Hi friends,

It has been a long month for everyone. The pandemic, once again tightening its grip on us, after we have so valiantly fought to free ourselves from it. Its relentlessness, starting to wear out even the most resilient of front-liners.

Even though my platform isn’t nearly half as big as most people out there, I want to play my part and remind everyone to stay safe and stay vigilant. We are all in this together.

With that solemn note aside, things have been quite calming in college. We are all staying in campus and having our classes conducted virtually. Now, I have to admit that I am extremely lucky to have understanding teachers who assign us with classwork on some days instead of insisting on a virtual class throughout the entire week. This makes way for a lot more flexibility in terms of the time I have at hand.

Being a Productive Nerd, this situation means only one thing - a golden opportunity for me to experiment with working around my energy levels.

So, for the past week or so, I have been actively experimenting with working around my personal energy levels so that I can be my most productive self as I go through the day.

To start off, here’s how society often envision our energy level graph.

Society (problematic term, I know. But for the lack of a better word, we’ll have to make do) expects us to wake up in the morning with boundless optimism in our eyes, ready to go about our day making the world a better place.

Then, our energy levels are expected to decrease almost exponentially, with no dips or spike in between throughout the day. Finally, society assumes that we would be drained by the day’s work and end up being a complete wasteman at night, not having enough energy to do any productive work at all.

I am extremely bullish against this.

In my experience, this is how my personal energy level graph looks like. And I am pretty certain it is the similar case for most people as well.

As I mentioned in this previous issue, the afternoons and evenings are the periods of the day that I dread the most. I feel sluggish, my mind is a mush, and I rarely, if ever, get any creative work done. The Afternoon Slump Hack is a merely a workaround when I don’t have the choice to write the afternoon off. I am still going against my body’s natural energy level.

On the other hand, I find that I am the most creative and productive in the morning and at night. I feel more awake, the creative juices are flowing and I feel more pumped to work in those time periods.

On normal days, I would have to stop work around 12am to get a good night’s rest so that I could get up bright and early to dress up, have breakfast and get to my classes on time. However, with the flexibility that came my way in the past 2 weeks, I was able to take a nap in the afternoon so that I could either wake up earlier the next day or sleep later that night to get more productive work done.

At least for me, this has worked out well so far. I am optimizing my workflow by scheduling my work around my energy levels. This way, I am not going against my natural energy flow, adding resistance to an activity that is already resistive itself.

With that said, I hope that this cheeky little hack added some value to your life in some shape, way, or form in these trying times. Remember, every experience is a learning opportunity. You just have to look and learn.

Have a great week ahead and see you in the next issue of Sunday Scoop!

Jia Shing.

Links

1. 📹Video - I’ve been drinking quite a bit of Iced Filter Coffee for the past week and it is absolutely life-changing! If you fancy getting yourself some bomb coffee beans, consider Perk Coffee. The YIRGACHEFFE beans are amazing for a light-roast ice filtered coffee, which isn’t too bold, but just enough to get you through the day with a caffeine boost.

2. 💬 Quote - This is realization hit me the hardest when I was working on my US Supplemental essays. The inspiration that one gets from reading, I dare say, is almost unparalleled to any other form of inspiration-seeking activities.

Question

Have you been managing your energy or your time? Have you been going against your natural energy levels> Why or how have you been resisting it?

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