Tips for Working While Tired

Enhanced interrogation for home use

Remember, fatigue is just another complicator to working effectively. The intensity of fatigue you are likely to encounter can be effectively overcome almost always. So, you must raise your attention to good studying form or the chance of failure increases, whether from distraction, by rationalizing going to sleep, or anything else that can go wrong. Remember Murphy’s Law.

• Frequently drink glasses of ice water or fragrant herbal tea. The temperature will not only alert you, but also will make you get up to go to the bathroom more often.
• Chew gum, or have sugar-free mints. Don’t have something that will disrupt your digestion aut overnight fast though.
• Light a candle in your room, or take a waft of these substances.
• Make typically sedentary work (like reading a text) be more like kinesthetic work (like cleaning your room). For example, stand up while reading.
• If prudent, complete necessary activities that are kinesthetic (such as household chores) or light on mental effort (such as sending emails) or exceptionally engaging (such as running reloading drills). It is easier to reach a flow state for some activities, and knowing this while tired is important.
• Make your room unusually well-lit, with high-temperature light sources if possible.
• Turn on some background music. Listen to the White Noise Generator app, ~/music/miscellaneous/alpha-wave-study-music.m4a, your Spotify Scaena playlists, STOP SLEEPING, or a foreign language podcast, deciding which based on the intensity of fatigue. For music with lyrics, make sure that you have not heard any of the songs or else you will be distracted by it more than it keeps you alert.
• Change the ambient temperature in the room to the extreme, either extra warm or extra cold. Reflect your dress to accent your desired extreme. Bonus points if the temperature change directly affects your skin, like a fan or an ice pack.
• Consider soaking your clothing in water, and then hand wringing the articles such that they are not dripping wet. Wear these damp clothes with a fan blowing on you for extra stimulation. You should probably use your workout shirts. Also, sit on your backless stool, with a bath towel between you and the stool to protect your chair. On a less extreme end, use a damp towel around your neck, preferably a larger towel that does not easily slip down the nape of your neck onto your back.
• Remind yourself why what you are doing is important.
• Use a timer to keep yourself engaged. As you get more tired, your ability to focus for long periods of time lessens. Contrary to when you are well-rested, you must proactively and explicitly divide your time into blocks of work and blocks of breaks. Consider the Pomodoro technique as a guideline.
• Use the sleep-disrupting blue light from computer technology to your advantage by scheduling computer work towards the later hours. Similarly, change the color schemes of your software to be deliberately bright. Note, do not wear your blue-light blocking glasses if applicable.
• Consider icing some part of your body (stomach, knees, wrists, etc.) using an ice pack. Similarly, consider submerging a foot or two in a bucket of ice water.
• Lean forward in your chair, with both feet flat on the ground or primed to jump underneath your desk. Consider switching to a backless stool so you cannot lean back and relax. Alternatively, lean back in your chair such that you are only on two legs.
• Put some adrenaline in your veins. Apply some minor harm to your body to elicit an autonomic response. Examples include plucking nose hairs, pouring hot water on your skin, slapping yourself à la Captain Sinbad playing David Goggins. Experiment to find the golden mean between too little and too much stimulation.
• Sit up straight and act as though you are well-rested. “Posture check.”
• Use a resistance band tied around your bed structure to hold your torso upright.

They [the runners] were usually well spent. Sometimes they had been gassed; but they all had the invincible determination to carry on. After they had delivered their message, they would lie down in the mud and go to sleep like dogs. The moment the reply was ready, they would lurch to their feet, throwing off their weariness, as though it were a thing to be conquered and despised. I appreciated now, as never before, the lesson of “guts” that I had been taught at Kingston.