Most days, I feel like doing nothing. But some days, the computer calls to me, and it would be foolish to ignore it. If I’ve done anything impressive, it’s during those days.
But why? And can those days be maximized? Is it strictly a product of one’s environment? It can’t be; the institute for advanced study showed that you can have a perfect environment but make no progress.
I went undiagnosed for such a long time because managers would often point at me as an example of startup dedication, and then when I crashed and they got disappointed I would jump to a new startup.
Now I stick to a schedule and never deviate from it. When I do, the monster returns.
I've tried to examine correlations between my focus at work and my sleep schedule, diet, social life, etc. and I don't really see anything. sometimes my best weeks of work will coincide with eating bad takeout and staying up til 2am playing factorio every night. sometimes I go to bed at 10pm, eat three healthy meals a day, and accomplish absolutely nothing at work.
For me its not that I don't feel like doing work on most days. Instead I have periods where I am super uber productive and days where I feel completely exhausted. I can't tell if its a mental thing or rather there's actually something physically wrong Lol. My mind tends to be blurry like its rebelling and if I force myself to work hard I start feeling feverish. I have trouble figuring out if I'm not working hard enough or working too hard.
I wonder if its also like that for some of the successful startup founders out there too
But it's a good point! Faith fluctuates by day, and those low-faith days are when a small project is abandoned. I think graham's solutions (supportive friends, ambitious city, historical examples) are a good way to hold the faith when the general public and the project itself don't seem to warrant it.
The big things for me have been to eat a very nutritionally heavy breakfast (I hate eating breakfast, it still takes me forever) and to calorie count both to make sure I'm getting enough and to make sure I'm getting a decent balance of carbs/protein/fat. For sleep, going to sleep early and having wind down time so I sleep well (tea and a book are a winning combo for me there usually).
Stress is of course the difficult one we have the least control over. Exercise is a huge help but that can also change up the nutrition equation. Even then, it's still easy for bad stress days to also muck up the sleep side of the equation and it can take days to get that sorted out.
I enjoy the late afternoon hours when most of my colleagues are already gone, the phone rings not as often and I can put some music on headphones. Takes me about 15 minutes till I get into the flow state and am highly productive.