The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr / Tony Schwartz is basically all about that:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68985.The_Power_of_Full_...

Read a book called "The power of full engagement" by Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr. Its a life-changing book.

Currently reading The Power of Full Engagement (after hearing about it on HN). It's not bad, and has already encouraged me to look at my eating & working habits.

The Power of Full Engagement is great. I recently read it and it would probably do me good to read it again at least a few more times.

Try The Energy Project [http://www.theenergyproject.com/] or the older book The Power of Full Engagement.

Riyria Revelations trilogy - quite good. Follows two thieves for hire. Read the books in publication order

Ready player one - liked it

samurai's garden

Expanse series by James Corey entertaining

Steelheart and Firefight by Sanderson- good but like Mistborn better

Worm online serial parahumans good

Nonfiction I read: Delivering happiness, Drive, Power of Habit, Power of full engagement

The problem is the half-assed work/activities.

I think you have to be fully engaged in any activity you are making. If you want to relax, relax in a full paced way. Not worrying about the work you have to make.
If you must work, work in a fast-paced way, and make the job done.

The worst kind of works is the one multi-tasked. You dont get in a 'flow' state that is necessary for the most jobs people here in hacker news makes.

Two books are very good in the matter, The power of full engagement http://amzn.to/vdS1Tc and Flow http://amzn.to/t2bed6

Forget about the spammy title, this is an amazing book on copy writting:

Cashvertising:
http://amzn.to/nrwKnf (all links have my affiliate link. On my way to richness baby! ;)

I'm currently reading this one, so far so good:

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
http://amzn.to/nGEnkv

This is a small list of books I want to read:

The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us
http://amzn.to/oiEIDs

Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength
http://amzn.to/qTNpgB

Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup
http://amzn.to/njSDPh

The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement
http://amzn.to/okuaFh

The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal
http://amzn.to/rptuZ9

The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home
http://amzn.to/oaIDgu

Tony Schwartz talks about some of the things that seperates elite performers from the merely very good in his book The Power of Full Engagement (HBR article here: http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2001/01/the-making-of-a-corpo... ) One of the points he makes is that the very elite (he studied tennis players particularly) have rituals that they perform that allow them to reocover, refocus, and rest very efficiently. And that the more often an athlete stretches themselves physically or mentally beyond their own limits and relies on these rituals to help them succeed, the more powerful and effective the rituals become. So even without accounting for players changing their own playing style because of Tiger, they may suffer from impaired performance because they are simply not as practiced at performing at a high level within the crazy media and fan circus that surrounds Tiger Woods as Tiger Woods himself is. He clearly has developed and repeatedly stressed and practiced those rituals of performance within that environment far more than any one else has had chance to.

Schwartz goes on to relate this to performance as a "Corporate Athlete" but his tips have far more applicability in my mind to the startup environment than to the typical corporate environment.

I probably shouldn't be surprised to hear that because my experiences are similar and I understand that this is the case for most people.

My advice would be to work on projects that you are intrinsically motivated to work on. Don't work on a project in expectation of any reward if you complete it. Let yourself know that it's ok if you don't achieve all (or any) of what you might have set out to achieve in the first place. Myself, the side projects where I've achieved the most have been ones that give me a dopamine hit (basically games or things that are graphical, in my case, even though I've rarely been paid to work on those sorts of things in my career as a software engineer).

If you're interested in reading up on motivation then there are few books that I've found really useful:

- Drive by Daniel Pink talks about the different types of motivation (intrinsic vs extrinsic) and talks about the motivating factors of autonomy, mastery and purpose. There's a nice sketchnote video based on a talk by the author that did the rounds a few years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgGhSOAtAyQ that sums up the key points.

- The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg talks about habits, how they form and how you can understand and hack them.

- The Power Of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz talks about managing different aspects of your life in order to have energy to do the things that are important to you.

Hopefully the above may be of some use to you. They have been very useful for me, particularly in understanding how counterintuitive human psychology is in some cases and in terms of understanding how some strategies that you may be tempted to use can be counterproductive.

Check out the book, "The Power of Full Engagement." The short of it is that yes, you do need a break. You'll be more productive managing your time and doing important things (like occasionally relaxing and being sure to exercise regularly) than just trying to sit at your computer working 24/7.

Also, don't look at breaks as a major unplug or nothing at all. Our brains work in 90-120 minute cycles (similar to our sleep cycles) and so building in short breaks (even only 5-10 minutes) can be incredibly refreshing and make you more productive than if you cranked through a whole day.

The book is no BS either; the authors have helped Fortune 500 leaders and professional athletes rise to the top of their game (like helping a tennis player become #1 in the World).

Happy to talk more some time as I'm just wrapping the book up and starting to apply some of the lessons from it. It's helping me understand why for instance my most productive hour of my week is the hour after i keep home from my soccer games and how to have more heavy execution sessions like it.

Don't feel guilty. It's about working smart and hard.

I think you are exhausted and bored. Other people has told you what to do: force yourself to relax, to take vacations or take a break, sleep well, eat well, and exercise.

Read "The power of full engagement" Tony Swartz's. It has a very useful video on youtube.

Force yourself to use facebook or read hackernews ONLY when you had finished your work(evening-night), never when you start it(morning). Your short memory is clean after sleeping(it gets backed up in medium and long memory), and you don't want to fill it with pasive stuff but with active info. Creating something(code, making things, writing a book...) takes way more resources than consuming something(reading code, using things, reading a book or what someone has updated on facebook). You should do what is harder first.

Your work environment should be at the right temperature, if it is too hot(now the north hemisphere), your brain shuts down(so you don't generate more heat), if too cold your body wants to move(not good for programming).

Maybe you are in love, who knows.

Don't worry too much, it's normal, the only problem you face is to know consciously what your mind knows unconsciously as the origin of the problem. Once you know, it will be easy to solve.

Bye

Just started The Power of Full Engagement by Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr. I believe it was recommended here a while ago. Starts off a bit weak, spending too much time almost trying to sell you the book it feels like, rather than getting down to what it's actually all about - you know the type, like those "motivational" videos that spend an hour talking about how great it works and how many people have changed their life without ever actually saying what the ___ "it" is. But it's not as bad as those, and I'm hopeful that as it gets into the real content it will be useful, since their general framework makes a lot of sense. (The key tenant being to focus on managing energy rather than time.)

I'm also eagerly awaiting the next Patrick Rothfuss Kingkiller Chronicle book. (Despite the low-fantasy sounding name, the series is excellent. I think it's probably the only fantasy series I would strongly recommend people pick up despite the fact that it's not finished yet.)

Haha, I could only hope to achieve even half of what Joel Spolsky has :)

I've previously written about how I created my sleep ritual (http://joel.is/post/5303723252/creating-a-sleep-ritual) and what you mention about committing to too many routines has been key for me. I'd say that is the reason I've not managed it until now and also the reason I've managed to put a decent routine in place now and I'm able to keep adjusting it and improving it.

I think the key is to adjust one thing at a time until it becomes a "ritual" we are pulled towards rather than a "routine" which we force ourselves to do. At first, I got up at 6am and went to the gym at 6:30. Over time, I've gradually got up earlier and earlier so that now I am starting to get up at 4:30am and have 1.5hrs of productive work time before I go to the gym. I've also adjusted my exercise routine at the gym whereas before just getting there was hard enough.

I don't do a whole lot in terms of diet right now, however I want to soon when the current routine becomes more comfortable.

The article you mention is written by Tony Schwartz who I've mentioned in my post, and I can't recommend his book "The Power of Full Engagement" enough. The two main things I took away from it were the importance of renewal (I now break up my day with various activities, such as the gym, meals, or reading a book for 20 minutes) and relating tasks to my core values (this is related to Simon Sinek's "Start with Why").

The study results were interesting, but I find them hard to apply in a directed effort towards achievement. I just finished reading The Power of Full Engagement, and I find Loehr and Schwartz provide a more practical, workable model.

Their idea, strongly supported by thousands of case studies, is that to maximize success (whether in academics, tennis, the corporate world, etc.) one must practice deliberate spurts of stress followed by periods of strategic relaxation. It is easier to apply this in practice than the interesting but hardly practical content in the article. For example, for the past few hours, I've been working hard on understanding some algebraic geometry from Hartshorne, but now I'm daydreaming about neuroscience and salsa.

Thus, a perfect creative effort is a fusion of focused dedication interspersed with lackadaisical goofing around.

I second this. "The Power of Full Engagement" is a rather good book on how to manage your energy. I like Cal Newport's blog, but what I think often goes unmentioned is the energy required to sustain this regime. It's not going to happen over night.

Schwartz and Loehr worked with some of the best tennis players of all time. From there they built a system of how to build up your energy (energy is the term they use.) Some might find their work to be a bit hokey, but I got the book used for $.01 (+ s&H) on Amazon so it's worth a shot.

The deliberative practice literature is pretty consistent on what people do to become better performers. What much of the literature (or at least what I have read) lacks is the recognition that getting to the point of being able to practice deliberately in a consistent manner takes building up endurance over time.

Power through it. Bitch and scream, but then do what needs to be done.

Read “The Power of Full Engagement” : http://sivers.org/book/PowerOfFullEngagement

The authors worked with the best athletes and executives for years, and found that the best ones knew how to push themselves, then recuperate, push, recuperate. Take this same approach to your emotional, mental, physical, and even spiritual life, and it's a powerful metaphor. Think of sprints, not marathons. Be fully in whatever you're in, then give time to recuperate. But push futher each time, past your comfort zone, like a good exercise plan.

I was surprised that was his answer to burnout. I read The Power of Full Engagement (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0743226755) and it really helped frame the problem for me. Taking vacations is definitely going to be difficult for a founder, but you can build recovery into your daily schedule and it really really helps.

Meditating, playing an instrument, making art, exercising and playing sports, lunch with a friend - you can do these for half an hour, an hour a day and they yield results.

The Minto Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing, Thinking, & Problem Solving by Barbara Minto (http://www.amazon.com/Pyramid-Principle-Writing-Thinking-Pro...)

Some Mental Models are available here for free :

http://www.focusinvestor.com/FocusSeriesPart3.pdf

http://www.focusinvestor.com/MungerModels.pdf

For systems :

Lean Thinking by James Womack

--------------

Some thought provoking personal effectiveness titles :

The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz (http://www.amazon.com/Four-Agreements-Practical-Personal-Fre...)

The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz (http://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Choice-Why-More-Less/dp/006000...)

The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz

It is a complex issue. I read and watched videos and went to a lot of seminars on psicology of productivity. "Read The Power of full engagement"(This is the best book you can read ever!!) and create rituals.

I like investigating new technologies too, so I do it, with limits. I read HN each day but no comments(it drains too much).

Emails and social media at the end of the day.

I do manage my emotional states, and schedule resting time.

I wrote down each day what I want to do(look at how many people here do the same, it works).

Help other people without interest in mind.

Don't "fight" procrastination. Improve productivity(don't focus on your bad, improve your strengths)

I've been focusing, and doing, this wellness and exercise thing lately. Just reading for the last several years.

Best article, which led me to action, is this http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/everything-you-know-abou... together with the book The Power of Full Engagement https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743226755/ref=as_li_tl?ie...

And here are the guys I read regularly (on and off, actually):

Scott Sonnon: http://www.rmaxinternational.com/flowcoach/

Pavel Tsatsouline: http://www.strongfirst.com

Phil Maffetone: https://philmaffetone.com

the guys at GMB: https://gmb.io

and Leo Babauta: http://zenhabits.net