Managing psychophysiological energy

Key Insight

Managing psychophysiological energy

● What’s the goal? The goal is to do hard things when it’s easy, and easy things when it’s hard. When is it easy? Usually in the morning when we wake up and are 100% rested.

● The goal is also to have times when we are 100% effective, and times when we are 100% enjoying ourselves and resting in rotation. Mixing these two activities will achieve neither.

● In the morning after waking up and after the morning routine: creativity, flow, brainstorming meetings, thinking, planning, writing - slow thinking.

○ What’s important and what must be done today is very important to finish in the morning, and that is mostly what we procrastinate on and what we fear the most, and that should be solved when we are strongest, i.e., in the morning! Ideally the day is decided in advance and written in the calendar.

○ It is much harder to shift from fast thinking to slow thinking, so it’s very wise to do slow thinking first.

● In the afternoon and evening we have less psychophysical energy, so good are synchronization meetings, emails, training, networking, calls, correspondence - fast thinking. In most emails others ask something of you, so it’s generally fine to prioritize matters that are more important for us, because otherwise the day may pass, and you helped everyone, but not yourself.

● Marathon, not a sprint. It’s crucial to determine the maximum pace we can sustain for a long time, i.e., indefinitely. If we plan time to create some long energy, or go to the extremes where we harm psychophysiological health, long-term it will come due. If we add the extra time needed for rest after moving fast for a while, we’ll see we achieved nothing and we are in the negative; with the additional opportunity cost of poor decisions, we’ll be in a deep deficit. LeBron James is known for being one of the fastest sprinters in the NBA, however his average movement speed for a game was one of the slowest, and thus he managed one of the longest careers in sports history.

● We won’t have the same amount of energy every day, so it’s wise to leave a bit of flexibility. Some days we’ll do 6 effective hours, some 12. And even if we bring all external conditions to perfection, the body has a limit for that day and shouldn’t be forced. Especially in the early stages if we’ve been used to 1-3 effective hours during the day earlier, 6 hours would be a shock, so we should progressively raise targets and listen to our body. Productivity should feel good and be sustainable in the long term.

○ On the other hand, if you’ve had 5, 10, 15 very good workdays, you owe your body a few full days of rest.

● The best strategy for distributing energy to a task is actually not to do that activity at all, i.e., to be extremely sure that the activity is important before you invest energy into it. Say no. I can’t, it’s not my priority, and that’s that.

● Night owls are an illusion, and this illusion occurs more frequently in the young because their biological clock is significantly shifted (the whole section on the biological clock comes later). There are very few people who truly are night owls, but biologically and evolutionarily this makes no sense, and statistically you aren’t one of them.

● The body runs on a 90-minute rhythm called the Ultradian rhythm. Somewhere between 90 and 120 minutes, but for the vast majority of people about 90. This rhythm yields slightly raised and lowered energy levels in cycles, so it’s not bad to take somewhat larger breaks at about 90 minutes, and smaller breaks between those breaks. There are also other cycles being researched and I recommend digging deeper if you want maximum optimization (e.g., Circasemidian rhythm).

● Strategic scheduling of breaks during the day is desirable, so after 2 or 3 90-minute blocks you should take a slightly longer break, ideally without looking at a screen during it, and preferably with a walk. Listen to your body and take breaks as needed. I often split the day into two parts with training in between, and when energy drops I go to training, give the brain a good reboot and rest my eyes, and then return to the desk refreshed. Research shows that after about 50 minutes of effective work you need about 20 minutes of effective breaks for optimal long-term performance (not optional, but necessary). Social networks, video games, and cheap dopamine are extremely poor forms of breaks (but better than no break). A walk, light physical activity, creative activities, socializing, yoga/stretching, time in nature, or simply sitting with your thoughts are much better breaks.

● At the start it’s good to organize work in cycles of 15-30 minutes with zero distractions (absolutely zero), and initially with a timer (literally). For each cycle we must have a predefined goal, and only one goal. In the beginning 15 minutes is hard, and later 30 minutes will be easy. Between these cycles we take smaller breaks, to then have a longer break after about 90 minutes, and even longer after about 180 or 270.

● For entering flow it’s good to ritually announce (mostly to yourself, but even better to others) that we are entering flow, remove all distractions and start. I usually pour a glass of water and move the phone out of sight, turn off all apps that could cause problems and begin! Small breaks in this period are bad and ruin flow, however if we fall out of rhythm and catch on a cheap dopamine, simply return without stress and anger. Over time this should happen less and less.

● Since we don’t have the same amount of psychophysical energy and emotional state every day for important decisions (which do not have to be made urgently) it’s best to sleep on it 2-3 days before making a decision. The brain processes that decision even during sleep, and you will notice your thinking about that decision becomes clearer and better with each day, and emotional reaction decreases (and reason can come to the fore). For some decisions it may take longer.

● Flow, concentration, mindfulness are very connected, so we will have a whole section with focus exercises.