I was very excited about the Year of Productivity -blog, but I've never actually read it. I just bumped into it, read the about -section and maybe a random post and was instantly super-hyped and excited. Now after deciding to look a bit into productivity hacks also, I guess this would be an obvious place to start.

So now I've read quite a few posts and tried to find something to help me gather up more energy for productivity. I have [time management and focus pretty much handled]https://hackedman.silvrback.com/productivity-hacks) already, but I do suffer occasionally from not just having enough energy to do anything useful at all. So tricks to maintain energy levels in general and maybe find an extra boost when needed would be cool.

Sadly, getting extra energy seems to be harder to hack than most stuff. On the big collection page for tricks there are many ways to focus better, to choose better goals and to manage your time, but less on how to get extra energy.

Those energy tricks are pretty boring too. "Exercise more", bleh. Even though it just might be the best possible way to get more energy, I already do that and it's a boring hack. Everyone knows that already. I'd like some novelty value too.

Still, here are some that I scrounged up.

Pomodoro

Classic time management trick. Spend 25 minutes with utter focus on something, then take a break. Repeat.

I somehow feel 25 minutes might be way too short to reach a flow state, but it might not be that important. You don't really need hours of deep flow for most stuff. Lots of things can be finished in just 25 minutes, if you just concentrate on it. Concentrating is also fun and a tight timescope might help with that. It sounds like it could be invigorating, so I'm going to try it out.

Let's say, 4 Pomodoros a day, Mon-Fri, HabitRPG goals created.

Biological Prime Time

There's an interesting post on biological prime time. Energy levels just sort of fluctuate during a day and the rhythm is supposed to be pretty regular so once you find your natural rhythm, you can use it for your advantage. Finding out your rhythm takes a bit of doing, though.

Still, it sounds fun. So for the next about three weeks, I'll be charting my energy levels by the hours, each hour (unless I'm sleeping). I won't be using caffeine or alcohol and I'll try to sleep and wake up naturally when I feel like it. This will very probably not go completely according to plan, but hopefully close enough.

Google spreadsheet started, here we go.

Staying productive when you don't feel like it

It's one of the most annoying feelings when you would have something to do, but you are just spent. Not an ounce of effort can be squeezed out, no matter what. This sometimes happens after a long period of stress or drinking or being sociable. A Year of Productivity lists a bunch of things that can be tried in cases like this. I've picked some here that I think might come in handy at some point:

• Get a change of scenery Taking iPad and leaving for a coffee shop is completely possible on most of my workdays. If I need to get out and get a bunch of emails written, I could just pop out and go and write them somewhere else, than procrastinate on the computer at the office.

...and that's actually it. The other tricks really didn't strike me as that useful for me personally, so maybe I'll keep that one.