I’ve noticed that my energy often drops in the afternoon. Usually sometime after lunch, my focus gets worse, simple tasks feel heavier, and it becomes harder to get started again. It’s not that I’m completely exhausted, just that my brain feels slower and less sharp.

I’m curious how other people deal with this. Do you change what you eat, take a short walk, use caffeine differently, switch to easier tasks, or just accept that your energy naturally dips at that time? What actually helps you avoid or handle that low-energy afternoon state?

I recently learnt to write in cursive from scratch (it took me around 1 week to become proficient and 2 weeks to completely finish learning it)

I enjoyed the process and I think it was quite a productive use of my time, but I dont know what to learn next.

I want something similar to learning cursive in the sense that it's fairly easy and something you can fully learn and then just know. (So please don't suggest more abstract things such as budgeting or time management)

Do you have any suggestions?

exactly what it sounds like and its genuinely ruining my life man.

everyday after school i come back soooooo exhausted even if we barely did anythig or end early i cant keep my eyes open.

like ill enter my house and ill tell myself “no napping today, no napping today, no napping today” but if im in the house before 6pm thats it i cant control myself and i just sleep.

i tried going to the library to prevent falling asleep but i can never find seats and im js not comfortable and hence not as productive as i could be at home.

also whenever i go to nap i say its only 30min and i wake up like 3h later its soooooo goddamn frustrating bro every time. like atp i know im gna sleep 3h so i dont even try to fool myself anymore, like who am i even kidding.

i also wanna mention that i can fall asleep in 2mins in the afternoon and it takes me like 20 mind at night and like most night i dont feel sleepy at all like at all but every day without fail i feel so drowsy after school.

i have major exams that are gna determine my lifes trajectory in literally 2 months and i cant even stay awake to study its so bad.

please somebody help me with this i dont wanna lose my chances and ruin my future because i cant keep my eyes open. im seriously desperate.

Pretty much almost everything that a normal human being does takes me like 5 times longer than average for example

Eating lunch/dinner sometimes takes me up to like 2 hours, showering takes at minimum 1 hour, brushing my teeth takes like 30 minutes and even tho its kinda disgusting i stopped brushing my teeth in the morning because its too much effort to go into the bathroom and wash myself, changing my clothes takes idk how long because im not counting that but it takes a while, doing my school work takes me until i have to go to sleep which is like 10/11pm and i get home from school at like 2/3pm even tho the teachers barely give us any work to do

And the school work thing just leaves me stun locked the whole day, because i feel like i cant do anything till im done with it but it always takes the whole day

Which then leads to when i do have free time during weekends or school breaks I feel like i have to be extra productive on my personal projects because otherwise its just a waste of time

But its like for my personal projects if i do the smallest thing then my brain "ok were done here since we did the bare minimum" but i dont want the bare minimum because then its going to take 500 years to finish and most humans dont even live past 100

And the fact that its summer break right now only makes these issues worse because i feel like i should be doing productive stuff right now but im not doing jack shit

Like i draw sometimes and i see artists online saying like "oh this took me 2 hours to draw, that super long for me" and not only does it look better than anything ive ever made but for my drawing 2 hours doesnt even make the sketch look good yet

Or when im coding something for some shitty game i want to make, it also takes forever because my brain is scared of technical debt

Or one time i was collabing with a bunch of people on a passion project and it took me 14 times longer to do what they did, which i think is super embarrassing, and they also had more work

Ever since ive had the ability to remember, ive always been doing something but its always something useless because in the grands scheme of things i could be doing something that would make my future easier, and i feel like ive never been relaxed a single day in my life

Like the only time i dont feel bad about doing "useless things" is when im supposed to be sleeping, which has now resulted in my sleep schedule being fucking terrible

But also trying to fall asleep is just a gerenal pain in the ass

And since im relatively young and probably know more than the people my age i feel like i should be using that, because if i dont then ill fall behind and ill be a fucking failure, but not even that is enough to get me to do something

Anyways im going to sleep

I had one of those days where I just stared at my screen and accomplished absolutely nothing. I tried to start multiple tasks but could not focus on a single one. Now I am feeling extremely guilty and worried about falling behind on my workload. Do you just accept it as a rest day and move on, or do you try to catch up the next day? I would love to hear how you guys reset your mindset after a completely wasted day.

For those who use digital task managers are you adding everything to this tool?

For example, let's say a colleague sends me a quick DM asking for a quick update on something. I make the change, it takes maximum 2 minutes. Are you adding the task first, adding it retroactively or not logging at all?

I'm interested as I want to find out more about the "hidden" work for my team and I know they get many of these ad hoc requests, but often the logging of the task can take longer than doing it, which means it doesn't get done.

Hello, does anyone know of a desktop timer that logs the minutes it's been paused but doesn't reset it?

Earlier, I could complete tasks almost within the time I expected. I could even watch study lectures at 2× speed and still understand everything clearly. My calculations were faster, and I learned new concepts quickly.

Since the past year, due to some personal circumstances (which are now resolved), I've noticed a significant drop in my efficiency. Now, I sometimes struggle to grasp concepts even at normal playback speed, my calculations feel slower, and it takes me much longer to learn and process information.

Has anyone else experienced something similar? If so, what helped you regain your previous learning speed and efficiency? Any practical advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hey everyone! I'm about to enter into a crazy busy season of my life. I'm starting grad school in the fall and I do a lot of travel & presenting for work. I also have pretty strong ADHD and struggle with executive function pretty heavily. I'm skating by at work, but barely, and I'm reducing my hours and travel schedule come August.

Once I start, I'll need to figure out how to manage multiple calendars. My work is Microsoft-based, my school is Google-based, and my personal calendar... I mostly run on vibes, which doesn't work very well. I like the UI of Google but I haven't used it in a long time. Planners I use for three weeks and forget they exist. Wall calendars can be very helpful for me for a lot of things, so that might be the move.

Do you guys have recs on how to manage multiple calendars? Any systems that work for you, reminders, calendars that sync well?

I don’t mean AI paying bills or moving money. I mean using it before a weekly finance check to boost productivity, so you’re not starting from a blank dashboard every time

Something that flags late invoices, changed vendor charges, missing receipts, subscription renewals or payments that need approval. You still open the source and approve anything important yourself ofc. For other business owners, would that actually save time or would you still double check everything from scratch anyway?

In the office you could look busy.

Walking to meetings, sitting at a desk, being visibly present. None of it meant anything was getting done but it felt like work and managers felt comfortable.

Remote removed that. Suddenly the only thing that mattered was actual output.

Some people thrived. Some people were exposed.

I think that's why the return to office push is louder from management than from employees. It's not about collaboration. It's about visibility. And visibility was never the point.

What's your read on why RTO is really happening?

I work as a project manager. One person on our team is working with another client, someone else has recently been fired. I’m used to a higher workload but I feel like I just can’t function or get anything significantly done, And the tasks continue to pile. I’m not burnt out I don’t think and I understand how we got into this position. But lack of organization for this amount of work is crushing me.

How do you organize your workload and tasks? Especially if you have multiple things, projects, deadlines? What are some structures or mindsets that help you get things done even when your workload goes up unexpectedly. How do you keep yourself from stopping because there are just so many things to do.

Side note: my wife wants me to test for ADHD. As far as I know I don’t have a family history. Apparently I’m showing many of the signs and she thinks that might be why my productivity is struggling so much. I’ve never thought of there being an additional issue, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with people that do struggle with it. I criticize myself pretty harshly, I’m not discouraged, I just feel like I can do better. I just really don’t know how and I’m trying to figure out the best solution for me.

I always find it hard to not use my phone before bed. I have the brick app/device but I find myself always just unlocking everything then scrolling till I pass out

Instead, I optimize things I do every single day. Like finding notes, saving files or deciding what to work on next. Saving five seconds on something you do 100 times is usually worth more than saving ten minutes on something you do once. What's the smallest improvement you've made that keeps paying off?

Over the last year, I’ve realized something about myself.

Every day I save articles, yt videos, GitHub projects, Reddit posts… all with the same thought:
“I’ll get back to this later.”

But “later” almost never comes.
Instead, my bookmarks, read-later list, and saved posts just keep growing.
Ironically, finding great content has never been easier. The internet—and now AI—helps me discover more valuable information than ever before.

But my ability to actually consume and retain that information hasn’t changed.
I’m starting to wonder if the problem isn’t time management anymore.
Maybe it’s knowledge management.

I’m curious:
How many things do you currently have saved “for later”?
Do you have a system that actually turns saved content into something you’ve learned?
Or is everyone else quietly building a huge backlog too?
I’d genuinely love to hear what has worked for you.

I'm looking for an iPhone app that can stop me from automatically opening distracting apps while I'm working.

I've looked at Opal, Jomo, ScreenZen, one sec, and a few others, but it's hard to tell which reviews are genuine. Some apps seem too easy to bypass, while others lock down so much that I suspect I'd disable them after a few days.

Ideally, I want something that can block selected apps during work hours but still let me access them when I genuinely need to. I'd also rather avoid another expensive subscription unless the app makes a noticeable difference.

Has anyone used one of these consistently for a few months? Which one did you keep, and what became annoying over time?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who tried several before settling on one.

I have thousand of to-do lists, all organized in my notebooks. I change them every couple of days because they feel unorganized or my priorities shift. i'm just moving the same unfinished work from one page to another, though it looks like work.

I feel like taking Vitamin D has become the automatic default for anyone with a desk job. I'm actively shopping around for a setup right now—looking at everything from standard D3 to D3+K2 liquid drops—but I really don't want to just guess my way through it.

For my fellow indoor crowd: how do you handle this responsibly? Are you getting regular blood panels, forcing yourself outside on lunch breaks, dialing in diet, or just rolling with a small daily maintenance dose?

I'm trying to figure out which learning method is better for my situation.

I live in a very noisy house, and I rarely get uninterrupted time to study. I don't have a fixed study schedule because I have to study whenever I can find a quiet moment.

I also tend to overthink and get lost in my own thoughts. While watching video courses, I sometimes realize I've been mentally somewhere else for several minutes and have to keep rewinding. If someone interrupts me or the noise gets too loud, it completely breaks my focus.

Because of this, I'm wondering if books or written documentation would be a better fit than video courses.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? If you had a noisy home, no consistent study time, and a mind that wandered easily, which learning method worked better for you and why?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who learned programming or other technical skills under similar conditions .

My goal is to build enough skills to get better opportunities in the future, but currently I have to learn from home with limited resources."

So im 15 nearly 16 and im homeschooled (important in a second). I used to wake up and know what I wanted/needed to do that day and I did it. Now i get out of bed like 2+ hours after I wake up barely do anything im supposed to or need to do. I want something to do with my life, like I feel like my life is so repetitive and there's no point to it I have nothing to do, I wanted (still do a little bit) a job but I think partly that was so i had purpose you know? I think i kind want/need some things i can do to feel productive because i feel like im wastibg my life. Im not really sure what i wanted/expected to get from this post maybe guidance or somthing I have no idea.

Thanks for taking ur time to read this.

Edit: added some things

One of my biggest difficulties as a young adult is structuring my time. I find it so easy to get done the things I need to do. I just finished uni about a month ago with a top grade, so I find it easy to do things when I need to. Right now I work about 16 hours a week in my part time job to save money. I have alot of spare time now. And like, because there's nothing imperative that needs to be done, I just sort of faff the day away. I know it's a luxury to have free time like this but I am so indecisive and have 0 ides how to spend my time. Like I don't know, even when I was working my ass off during uni to get a top grade, I somehow still managed to have so much timeee ( I am 22 )

I'm looking for was to make my phone less distractive especially for the apps I need to use like Reddit, utube, Facebook for market place etc.

I have lots of things to do with my phone like reading, planing things out, learning and being connected with ppl but somehow this very well engineered piece of shite does every possible trick to steal my attention 🥲. I just open Reddit to look for something and I just fall into a rabbit hole

I am looking for an app like Motion that uses AI to plan the tasks in your day for you according to importance, urgency or deadline. Other features I would like are you can use on desktop, has an Iphone app, you can organise your life, seperate areas of your life like home, work, personal projects into seperate tasks lists, set tasks on a recurring schedule, set up checklists, keep notes

I have looked into Notion, ClickUps, Flowsavvy, Motion as well. Is there one app that can do all of this ?

I have tried writing things down, making todo list of ideas to work on. I was waiting to work on them till i finish my exams and learn a lot of new things, read books etc. But after that I have not been able to be very productive. I keep spending time doing nothing, zoning out while reading something or just playing a game for an hour. I don't scroll insta much (less than 30 mins a day) but i still feel like my attention is getting worse and worse, i tried reading a book but stop in like 20 mins after that anything i read just doesn't make any sense.

I tried writing a todo list everyday on notion and tried doing them, but i always feel like i put in things which are impossible to do in a short span of time.

I usually write out architecture of whatever coding project i am working on on a few sheets of paper and i just keep looking at them without doing any work.

I tried writing techincal blogs but was only able to write one and that too was not that great. I built some projects but they got no traction whatsoever which made my mood worse, every few days i keep someone around my age being leagues ahead of me in every way.

I would love to get some advice, everyone around me keeps saying "wake up early" or "try harder" but i genuinely am unable to, the little productivity that i feel is at night when there is no noise.

Thanks if you read so far

I’ve been trying to clean up my meeting workflow lately because a huge chunk of my workday disappears into calls, follow-ups, half-decisions, and “wait, who owns this?” moments.

Most AI meeting tools I’ve tried or looked at seem focused on what happens after the meeting: transcript, summary, action items, searchable notes, maybe a follow-up email draft. Useful, but still reactive.

I saw the halliday g2 launch video recently, and their Meeting Flow concept got me thinking about the opposite approach: AI helping during the meeting, not just afterward.

From what they showed, it’s more like smart glasses for live meeting support: captions, quick catch-up summaries, research with sources, decision confirmation, open items, and then a post-meeting summary at the end.

As someone who is always trying to squeeze more leverage out of AI tools, this is interesting to me. Not because I want more gadgets, but because the real productivity loss often happens while the meeting is still going — missed context, vague commitments, unclear decisions, next steps that never get locked down.

Or do you think the best productivity setup is still: stay present during the call, then let AI clean up the notes afterward?