Hey friend,
In this episode, you will learn what to do if you find yourself having no energy during the day and need to recharge.
If you prefer watching, you can find the YouTube video here. If reading is your thing, then enjoy the transcript below.
Welcome to The Daily Recall show. I'm your host, Vasili.
Today is the day two of our three day series on how to get more done by managing your energy levels.
Yesterday, I covered how to prevent the problem from happening in the first place. You can do that by asking the opposite question, what should you do to have no energy at all, and then flipping back the answers. Then you can work through that list to always have high energy state.
But shit happens. You will have travel and just "bad days". So what should you do to get unstuck and return to your productive state?
The first step is to realize that you’re stuck.
This is what I struggle with the most. It's really hard to understand when this is happening to you and distinguish being stuck from just not being able to solve a problem or work on a task at hand.
That’s why it's good to have metrics and take notes. Whenever I start on a big task, like writing a post, I write it down - "11:05 pm - started writing a draft for my stay fit for life essay." Not only this helps to deal with procrastination through intention design and micro planning (people who write down their plans for next hour are 20-30% more likely to stick to them) but it also provides a time parameter that I can use to realize if I’m not moving forward. So if I find myself working on something for longer than 10 or 15 mins and not making any progress and mind starts feeling foggy, that's a good sign that I might be entering - or have already entered - a low energy territory. And if I start feeling foggy or physically uncomfortable then it's also a good indicator.
The second step is to run a procrastination check-up.
Very often what I think is low energy mode is actually "don’t know how to do this shit" mode. A good way to check yourself is to set up a timer for 10 mins and promise yourself that you will stop doing the thing after 10 mins if you feel just as bad. Timer works because procrastination arises from an area of your brain called the insular cortex which highlights whenever you get to do (or even think about doing) something unpleasant or hard. So it's always a good idea to check yourself for procrastination first - and this actually trains yourself to be more persistent and gamifies the problem; instead of thinking "oh I gotta finish this assignment by tomorrow" you start thinking "how much of it I can do in ten mins if I can stop after ten mins anyways?"
But if you’ve gone through both steps - identified that you’ve been sitting here not making progress for twenty minutes and did a procrastination 10 mins checkup - and the problem is still there; now it's time for big guns.
The first thing you need to do after identifying the problem is to accept it.
This is hard because acceptance lowers your ego. One thing that helps is knowledge; if you know that you're not accepting yourself being a failure and not knowing how to solve this but actually accepting the way your body and mind works, then it's way easier to do it. And acceptance is important because otherwise you'll not be able to solve it. You'll be sitting at your desk for hours and trying to break a brick wall by hitting your head against it over and over again.
There are three things you can do to fix this state:
First, just go out for a walk. This is what I do whenever I find myself struggling during the day. I stop doing whatever I’m doing, stand up, get my shoes on, and just go for a 10 to 20 min walk. This change in the environment helps to switch your thinking modes; from the focused mode (when your neurons are really close to each other) to the diffuse mode (when you're not thinking about anything in particular). Another aspect of it is to get some sun exposure; I don’t know how exactly it works but getting out of the building and walking to some small park nearby and enjoying the sunshine and fresh air for five minutes does wonders (look up Japanese forest bathing phenomena if you’re interested). One things that helps here is to not change your clothes and be always ready in 30 seconds to go out; if you make it easy for yourself to take a walk, you will do it more often.
Second, do the coffee-nap-shower combo. Fix yourself a double espresso, take a 40 mins nap, and take a cold shower right after you wake up. Works like magic for me whenever I’m traveling or had insufficient sleep for some reason. I fix myself a cup of strong espresso (>= 2 shots) and also have two or three pieces of 100% organic Ecuador Venchi chocolate. Then I immediately go for a nap. I fall asleep for about 40 to 60 minutes (get some eye mask or ear plugs if you need them) and then I wake up right after the caffeine starts working. And then I go ahead and take a contrast shower to impose some short-term stress on my body.
Third, workout. I do a 30-50 min HIIT workout and it does wonders. So whatever works for you - running, HIIT, etc. - anything of high intensity to pump up some blood will be incredibly useful here.
Just to recap -
Realize that you're stuck, check up for time effort and procrastination, accept the problem, and deal with it. Go for a walk, do the coffee-nap-shower thing, or workout - whatever you prefer. But don’t let you precious high energy time slip.
Tomorrow, I will explain how to win your time back when this stuff doesn’t help.
Take care,
Vasili
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
#24 How to Get More Done by Managing Energy Levels - Part 2: Fix