[nucleative]

I'm mid 40s and will say that this productivity/recharge cycle has been in my life for as long as I can remember.

I think it's natural and speaks to the reality that we cannot operate at an all-out 100% continuously.

Use the downtime as an opportunity for self care, physical health, and low mental output tasks so that when the peak comes again you're not distracted by trivial things.

[ftio]

Key thing I learned too late in life: don’t be too hard on yourself when you have those less productive days. It’s just part of the cycle.

[antoineMoPa]

> Key thing I learned too late in life: don’t be too hard on yourself when you have those less productive days. It’s just part of the cycle.

That's a good thing to keep in mind!

Maybe also: understand that colleagues are not always at the peak of this cycle.

[Zelphyr]

I used to work with a guy who prided himself on his work ethic and productivity. He would pound away at the code daily yet, he was probably one of the worst programmers I've ever known. He was so interested in being productive (which is laudable) that he never took enough time to rest, recharge, and integrate what he had learned. He thought he was delivering quality results because his metric was wrong. Meanwhile, multiple people had to go behind him and rewrite his code because it was so bloated and inefficient.

The funny thing is, he told someone he thought I was the worst programmer he'd ever worked with because I didn't come in and grind out hundreds of lines of code each day. Maybe he was right but, I suspect he had that opinion of other people at the company that didn't meet his skewed standard.

[mattbrewsbytes]

I'd agree that its just natural. Embrace it and when you're feeling productive, see how long you can go.

I think society/ourselves have put arbitrary time barriers in our days where things occur - meals, bedtimes, work days, etc. Sometimes it would be nice if you find yourself in a "flow" state to just ignore all of those barriers and roll with it for a while. Its like some days you just aren't that hungry or you sleep much longer/shorter. We are animals after all and sometimes believe we can control things to the point of robotic measurable output when our bodies tell us otherwise.

[unrestifarian]

100%. Look at nature and human history:

Cycles are inherent to nature and humans are natural. Planets move cyclically. We experience day followed by nite and the seasons change (in most places anyway). I'm of the opinion that taking time off is natural. It's what agriculture has naturally 'demanded' of farmers (or used it before tech disrupted things) for eons.

Of course there's a spectrum as well -> we all have varying levels of 'passion' - some prefer depth and can go for a long time. Some prefer more breadth over depth. Both kinds of people have their value and probably need each other in a symbiotic way.

Just try to find the balance that fits your personality.