How do you stay productive/focused over the day?

After a short chat with Candles yesterday, I was a bit surprised how a person can avoid energy drinks/caffeine completely and still stay a useful member of modern society over time.

I need at least my initial Monster energy drink and two coffees at Monday mornings to get over my drowsiness and start being the creative maniac admin scholar that I am. A litre of ice tea follows over the day. My sleep is fine, my legs are restless though.

What do you do to stay focused over the day?

whoops, forgot to format the vote, sorry Spartacus.

 

LeechBlock.
But yeah, I'm very good at surfing the internet, which destroys my workflow a lot.

 

if you just drink water for one week, cut out sugary drinks and snacks then you will feel alert all day. No need for caffiending or energy drinks, they just make me yoyo between uncomfortably energetic at my desk and nodding off to sleep.

 

Stimulants are not a long-term productivity solution. Coffee, tea, energy drinks, adderall, etc are all short-term fixes. If you maintain an effective dose in the long term, they wreck your body.

Proper nutrition & sleep are excellent ways to make sure you're always at your best.

 

This.

But in the office I'm super unproductive anyway. I get nothing done unless I get myself to a point where I can just get music on (earphone) and shut steam off. Then I can focus for a bit.

If I'm out on site doing work around the refinery then it's not so difficult for me, there aren't many distractions, so I can be relatively productive.

 

I haven't drank a single caffeinated drink in over 4 months, it doesn't stop me all I need to stay productive are proteins. Eat food with lots of protein like beef because proteins are used up slowly unlike sugars which are used up in seconds. And then of course I'm earning dosh and that's happiness.

 

As of october last year I'm caffeine free.
I tried to cut soft drink out of my diet but it's not going well (I'm letting it slide though because I'm fucking broke and feeling depressed 90% of the time and one of the things that makes me cheer up is eating, so I'm just kinda delaying it)

But yeah, no coffee, no energy drink, I avoid coke when I can. Apparently orange soft drink has caffeine in it, which sucks because I love fanta but until I confirm that I'm still gonna drink it.

July though, I'm gonna sort my shit out. I'm gonna fucking eat better, I'm gonna fucking exercise more and I'm quitting soft drinks. I'll have money then so I'll be able to do stuff like drink booze and go out with mates more often (possibly even ask some girls out)

But since I'm surviving on 50 bucks a week atm I'm making exceptions. (Also the softdrink is sort of free, we bought 100 cans when they were on super cheap. Then work fucked me over.)

Anyway, middle of the year I'm going to be fucking rich, I'll finally get my student payments, I'll be working for like 5 weeks straight too.

I'm expecting to make at least 10k savings, 2k of that will go into a bunch of stuff I desperately need and maybe some upgrades for my PC and the rest will be put away in case of emergencies.


Wow I'm telling my life story.
KEY POINTS:
Empty concentrates by drinking fizzy drink and procrastinating (I have an essay due in 24 hours and I'm playing KF and postin on here)

 

Two things for me:

1. Pomodoro Timer: forces me to take a break every 25 minutes by locking the screen. It really helps with programming when I get trapped in a problem and need to be reminded to get out of the zone for a bit.
2. Trance/electronic podcasts: I usually listen to Eminence United, Moor Music, TATW/ABGT, or sometimes Going Quantum if I really need motivation.

 

1. Tidy room, organize desk.
2. Get large Moka Express brewing.
3. Write out the essay title and a 100 word intro, regardless of quality.
4. Close Steam and TS3, delete any unproductive bookmarks in Chrome.
5. Drink entire Moka pot (10 espressos) with cans of Monster on hold if working past 4am.
6. Play inobtrusive and inoffensive music in the background to cover any distracting noises and to remove the sense of time. The usual cerebral shit I listen to does not help.
7. Imagine yourself having finished the assignment.
8. Get rid of any distracting urges as soon as they arise, quickly. E.g. Eating, masturbating, fresh air. It's a lot more productive to get them out of the way than leave them, knawing at the back of your brain.

I weened myself off my hazardous coffee addiction, now I get the full benefits of drinking it when I do.

 

Nothing, I am a Candle.

 

Candles**

 

I actually don't do anything to stay focused. The only thng that get's me unfocused is internet and games. I have a problem with procrastination.

 

The trick is to allot yourself time and generally stick to those allotments.

I generally give myself a cap of 2-3 games of Dota a day (except for Fridays), and only 4 hours of pleasure reading time a day. With seven-eight hours of sleep, accounting for eating and school, this means I have six hours to do homework and whatnot on the weekdays, and about 8 hours to do whatever I want on the weekends.

Of course, I tend to procrastinate a lot on Friday 3a.m., and that's when my schedule goes to shit. It works pretty well every other day though.

 

On writing essays, I enjoy writing after midnight because then I'm both more imaginative and I'm not very cautious about how dumb I sound.

 

Must be the also the time when you write forum posts.

Ontopic:
To be productive i just throw massive amounts of time at the things i have to do. Even if i only use 10 minutes per hour to do productive things after 10 hours they add up.

 

Lawliet's steps to stay focused

1) Eat soluble breakfast (solid food, don't go for processed shit, you'll understand why in a bit)
2) Consume multi-vitamin and fish-oil immediately after breakfast (down it with water); If you're feeling tired as fuck and feel like you don't have energy, take L-Carnitine or any variants.
3) You should notice results within 30 minutes.

This method will stop working if you are up more than 12+ hours. Once you reach that point, the only solution is naps, more fish oil, and energy drinks (monster rehab).

Another method I have developed consists of all the steps above, plus a new one which apparently helps give you complete focus (tunnel vision).



It's relatively cheap to buy but it is the same cost as a monster rehab. You're better off taking the rehab but if you're desperate take this. It isn't good for working out as I have found out but it is great for tunnel vision. I once gave it to a friend and he wrote a 30 page text within 10 minutes.

Sleep is kind of important as long as you know the amount you require to stay on top of things (6 hours is for me, 4 hours if it's a tough week).

 

Havent slept in 20 hours, got an 8 hour shit in 5 hours. Will report back

 

Woah, so many hours on the toilet aren't healthy at all, bro!

 

haha my tiredness is showing.
*shift