MANAGE YOUR ENERGY

“Those early hours are important for another reason: they’re usually when you’re most productive. When I spoke to Duke professor Dan Ariely, he said, ‘It turns out that most people are productive in the first two hours of the morning. Not immediately after waking, but if you get up at 7 you’ll be most productive from around 8 to 10:30.’ Don’t waste them being exhausted and cranky.

To think about this another way, do you accomplish more in three hours when you’re sleep deprived or in one hour when you feel energetic, optimistic, and engaged? Ten hours of work when you’re exhausted, cranky, and distracted might be far less productive than three hours when you’re ‘in the zone.’ So why not focus less on hours and more on doing what it takes to make sure you’re at your best.”

- Eric Barker from Barking up the wrong tree