I have discovered a pattern that after around 3 hours of deep mental work I am exhausted and I can’t do anything any more that day.
What are your strategies to get more work done, or just to not feel miserable for the rest of the day?
2·6 hours ago- Modulate expectations. Nothing will let you be 100% productive, 100% of the day. You don’t want that anyway. The moment you get 100% productivity, they will demand 105%, which you are not capable of. Even if you can hit 100% for a moment, you can’t maintain it. It’d be like redlining an engine. Find your sustainable level of work and maintain it. You won’t get paid anything if you kill yourself trying to do more.
- Take breaks before you hit the wall. Work an hour, go for a walk. Work an hour, close your eyes and do deep breathing for a bit. Work for an hour, sing along to a few songs. Don’t think actively during the breaks. Your unconscious needs processing time. This keeps you from hitting the wall so hard, and might let you get an extra cycle or two.
- Make the things you do on those breaks activities that do not require strong attention but do get air moving through your lungs. Part of fatigue is build up of waste products in the brain. Get air and blood in there and it’ll help.