We do a lot of activities we think give us energy but either don't, don't anymore, or only do in some idealized situation that isn't really happening. Or maybe something else that happens along with an activity is what we really enjoy (I thought I enjoyed driving, when actually I just like listening to music uninterrupted).
In the case of games or a show they can stop being fun and be more like work pretty easily. They're like junk food. They fill you up for a little while but they're not fulfilling.
How does one effectively identify different activities' impact on one's energy levels? Relying on feelings and memory, I found, is hard and inefficient. Life logging/quantified self?
How did you realize you actually enjoyed listening to music uninterrupted rather than driving?
To be perfectly honest, I'm probably going to spend the rest of my life answering question #1.
What I think I know is that the answer changes over time, so you should get comfortable with the idea of always asking yourself the question anyway.
If I have a system that only works because of my tendency to problem solve. Imagine that a friend confided in you that they're having trouble and asked for help figuring it out. What would you ask them? What are your answers to those questions? How would you respond if your friend gave your answers? It's not a panacea, but if you avoid doing this experiment with subjects like employment and romance (we think everyone else should break up and quit their jobs immediately) it kind of works.
Just sharing some thoughts on your questions, not claiming I got conclusive answers:
Leisure time like listening to music or playing a video game can make you happier. Such happy events can re-energize not on that specific day necessarily, but e.g. the workweek (or beginning of workweek) afterwards. Neutral and unpleasant activity will not have such effect.
Anecdotal: overcoming a great challenge in gaming in a team had made me euphoric for a few days. I woke up and was literally right away excited. Gaming doesn't always have such effect though. One problem games (and TV etc) have is that it can feel like a choir. A mandatory riedel you gotta sing every X time together with person Y on time Z. Even when at times you really don't wanna. Then you can end up in a negative spiral, especially if the other factors are being difficult as well (e.g. your kid, work, etc). Because it isn't always static. Sometimes you want to skip. If you game in a team, play a team sport, or are a high performing athlete you might be hard on yourself. If you got on-demand TV, you can skip easier, but I suppose the monthly pay makes you wanna eat your cake as part of the all you can eat sub.
Sports can affect your brain by increasing your cognitive performance.
I suppose it can be proven with EEG/MRI scans. Probably rather costly, but if its done for academic purposes and reproduced by a TV show you got two birds (tho not with one stone): the scientific part background, and that being applied for the general population explained with simplicity.
> How did you realize you actually enjoyed listening to music uninterrupted rather than driving?
By testing the effect of driving without music, or listening to music without driving.
For me it's Chess - It's a flow state with a simply defined (incredibly complex to solve problem) and a few wins makes me feel energised (of course my W/L% is almost exactly 50/50), I don't draw much).
If I couldn't play Chess online I don't know what else I'd do to relax that wasn't vegging in front of the TV.
This year I'm going to my local club as well and play OTB for the social aspects.
I'm going to go out on a limb - learn to meditate. I suspect that for most people, once well learned, meditation will be a recharging activity. And it seems like an activity that will be a good baseline for helping figuring out the energy impact of other activities.
I cannot always find the discipline to meditate, but I've found that listening to lounge/chillout music without doing anything else and letting my thoughts wander help a great deal.
I agree with the comment at the top of this thread. In my own experience I can say that this helped me more than anything to get on the right track https://www.thefoundationsofwellbeing.com/
I know, the website looks a little cheesy but everything they talk about in the videos is legit. Meditate. Eat food that is actually nutritious, exercise, learn to be grateful and resilient. If you don't find Rick Hanson's way of talking about those topics to be helpful, just google the overall ideas of self-care and well being. Pretty much everyone says the same sort of things Rick Hanson says, but different people put slightly different spins on particular parts of the message. Find the message that speaks to you about this: how to take care of yourself.
Not just "how to happy" or "how to be productive".
I have been tracking my productivity with rescuetime on my work machine over the past year and paying particular attention to the value of exercising. I genuinely enjoy exercising, but in many stages of life, productivity is far more important than things I just enjoy doing. Also, I don’t care about losing weight. My productivity is critical these days so I wanted to know if exercising was contributing to that or taking from it.
Alternating 3 months on and 3 months off of jogging in the summer an elliptical in the winter, 4 days a week, with a steady program that took 45-55 minutes tops including changing clothes and a shower. My records do not support exercising for productivity gain; they support the opposite.
It was clear that exercising simply depleted my energy. It doesn’t take very long to do and it feels good, but it sucked my energy and my productive hours (mostly coding) were shortened by an average of 3-4 hours per day. Although I felt energetic, I didn’t “have more energy” as they say.
I will continue exercising when I can afford that, because keeping my body healthy is important long-term.
I am now curious about the wider justification of this common advice. I doubt it’s just a virtue signal. It’s hard to beat catching a morning run that moment before the sun comes over the horizon. Great way to start the day. But, my goal here was to be honest with myself. It does not make me feel better throughout the day. I wish it did, because I love feeling better, but it doesn’t do that. Not for me.
It seems those that benefit most from exercise from a productivity standpoint are those like myself. Exercise has been very helpful fighting depression, and thus, my productivity. I could imagine that those without depression would not get the mental benefit that easily overrides the effort of exercise.
I can actually sympathize with this. It was the reason I originally began exercising, and I know it helped with that. I don't know how much. I got more committed to meditating over the years and found the returns on meditating to be undeniable. I figure there are many sources and types of depression, and I think lower productivity undermined some of my efforts to fight it.
I reached the same conclusion for myself - that a ~40 minute cardio workout actually results in less productivity rather than more.
However, I switched to a 10 minute cycling workout with high intensity intervals (4-5 intervals 30 seconds in length). I have only done this for a few weeks, but I find that it boosts daily energy rather than depleting it.
I work in the morning from 0700/0800 to 1600/1700, I find that a mid-afternoon session perks up so I can crank out a few more hours. I could stay longer than that at work of course, but it would be of little benefit to anyone as I'd be effectively useless.
did you find that the timings of the work hours and workouts make no difference?
I.e. working out at 7am with workhours from 9-5 are suboptimal but workhours from 4am to 8am with an hour of workout between 8 and 9 gives you a boost for the rest of the day
I love that the first response to this starts "I've been tracking my productivity..."
Not getting immediately sucked into moralizing your attempts at self-care is almost alien to the American ethos. John Calvin, haunting America for 450 years...
In the case of games or a show they can stop being fun and be more like work pretty easily. They're like junk food. They fill you up for a little while but they're not fulfilling.