The break between the previous post and this one is artificial. I was interrupted by the inconvenience of being gainfully employed. Anyhoo…
If the willpower loss during transitions is called “friction” and “productivity” is defined as adherence to one’s preplanned, egoistic purposes, and then we may propose:
The goal of designing a daily routine is to minimize losses due to friction, thereby maximizing both reserved willpower and productivity.
Here are the stages I propose for a general solution (corresponding to the general leveling paradigm):
Level 0: Not applicable. Some prerequisite is missing that affords no progress, ex. ill health.
Level 1: Adherence to basic, practical realities. One simply must have a job, and usually the job’s hours are not up to us. That means we have to design our day around the job. If one is a student, then scheduled classes are a fixed point. If one is unattached and relatively introverted, then everything else is up in the air. Because I have previously observed that willpower is in short supply (and productivity tends to be a wasted effort), the ideal course of action is usually to make a habit of going straight to sleep as quickly as possible.
More tommorow.