Willpower in a day

All of the data displayed above is interesting, but not very helpful. If all it’s saying is to be productive so you can be productive. How will that help me with my willpower? The answer lies in what we devote ourselves to. The productivity score is comprised of eight different activities that I want to make a part of my life. So in addition to a productivity score, I know my daily productivity in each of these activities. To check the correlation between an activity and my overall productivity, I used a productivity score that didn’t factor the activity’s productivity. Otherwise a high productivity in one activity would obviously increase my overall productivity because that’s how I built the system. Instead, that given activity is eliminated from the productivity score.

There’s this pervasive conception that willpower is limited. Willpower is a bowl. Every time we do something that requires willpower, it fills up a little bit. If we keep exerting willpower, the bowl will overflow and we cannot will ourselves to act until the bowl empties. This view is both aggressively pessimistic and untrue, at least for me. If this were true, using willpower on an activity would lead to less willpower for other activities. We would see that when a certain activity’s productivity score is high, the day’s productivity score without the activity would decrease. This doesn’t happen. Not only is there never a negative correlation, the correlation is either positive or non-existent.

Practicing Piano, Completing Homework, Reading, and Reducing Distractions Online

These four activities, although different, share similarities. They either take very little willpower, or are things I’m forced to do and have little choice in. For reading and practicing piano it’s the former, I enjoy doing it, so the willpower involved is minimal. With homework and my “Online Productivity” things are different. Although they take more willpower, I am forced to do homework. To measure online productivity I use the app RescueTime, but since I use an internet blocker, StayFocusd, it also doesn’t require much choice. With all four of these aspects, they don’t force me to make hard decisions or completely exert my willpower. So, how do they influence my day’s productivity when you take the activity itself out of the calculation.

Note: On the graphs, the X-Axis represents my completion of the given activity. A score of 1 is average, 2 is double average, and so on. The Y-Axis is the productivity score when the activities score is taken out of the calculation.

Although there might be some correlation between these activities and being productive, it is minimal. All of the R² values are below .1 which is abysmal, even for human behavior. All of the activities I complete throughout the day, so it’s also hard to show whether me being productive makes me read more, or reading more makes me more productive. It’s impossible to know. Although these activities might contribute to being more productive, they have little effect on a given day. This makes sense, practicing piano and reading require little willpower. Although completing homework and staying focused online might require willpower, on any given day they are out of my control.

Working Out, Meditation, Completing to-do-list, and Simple Self Care

Unlike the four activities above, these activities boast closer correlation to a productive day. The first is working out. It has modest correlation and likely less causation. Here the R² value is just under .2, significant enough to show semblance of correlation, but relatively minimal. More importantly, since I exclusively workout at night, the amount working out is helping me on a given day is limited to the late night. Although there’s correlation, productivity might force me to workout rather than working out forcing me to be productive

Next is meditation. With an R² value of over .3, it poses a more serious claim of correlation. Since most of my time spent meditating is before breakfast, there is likely a causal link as well. This makes some sense, meditation is often heralded as an activity to increase concentration and reduce stress. If the correlation holds, completing an average amount of meditation will increase an average day’s productivity by one point, or 20%. It might not make a huge difference, but it’s significant

The completion of my To Do list offers strong, but unsurprising correlation. With an R² value of .44 there is a clear correlation between completing a To Do list and being productive. Furthermore, completing an average amount of my To Do list will increase a day’s productivity by over two and a half points, 50% of an average day. This isn’t surprising. For one, the to do list requires that I read 20 pages every day, so some of this category bleeds into the reading category. Also, by completing things on my list I am forced to exert willpower, which gives me momentum.

This miscellaneous category was the most surprising. If you didn’t read the other article, this category measured simple stuff like brushing my teeth, wearing my retainer, showering, and checking my excel sheet. This posed an R² value of .4, and increased a day by over 2 points, or 40% of an average day. The correlation is strong and poses a serious benefit. Furthermore, since most of these tasks are done in the morning there isn’t any reverse causation. This surprised me. Brushing teeth and showering take no ability and little willpower. I can’t say why these small things correlate to an effective day, but they do.

All of these aspects has some level of positive correlation with a productive day. Some offer more correlation, and some have a more significant effect, but none of them show a negative correlation. Below is a table of the various activities’ R² values and slopes. The slope category represents how much doing an average amount of the given activity will increase overall productivity (where five is average).

How much different activities contribute to productivity

Long Term Effects

But what if the effects of doing these activities have effects that last longer than a day. To measure this I looked at how a month’s worth of activity will influence productivity (once again factoring out the activity).

Reading and Piano

Once again reading and practicing piano did little to contribute to my productivity. Both R² values were around .1, and even if correlation existed, the contribution was only one additional point over the course of a month. Neither of these activities require much willpower. Instead, often when I’m feeling unmotivated, I’ll read or practice piano as a substitute for other activities. Although there’s no evidence of these activities hurting my overall productivity, it’d be dubious to claim they help it.

Homework, and Meditation

With these activities, although there was likely some long term correlation, the correlation was either limited, or the predictive factor was minimal.

Homework boasted a high predictive factor, but little correlation. The R² value was .33, not awful, but also not strong enough to be sure there was lots of correlation. However, doing an average amount of productivity would increase a month’s productivity by 4 points overall, a significant amount. The long-term correlation is stronger than the short term correlation mentioned earlier. Long periods spent exerting willpower are hard, so I gain momentum and other tasks become easier.

Meditation was the opposite. The correlation was stronger with an R² value of .58, however an average amount of meditating only increased my overall productivity by 1 point, or 20% of average. It’s hard to accurately judge the effect because there is one huge outlier where I meditated a lot, but was also more productive. Because of the outlier it’s hard to gauge the predictive effect because there are likely diminishing returns with meditating. Either way, it likely increases my productivity to some extent.

Online Productivity, Simple Self Care, and To Do List completion

X-axis is activitity’s average completion throughout month, Y-axis represents month’s productivity

These graphs look similar because the data is similar. All of these pose strong correlation and a decent predictive effect. With R² values ranging from .55 to .65, and slopes around 4, the effect is clear. Completing miscellaneous tasks and doing my To Do List contribute to productivity on a daily scale, but even more significantly throughout a month. Daily online productivity doesn’t have a huge effect on my overall productivity, however being productive online for prolonged periods of time has a more significant positive effect.

Working Out

On the scale of a day, working out had little effect on the day’s productivity. Since I workout later in the day, much of the benefit might not be seen that day. However, on the scale of a month, things are different.

Working out and its effect on productivity

The correlation here is impossible to miss. With an R² value of almost .9, working out likely has strong correlation and some aspect of causation with overall productivity. Furthermore, working out an average amount in a month will increase the month’s productivity by 4 points, almost doubling it. This is something we might know anecdotally to be true. Working out is good for your health. But, at least in my case, it’s also good for willpower.

All these activities help our long term productivity, but some more than others. Focusing on what makes us best will take care of the rest. By working out, I increase my ability to read. By being productive online, I make meditating that much easier. Everything is connected.

Below are the R² values and slopes for the various activities’ contributions to productivity.