Brain calories

January 26, 2026

deep work focus productivity

Not all hours are equal. An hour reading and an hour of youtube shorts both cost 60min, but one leaves you sharper and the other hollow.

I've made a simple table that helps me score activities.

I kept it broad on purpose. Some of the the activity categories are: books, podcasts, youtube, etc. Of course it's possible to rate a more specific activity: taking a walk through a forest while listening to a podcast, or taking a walk while speaking on the phone, going to the gym while watching Shrek...

Parameters are also very broad, therefore the table will most likely grow and change. Nonetheless, it's valuable to see what activates contribute to your life. Also, you will notice what just makes you feel productive and what actual does.

You can add parameters. Remove ones that don't matter. Add activates. Make it yours.

The common rules are:

If it's easy to reach, hard to stop, and leaves you empty - it's taking from you.
If it's hard to start, easy to stop, and leaves you full - it's giving to you.

If it's hard to find, hard to stop, and leaves you full - that's flow.

Addiction is hard to stop because it's pulling you. Flow is hard to stop because you're pushing.

Parameter	What it means	Books	Podcasts	YouTube	Short-form	Conversations	Writing	Gym
Speed	How fast info comes at you	Slow	Medium to fast	Fast	Instant	Real-time	You control	N/A
Density	How much substance per minute	Mostly high	Mostly medium	Low	Minimal	High	You create it	N/A
Effort	How hard you have to focus	High	Low	Low	None	High	Very high	Medium
Retention	How much you remember tomorrow	High	Medium	Low	Almost none	High	Very high	N/A
Half-life	How long until it's useless to you	Years	Days	Hours	Minutes	Years	Permanent	N/A
Distraction cascade	Does it lead you somewhere worse?	No	Rarely	Often	Always	No	No	No
Escape difficulty	How hard to stop once you start	Easy	Easy	Hard	Very hard	Easy	Easy	Medium
Regret after 1 hour	How you feel when you look back	None	Low	Medium	High	None	None	None
Illusion of learning	Feels productive but isn't	Low	Medium	Very high	N/A	Low	None	N/A
Loneliness factor	What it does to your social soul	Neutral	Isolating	Isolating	Very isolating	Connecting	Neutral	Neutral
Skill building	Are you getting better at anything?	Yes	Passive	Sometimes	No	Yes	Very high	Yes
Action trigger	Does it make you DO something?	Often	Sometimes	Rarely	Never	Often	It IS action	It IS action
Fun	How entertaining is it?	Medium	Medium	Very high	Very high	High	Mostly low	Medium

Total value		10/10	6/10	4/10	0/10	8/10	10/10	8/10