Priscilla Xu

Time Buckets in the Day: Type of Work and Focus

• Phase 1: 0-8 hours of waking up 
  • You want to put your hard habits here in the morning because you have the most activation energy to overcome limbic friction. 
  • Turn on your overhead lights because the Melanopsin ganglion cells are enriched in the lower half of the eyes and connect to the upper visual field. 
  • You want dopamine, cortisol, and epinephrine.
  • If you want to be crazy with this, you can have a light pad on your desk by a green light. Huberman turned on to it 900 flux. 
  • The brain is good for precision detail and analytics work. 
  • Opening the window can be good too. The window in between the sunlight is 50 times less effective. 
• Phase 2: 9-15 hours of waking up. 
  • You want to bring your lights down. 
  • Your brain will be releasing more serotonin for abstract thinking. 
  • Some people have their entire home with smart light bulbs to change their red and yellow light. 
  • It is ver optimizing your circadian clock, but expensive, lol. 
• Phase 3: 16-24 hours of waking up. 
  • Deep sleep is essential for building habits. 
  • Pulling work nighter. 
  • 5-10 all-nighters per year. 
  • Limit your eye’s light exposure at night. 
  • Do you want to shift the clock or finish your work? That is a trade-off. 

Where your visual focus while you work 

• If someone comes to your workspace, you know their presence but do not shift your body direction to not break your focus. 
  • There are 6 muscles in the eyes. 
  • When you look down, the brain stem for sleepiness and calm is triggered. 
  • When you look above your forehead, the brain circuit increase alertness. 
  • You want your screen to be at least at eye level. 
  • Use books or wall mounts for elevating your screen. 

Body Posture relative to gravity 

• Feet above the waist means that you will be more sleepy. 
  • Dose-dependent in sleepiness and calm. 
  • Don’t look down at your laptop and have a bright environment.

How long to go into deep work?

• 3 minutes for focusing at max. 
  • When you optimize your workspace, you will be able to focus faster. 
  • 6-10 minutes to activate your neural circuits.

Parvo vs. Magocellular Visual Pathways 

• Vergence eye movement. [[Huberman’s Lab: The Science of Setting & Achieving Goals]]
  • You don’t want to look at the square area beyond your years.
  • Wear a hoodie or hat to let you focus. 
  • A 12-18 inch screen might be too big. 
  • Changing the eye’s shape will tire your eyes if you look at something wider. 
  • 45 minutes of focused work with Parvocellular visual pathway (focused on the computer screen)
    • And 5 minutes of the magnocellular visual pathway (looking out the window). 
    • Do not check your phone

The Cathedral Effect: Analytical and Creative Work 

• The Influence of Ceiling Height: The Effect of Priming on the Type of Processing People Use.
• Thinking is restrained when you are in a low-ceiling environment.
  • A Lower ceiling environment is better for correct answer-type work. 
• Thinking is expanded, and more abstract is lofty and abstract in a high ceiling environment.

Binaural Beats for Work 

• Two ears have different beats delivered to them. 
  • Intraears different. The brain does the math and the difference in intraural difference. 
  • The binaural beats can allow your brain to cascade other brain waves. 
  • 40 Hertz for memory, reaction, and recall. 
  • Pure binaural beats might be better than ocean and water sound.