The Power 10
Contained bursts of maximum effort beat a steady grind or an endless sprint.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 88%
The Power 10 borrows from competitive rowing, where a crew wins not by rowing hardest for longest but by initiating short, all-out bursts of ten maximum strokes to surge ahead. Flynn applies it to work and learning: contained periods of concentrated energy produce the biggest jumps, while a power 100 would cause burnout and a flat pace leaves you behind. Business versions include hackathons, a daily-for-a-week podcast push, or an author's week-long Airbnb writing sprint. The key is that the intensity is bounded. These bursts account for his biggest jumps in learning.
Origin
Flynn rowed crew at Cal, where the coxswain calls a 'power 10' — ten maximum strokes — to surge past competing boats. He translated the racing tactic into a productivity principle used across his podcast, book-writing, and team work.
Core principles
- 01You move ahead not by rowing harder forever but by concentrating power in short bursts.
- 02The burst must be contained — a power 100 would cause burnout.
- 03A steady pace alone leaves you left behind.
- 04Velocity in a short window produces outsized, compounding results.
How to run it
- 1
Spot the moment for a surge
Recognize where you're at pace but need to pull ahead — flagging signups, stalled rankings, a project to leap forward.
- 2
Declare a contained burst
Define a short, bounded window of maximum effort with a clear end.
Pro tip Name it and rally the team around it like a hackathon or power week.
Watch out Never make it open-ended — a power 100 exhausts and burns you out.
- 3
Pour in full energy
Give it everything for the defined window — more time, power, and team focus than normal.
Pro tip Promote the burst itself to build excitement and external momentum.
- 4
Return to sustainable pace
End the burst on schedule and drop back to normal cadence to recover.
In the wild
Normally publishing one interview a week, Flynn inserted a power 10 by releasing an episode every day for seven days and heavily promoting the 'power week,' generating far more downloads than usual.
→ The podcast climbed in rankings (which reward velocity) and gained more customers.
Flynn advises companies to reserve one full contained day per quarter for the whole team to brainstorm and innovate together — a Power 10 for creativity.
→ Team-generated ideas the executive team can then focus and date, with broad buy-in because everyone contributed.
Common mistakes
Turning a power 10 into a power 100
Extending the burst indefinitely causes burnout — the contained length is the whole point.
Relying only on steady pace
Never surging leaves you last place while competitors who concentrate their power pull ahead.
Is it for you?
Best for
Individuals and teams needing a decisive jump in momentum or rankings.
Not ideal for
Sustained baseline work where constant maximum effort would cause burnout.
From the transcript
“The way you move faster in life or what it is that you're learning is to find these moments of time where you can give…”
“It's important that it's just 10 because if it was a power 100, you'd exhaust yourself.”
From the episode
Pat Flynn: The Surprising Productivity Hack Helping Entrepreneurs Achieve More
Pat Flynn