deepstash
Beta
When to work: How to optimize your daily schedule for energy, motivation, and focus
Stress curves
Studies have found we’re actually more effective when we’re stressed. Up to a point.
The right amount of stress at the right time can make us more productive. This requires awareness of your stress levels and how they’re affecting the work at hand.
1105 SAVES
This is a professional note extracted from an online article.
Read more efficiently
Save what inspires you
Remember anything
IDEA EXTRACTED FROM:
6
Key Ideas
Personal Productivity Curves
A lot of the internal things that affect our productivity are out of our control. Our energy, focus, and motivation follow their own path or “productivity curve” throughout the day.
- Fighting against your personal productivity curves leads to overwork, feeling overwhelmed, and burnout.
- If you learn to work with your natural peaks and valleys, it can tell you exactly when you should schedule each part of your day.
Energy curves
We’re naturally more energetic and motivated at specific times of the day. Researchers call this our Circadian Rhythm. Every person’s rhythm is slightly different, but the majority follow a similar pattern.
- Waking up. Our energy levels start to naturally rise.
- Around 10 am. We’ve hit our peak concentration levels that start to decline and dip between 1-3 pm.
- Afternoon. Our energy levels rise again until falling off again sometime between 9–11 pm.
90 Minute Cycles
We work best in natural cycles of 90-120 minute sessions before needing a break. When we need a break, our bodies send us signals, such as becoming hungry, sleepy, fidgeting, or losing focus.
If you ignore these signs and think you can just work through them, your body uses your reserve stores of energy to keep up. It means releasing stress hormones to give an extra kick of energy.
Stress curves
Studies have found we’re actually more effective when we’re stressed. Up to a point.
The right amount of stress at the right time can make us more productive. This requires awareness of your stress levels and how they’re affecting the work at hand.
Communication curves
There’s a simple curve to how email usage affects our productivity. No email = OK productivity. But as we start to use more email, we become more productive thanks to more access to information and collaboration. But this only works to a point.
Once you cross that threshold, more email usage drops productivity to a point where nothing gets done.
When to work
How to design the perfect day based on your productivity curves.
- Discover your daily energy/motivation curve.
- See when you’re hitting your communication threshold. You might want to schedule specific times to check email, like during a break in the morning and again in the afternoon.
SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
4
Key Ideas
Schedule Flow Time
A good general rule of thumb is blocking out one-to-two-hour chunks of time in your calendar for uninterrupted work.
You have to stay committed to getting into the rhythm. It’s critical to ig...
Timeboxing
Timeboxing is allocating a pre-determined amount of time to finish a given activity. It encourages you to find more efficient ways to finish tasks.
Know When To Disconnect
Recognize when you need to take a break and continue later on when you can be more effective. Signs that you need to take a break are:
- Struggling to focus continually.
- If you’re making a lot of little mistakes.
- When you’re feeling agitated or stressed.
- If your eyes are hurting.
- When you feel tired.
Regardless of how you’re feeling, you should take a quick break every 90 minutes or two hours.
one more idea
5
Key Ideas
Time blocking
It's the practice of planning out every moment of your day in advance and dedicating specific time “blocks” for certain tasks and responsibilities.
When you fill your c...
Time blocking and focus
By scheduling every minute of your day you not only guard against distraction but also multiply your focus.
Also, focusing on one task at a time can make you up to 80% more productive than splitting your attention across multiple tasks.
Cons of the time blocking practice
- It takes a lot of time and effort.
- Few of us (if any) have the same schedule every day.
- We’re bad at estimating how long tasks will take to do.
- Constant interruptions and “urgent” tasks can destroy your system.
- Flexibility is key in most workplaces.
- You can lose sight of the bigger picture if you focus just on each day.
2 more ideas
5
Key Ideas
There is no perfect method for everyone
There is no "one size fits all schedule" for maximum productivity.
Because we all have particular strengths and weaknesses when it comes to time management and productivity, what works...
The Time Blocking Method
It involves planning out your day in advance and dedicating specific hours to accomplish specific tasks.
It’s important to block out both proactive blocks (when you focus on important tasks) and reactive blocks (when you allow time for requests and interruptions).
The Most Important Task Method (MIT)
Instead of writing a big to-do list and trying to get it all done, determine the 1-3 tasks that are absolutely essential and then focus on those tasks during the day.
You don’t do anything else until you’ve completed the three essential tasks.
2 more ideas
10
Key Ideas
Habits define your energy levels
Tine is not the basis for productivity. Energy is.
Having all the time in the world won’t help you if you’re exhausted for most of it. Having good habits help in keeping yo...
Sleep is the foundation of our energy
Poor sleep means you will start to underperform.
Research says 7-8 hours are pretty much mandatory if you’re going to stay cognitively sharp in the long-run.
Napping benefits
Even if it may feel lazy, napping has a range of cognitive benefits.
This is particularly true if you’re doing a lot of learning since the short burst of sleep can help with memory.
7 more ideas
11
Key Ideas
Denying you have a problem
Stop saying that you don't have enough time to complete your commitments.
Admit that you need to get better at managing your time and start searching and trying techniques that will help you ...
Not planning your day
It's important to have an idea of what your daily priorities are and tasks you need to complete, preferably the night before.
Also, make sure you prepare in the evening the outfit you're going to wear and the meals for the following day. Doing this will save time in the morning, and reduce decision fatigue.
"Urgent" vs "Important"
Take all of your tasks and place them into four quadrants:
- To do first: the most important responsibilities that need to be done today or tomorrow.
- Schedule: important tasks that are not urgent.
- Delegate: essential items that are not important.
- Don't do: tasks that aren't important or urgent.
8 more ideas
8
Key Ideas
The essence of motivation
Every choice has a price, but when we are motivated, it is easier to bear the inconvenience of action than the pain of remaining the same.
In other words, at some point, it becomes more...
Active inspiration
Motivation is often the result of action, not the cause of it. Getting started, even in very small ways, is a form of active inspiration that naturally produces momentum.
The Physics of productivity
Newton’s First Law applied to habit formation: Objects in motion tend to stay in motion.
Once a task has begun, it is easier to continue moving it forward. In other words, it is often easier to finish a task than it was to start it in the first place.
5 more ideas
10
Key Ideas
Focus on Systems Instead of Goals
Most goals are out of our control. We have limited control to reach them. In a system, your focus is on all the parts that you do control. And system is a fancy word for “repeatable process”...
Leverage the Compound Effect
When you focus on developing systems and work every day, your work compounds over time, developing exponential growth.
The more advantages you create, the more your next advantages pay off. A 1% gain every day compounds to almost 38x increase over a year.
Measure Output, Not Input
Systems are the best way to progress since they reward effort and we control all the variables. However, we need to have a sense of direction in those efforts, to know what we are trying to accomplish.
Writing daily with no objective is just practice. If you want to achieve something, you need to commit to a certain output, like publishing a post on your blog weekly. At the end of the day, a system is a way to control how to achieve an output.
7 more ideas
12
Key Ideas
The philosophy of working "smart"
... is to maximize your productivity when you are working so that you can get more stuff done in shorter periods of time.
By working smarter, you'll find yourself with more time in th...
Find the to-do list app that work for you
The best one for you depends entirely on your working style and personal preferences.
You can use a physical notebook around everywhere you go, but it's easier to use a to-do list app or tool that syncs across all your devices. That way, you can access your to-do items whenever and wherever you need to, whether you're at your desk, in a meeting, or on a business trip.
Prepare in advance
Write out your to-do list the day before:
- You'll free your time to dive right into your to-do list in the morning - one of the most productive times of day.
- It can help you spot obstacles ahead of time and prepare accordingly.
- Knowing what you have going on well in advance could help you relax and sleep better the night before.
9 more ideas
8
Key Ideas
Do nothing (on purpose)
Too many of us equate doing something with being busy. We don’t need to fill every moment of our lives—both at work and at home—being productive.
Engaging in doing noth...
Engage in “Deliberate Rest”
Deliberate Rest means engaging with restful activities that are often vigorous and mentally engaging.
For example, Winston Churchill and Victor Hugo painted while Leo Tolstoy played chess.
Catch up on that one thing
Most of us put off tasks that stress us out. Unfortunately, this avoidance kicks off a cycle of procrastination that just causes more stress.
Instead, committing to crossing one of them off of your to-do list on a day off can improve your overall well-being.
5 more ideas
1
Key Idea
“Work, Play, Fit, Push” Framework
1. Set priorities on Sunday.
2. Map out work (limit to top 3), play, fit (plan for at least 30 minutes each day), and push (do something that scares yo...