Where the hell is my focus going?

I got obsessed with this question last month. Where is my focus actually going? 

Like freakin probability of being born human is 400 trillion to 1 and i’m throwing my time away on trivial things.. I need to know where my each second is going

I literally sat down every evening for 30 days and wrote what killed my focus that day.

Here's what I found:

The biggest focus killer wasn't my phone. It wasn't social media. It wasn't a notification. 

It was the 2pm-5pm dead zone. Every single day without fail my brain would just check out. I'd be sharp in the morning, decent till lunch, and then completely useless for the rest of the afternoon. I was blaming discipline and willpower for something that was clearly biological.

So instead of trying harder I started changing what I do in those windows.

What I actually changed:

- moved all my useless nmeetings and emails to the afternoon dead zone. If my brain is going to be useless anyway might as well do low effort stuff

- all deep work happens before 12. No exceptions. Phone goes in another room

- stopped eating big lunches. Sounds small but this was huge

- started doing a 20 min tDCS session with full discipline in the morning before work. I don't fully understand the science yet but the afternoon dip has gotten shorter and less brutal since I started

- 10 min walk after lunch. Non negotiable

The biggest lesson from 30 days of tracking was that I don't have a discipline problem. I have an energy management problem. And no amount of time blocking or pomodoro timers fixes that if your brain is running on empty by early afternoon.