Day 5: Brain Points

Do you know about brain fog?

Like you‘re lagging, work slow and need ages for processing information?

When you‘re just not able to do a hard work task in front of you because your energy levels are too low?

I know how it feels.

I guarantee that everybody knows exactly how that feels.

(common theme throughout these emails isn’t it)

Most people I’ve worked with experience a drop in energy at some point in their day.

Sometimes you just can’t seem to get more stuff done, burnout is looming, your prefrontal cortex is going into shutdown, and you just want to chill out watch something stupid on YouTube.

You start procrastinating.

Even though you have the time to do more.

Even though you have the necessary clarity on what to work on.

But your head?

It’s not playing along anymore.

So the question is:

Why?

And of course (more importantly) how do you fix this?

First of all:

Your brain doesn’t only feel powerless.

It’s actually losing power throughout the day, spending energy on different tasks, things, friction, and more.

To visualize this better?

You can think of this almost like playing a video game.

Introducing the concept of Brain Power

It’s a mental model, that’s not aimed at being scientifically accurate.

It is aimed at providing you with a simple way to think about mental resources, how to spend them, and how to model your day around this concept.

And in every game?

There are some rules.

Here are a few:

1. The Reset

We reset our brain power daily.

How?

You guessed it: Sleep

A good night’s sleep will restore your brain power to its maximum capacity.

2. You Spend On (almost) Everything

Throughout the day, you spend your brain power on different things.

Almost every little thing we do requires brain power.

• stress

• working

• scrolling

• consuming

• decision making

And a lot more.

It’s like a mental transaction.

You do something?

You pay for it with brain power.

The more your mind is stimulated, the more brain power you deplete.

3. You Recharge Through Recovery

When you recover, your mind isn’t stimulated in the usual ways.

With certain tasks you don’t spend much brain power.

In fact, you actually get more brain power back if you engage in these activities:

• walks

• cold/heat

• meditation

• breath work

• enjoying nature

• staring at your wall

• any light movement

• fun and light-hearted social engagement

Habits like these recharge your brain and body.

Short conclusion:

• you reset brain power after sleep

• you spend on almost everything

• you recharge via good habits

That’s great..

but where’s the point?

in the last email you learned about “Eating the Frog”

(doing the hardest task straight away in the morning)

Guess what?

You spend a BIG portion of your brain power on this very hard task.

That makes sense.

But because you did it straight in the morning?

You had more than enough brain power to tackle the task and complete it.

Also makes sense.

But what happens after you then go about your day?

• notifications, messages, emails

• discussions, meetings, arguments

• social media, consumption, stimulation

• decisionmaking, overthinking, multitasking

All of this will happen.

And guess what?

None of it has to be hard.

None of it even has to produce significant output.

But by Rule 2 of the Brain Power game:

You spend a shit ton of energy on these little things.

They compound.

They’re always around.

And they cause headaches because they drain your energy.

No wonder most people start “relaxing” after their work day!

Their mental energy, their brain power, it’s simply too low to do anything else.

And there you have the explanation for all mid-day burnouts:

Lack of Brain Power

Which leads to a lack of willpower, deficiencies in focus, and lots of other symptoms that will aid procrastination.

Wonderful problem to have.

But to cut it short:

We have 2 ways to deal with this.

Strategy 1: Spend less brain power

In other words, you could refer to this as “classical dopamine detoxing”

You stay away from:

• social media

• braindead entertainment

• all sorts of hyperstimulating activities

to conserve your brain power for more important things.

You know the drill, it’s pretty simple.

I love to do this part-time.

Staying away from as much stimulation as possible until the important work is done.

Usually happens around 4 pm.

Strategy 2: We make use of Rule 3

Rule 3 says we can replenish our brain power through certain active recovery or mind-soothing habits.

A simple way to use this:

Before head diving into a work session and trying to get yourself to start doing the work through sheer discipline and then losing focus after 5 minutes-

Reset your mind.

Go for a walk first.

Do some breath work.

The most practical tool I’ve found is NSDR, which stands for Non-Sleep-Deep-Rest.

You rest deeply without having to sleep (which kinda simulates resetting your brain power again)

And then you head dive into work.

And even though it shouldn’t be this simple - beating all the procrastination, all the burnout, all the unnecessary willpower expenditure - it is.

Give it a try.

Think about this mental game of spending your Brain Power when going about your day.

When you feel overworked, stressed and incapable of doing your tasks?

Go back to some recovery habits.

Here are your action steps:

1. Identify tasks that require a lot of brain power (probably your 80/20 tasks)

2. Do them before you have to spend brain power on other things

3. Do them after you recharged with recovery habits

Not that hard to follow, right?

Right.

If you have any other questions about this, feel free to ask me!

Apart from that- tomorrow we’ll dive into the second to last concept to get you moving towards your goals faster.

(It’s about reindeer and Santa playing with Lego)

Thank you for reading.

See you soon,

Henri