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Comment by cpprototypes | Hacker News Reader

Time is important, but another factor is mental energy. I have only a certain amount of mental energy for each day. Things like TV, reading, and exercising are good when I'm in a low mental energy state. If I have a hard day at work, it doesn't matter how much free time I have since I just won't have the mental energy left to work on a side project.

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The funny thing about mental energy is that it can be managed. I've experiment with this a lot and have found that a somewhat tightly regime of exercising, sleeping, eating (and more importantly watching what I eat), and ever so slightly calibrated caffeine intake, have enabled me to pretty much keep being productive all day.

The biggest effect I've discovered is that you can only do one type of work for about 6 or max 8 hours a day. Then you need to switch to something else for the rest of the day. For instance, if your day is spent programming, then at the very least your side project should be in a different language. Better yet, if it can be something other than programming.

And therein lies the rub.

I'm also reminded of the studies that document that routinely exceeding a 40 hour week causes reduced productivity (IGDA "Why Crunch Mode Doesn't Work"), and that 40 hours was based on assembly-line work and the corresponding number for creative work is probably 35 hours max leads me to think it's just not possible to have a side project without interfering with your main job to some degree.

So yes, I've gladly given up TV and movies and gaming, but that still doesn't seem to make a side project feasible, which is really sad.

The part of a side project that is 'creative' is not often needed in the 40 hour all the time - once the creativity has run it's course into a todo list, I find making sure I have a clear list to pick up something I can start and finish is helpful.

Perhaps unusually I find I have unlimited mental energy for things that I find interesting to do, and a limited amount for things that aren't. I remember sitting through a lecture on introverts and extroverts and the discussion was around "energy" and how extroverts were energized by interacting with more people and introverts were "drained" by lots of interactions. The inverse was true as well (introverts getting energy during their alone time, extroverts feeling drained without external contact). In that lecture it clicked for me that certain mental activities energize me, and certain ones don't. For example learning new stuff "energized, organizing and cataloging "draining",

Ah, good point

I'd actually argue that TV is bad when you have low mental energy. It may feel good and that you're relaxing, but have you ever gotten up from watching TV and though "now I'm refreshed!".

Odd, I find that watching TV or movies does have that effect - I get bored of just consuming, and I want to produce.

actually, i feel like a taking a little time to read non-technical stuff (like fiction or history) and exercise makes the time i spend coding more productive. of course, it's possible to overdo it and go on a reading jag that eats up a lot of time or (i would imagine, anyway) exercise for a substantial portion of your day.

tv clearly sucks, tho, and the main point here is that i'm surprised to hear someone equate time spent watching tv with time spent reading or exercising.

I have a term for this: "etime" [1] (the product of time and mental energy). Both are necessary to get anything done.

[1] http://andrewoneverything.com/post/43544648479/i-dont-have-e...

I find that I get energized on my short (20 minute) drive home. Maybe it's the change in context, but even if I'm mentally fried at 5 I find that I can at least get another hour or two.

I used to have a less than 5min commute and it was perfect for "resetting" my mind. I now have about an hour commute; most nights it doesn't matter how much energy I had when I walked out of the office, by the time I get in the house I barely have enough energy to put something in the microwave and eat before passing out.

That happens to me, I have a 20 minute commute too. I do it by motorcycle and it makes me wake up in the morning and be ready to do whatever I want to do in the afternoons.

I find motorcycles amazing for this. Even a ten minute ride completely energizes me. It might have something to do with the total focus required.

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