My own personal observation has been that I have so much brain juice to spend on things. How much brain juice varies based on diet, exercise, sleep, etc., but

My own personal observation has been that I have so much brain juice to spend on things. How much brain juice varies based on diet, exercise, sleep, etc., but it is finite. Lately I've been learning how to spend it more efficiently. My most recent insight has been that I seriously tax myself if I try to understand something too deeply. It's like I run out of physical memory with no swap file. If I spend Monday thru Wednesday during pegging the brain-o-meter at 100% trying to figure some flaky bug from 9a to 6p, I am useless Thursday and Friday. But if I work half as hard, I can pace myself for the whole week and actually end up getting way more done. And I also feel less interested in consuming all the things: email, HN, Reddit, yada yada. It's kind if like tired begets tired. I don't know how else to explain it.