Muscles are built from two types of fibers– fast twitch and slow twitch. Slow twitch fibers fire slowly, but are more efficient with oxygen use, making them suitable for the long punishment of a marathon. Fast twitch fibers don’t use energy as efficiently, but they fire faster, making them good for sprinting.
Brains aren’t made of muscle, but as I’ve observed how different people work, I’ve come to think of people as having either fast twitch or slow twitch brains. Neither fast nor slow twitch muscle fiber is better than the other, but knowing which one you have can be useful.
I have a fast twitch brain. When I see an opportunity or problem, I immediately begin working on it with very little planning. I course correct as I go, which occasionally means starting over, and will finish before the slow twitch brained person would. However, my solution is likely to be hacky and have some rough edges.
Todd, on the other hand, has a slow twitch brain. He takes more time to plan what he’s about to do, and executes more methodically. When he’s done, his solution will be clean and polished and probably won’t need to be revised, like mine might.
Having both styles on the same team has been an advantage when working on SETT. A typical workflow would be me starting something immediately and roughing it out. When it’s done, it’s functional but not perfect. Todd then polishes it and puts in the attention to detail that I don’t have. When I have to get something perfect by myself, I tend to make many passes, incrementally improving it each time, rather than doing it thoroughly once.
If we did things my way, SETT would come out buggy and incomplete, but if we did it Todd’s way, it might never get done. By combining two different brain types, we can work efficiently.
Knowing what kind of brain type you have also enables you to customize learning to your own style. When I learned Kanji, I blasted through 2000 of them in two months, with imperfect retention. If I had to take six months and get each one perfect before moving on, I would have become frustrated and maybe given up.
Now I’m learning violin. My approach to it has been to give myself challenging pieces and learn them sloppily at first, then refine as time goes on. If I followed the Suzuki method, or some other method designed for slow twitch brains, I wouldn’t have progressed as much or enjoyed the process. If a slow twitch brain person tried to learn the way I’m learning, they would probably feel uncomfortable and overwhelmed.
It’s not the type of brain that you have that is important, but whether or not you tailor your use of it to its natural inclinations. Work with people with the other kind of brain. Learn in a way that’s conducive to your brain type. School is overwhelmingly tailored to slow twitch brains, which is why otherwise smart people like me do poorly in it.
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