What is a speedrun? It is nothing more than a race to complete a specific task. Racing driver Sir Lewis Hamilton does speedruns, as does a high school student who can complete Super Mario Brothers in under 300 seconds. Let's explore speedruns to improve efficiency in Revit.
Disclaimer: Readers should always pay attention to their work and never rush through it. The activity in this article should not be a guide for anybody's work ethic. It is only for demonstration purposes.
When the subject of speedrun emerges in a conversation, the sentiment for its pointlessness often outweighs the investigation of the subject. Because talkers don’t do it, and doers don’t talk it. Speedrunners strive for improvement, so any spare ounce of energy is invested into reducing their personal best by tens of milliseconds. Once immersed in the act, there is no time to be meta.
Speedruns push human physical boundaries through the process of “lather, rinse, and repeat.” This mentality for improvement by the milliseconds is the microscopic version of the life guru motto, “be a better version of your yesterday self.” (Something like that, I am not a life guru).
Speedrun is a nerve-racking activity that requires immense focus. As a result, it can dilate the perception of time. When focus is on the cusp, five minutes is eternity. During this short duration, one can experience both joy and pain. In this mental realm, bliss presents itself when distraction is utterly banished, but pain approaches with every tick of the clock. In the end, the primary beneficiary in this activity is the speedrunner themselves, the secondary, the enthusiasts who are entertained by the activity.
Note: Revit is a computer program that is specifically designed for producing architecture and engineering documents, it is one of the most used programs in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry.
Document preparation is inevitable in any profession. It is a mundane task that is best systemized. Not to be confused with automation, systemization means grilling ten thousand burgers according to a set of instructions where every one of them is consistent in taste. Automation is when burgers are heated without human oversight, regardless of the patty’s rawness. Just as burgers are expected to be savory, documents are expected to be correct. Rather than conducting quality assurance after documents are prepared, why not do so during production?
The Revit speedrun is an exercise for preparing a full blank set of architectural drawings. It first took me over five minutes to complete the run. Ten tries later, I have found my upper bound at 200 seconds with a deviation of two seconds. After every run, I was eager to study what went right and wrong, then go back to the grind soon after. By repetition, I have boosted muscle memory to become quicker and more precise. Through post-run analysis, I have identified chokepoints and discovered efficient ways to do each micro-task.
The speedrun was not a waste of time. I learned that speed and quality do not have an inverse relationship; there is no need to sacrifice one for the other. (Kind of obvious in hindsight, isn’t it?) Negligence of mundane but necessary tasks does not help productivity. Such tasks are a nuisance only for the unskilled. The ambitious ones dominate these challenges in order to make time for better things, such as the erection of their architecture.
Below are the specifications of the Revit speedrun:
Rules
Splits
Sheet List
Views
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