Doing anything physical ( a walk, exercise, bike ride, whatever) while doing nothing mental (as in, no chores like cleaning, something physical and mostly mindless) usually helps me.

I’m gonna give you the answer no motivated person wants to hear. You should listen to your body and take a rest. You’ll be able to get more done with time, but exhausting yourself to get there won’t help in the long run (ask me how I know 🫠)

What I do is work less than 3 hours per day. If on a job, the rest of the time I just act as if I’m working.

I’m honestly only good for a few hours a day. I do my thinking, usually come up with something good, then basically fuck off because unless I’m feeling very inspired that’s as much as I’m going to produce.

Now when I’m inspired by something I’ll go like 18 hours straight, but it’s been a long long time since work inspired me like that.

So in that down time I walk to the coffee shop, take a nap, browse the internet, whatever.

Like, yesterday morning I made some code that needs to run daily 150,000x cheaper. Literally saved us a few grand a month. I expected like a 10x improvement. But I could only do that after not thinking about it for the weekend.

Take a walk. Even if it’s just on a treadmill. Even if it’s just up and down the stairs a few times. There are empirical studies on this; the physical act of walking energizes your brain. Doesn’t have to be outside, doesn’t have to be going anywhere. Just walk. Five to ten minutes, put a podcast on or something. Do that every hour or two.

Prolonged mental exhaustion causes a buildup of glutamate in areas like the lateral prefrontal cortex. Sustained overstimulation can lead to excitotoxicity, where excess glutamate damages neurons.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

That sounds about right to me! Trying to go full steam ahead for 8 hours a day isn’t sustainable or even desirable.

I found Cal Newport’s book Slow Productivity really helped me get some perspective on work. It has three main lessons: Do Fewer Things, Work at a Natural Pace and Obsess over Quality.

Have you tried taking breaks in these 3 hours?

stop trying to do everything at once.

spread shit out more.

if you run a marathon you’re not doing anything strenuous for like a week… you are demanding way too much of yourself too fast and too frequently. Stop it.

Im like this. Getting worse as I get older. I used to do a shitton and it was more like 5 or 6 hours but that has come down. No advice except to feel miserable.

Bro I have to record 9 hours of work a day and its fucking hard. Worst part of my job.

But I wfh and the job is easy so I don’t complain but man I hate recording my time. Always I have a stopwatch running all day every day.

I could be in the mines, so I don’t complain.

Did you get enough sleep the nights before? Have you eaten well and had enough to drink? Do you do modest exercise?

Don’t think anyone can do a full 8 hour workday of only deep mental work, about 4 hours is more reasonable. Fill the day with some less challenging work.

Meditation could probably help. This and doing sports regularly.

Don’t work three hours straight.

Try doing two hours and then give yourself a break.

It’s much easier to carry five 20 pound loads than to try and carry one 100 pound load.