Currently I'm in the complete opposite modus operandi. I don't do a lick of side-project work during the week, and on weekends I take a modafinil(wakefullness promoting medication) and stay up nights on end to crack out as much as I can.
I get an INSANE amount done on the weekends that I have the energy to pull this off, but it's horrible for my health. The rest of the week I have anxiety about the coming weekend, and it completely throws of my circadian rhythm. Not to mention that I'm only able to pull this off perhaps once or twice a month.
I'll definitely be changing my work schedule to be more in-line with a daily habit. Being able to look back and see a lot of consistent work being done sounds way preferable to being able to look back at a few weekends of consistent insanity.
I would say changing to a more consistent work schedule is definitely a good idea, but don't lose the "schedule" part. There's a huge advantage to being able to say "okay, now is work time".
However, after writing that I imagine it's a very personal thing, not everyone will work best in the same way.
Haha yeah I totally agree there. I've got a time allotted every day after work that I really could fill with at least 30 minutes of coding, but somehow it gets diverted to god-knows-what.
Yeah, that's always the hardest part. Messing around on HN/Reddit/Twitter/etc. and/or watching TV - it's so easy to not even realize that you're procrastinating. I find that when I realize what I'm doing I can usually extract myself and get to work - the hard part is just getting to that point!
no side effects from the modafinil? I take them very rarely pretty much only when it's of the utmost importance that something gets done by a deadline and even then i'll only take a half or a quarter.
Same here. The only side effect I've noticed is that I can find myself extremely obsessed with writing long-winded rants to people if I get side-tracked from the task at hand. I know that this is a commonly reported side effect, so I always catch myself and force myself to stop before I get that far, but it's something to watch out for.
I used to take 8 modafinil / day but have been able to bring my wakefulness back to what I feel is going to be normal for me without medication.
I did experience one side effect -- paranoia. I became really paranoid about what my spouse was doing behind my back. I knew that there was nothing going on though, so I was able to finally make the call to get my doctor to take me off the medication. I'd imagine the situation would be much worse if you were paranoid but didn't realize that you were delusional.
Currently I'm in the complete opposite modus operandi. I don't do a lick of side-project work during the week, and on weekends I take a modafinil(wakefullness promoting medication) and stay up nights on end to crack out as much as I can.
I get an INSANE amount done on the weekends that I have the energy to pull this off, but it's horrible for my health. The rest of the week I have anxiety about the coming weekend, and it completely throws of my circadian rhythm. Not to mention that I'm only able to pull this off perhaps once or twice a month.
I'll definitely be changing my work schedule to be more in-line with a daily habit. Being able to look back and see a lot of consistent work being done sounds way preferable to being able to look back at a few weekends of consistent insanity.