a human loop pedal. This sends me to a higher state of focus and concentration, so I can notice details of the rhythm and melody I might otherwise overlook.

It’s tedious as hell. My arms hurt from strumming, my hips ache since I play guitar standing up, and the calluses on my fingers get chaffed and bloody.

But the fatigue is exactly what unlocks the song. If I can handle a prolonged period of effort, if I’m willing and able to push through and stay with it, my brain is granted more opportunities to make sense of patterns.

Whereas if I had played superficially, say, for only five or ten minutes, those patterns wouldn’t have been visible.

The world’s top songwriters all know this.

Mccartney. King. Cohen. Mitchell. Mayer. Swift. Sheeran.

Each of them have done interviews with music publications saying some version of, you have to be very patient. You have to be willing to wait for them. Songs reveal themselves to you on their own accord.

Are you the kind of person who can push your way through the tedium threshold?