Hedonic flexibility study

[jengod]

http://news.stanford.edu/2016/08/19/mood-time-management/

“These findings clarify how emotions shape behavior and may explain how humans trade off short-term happiness for long-term welfare,” said James Gross, a professor of psychology who studies emotions and how people control or regulate their emotions. “Overcoming such trade-offs might be critical for our personal well-being and our survival as a species.

"Simply, people tend to use their good mood as a resource, allowing them to work on challenges, thus delaying short-term gratification for long-term benefits. Examples of such benefits include regular sleep, stable employment and a clean, well-organized personal environment – all of which are linked to good mental and physical health, the researchers noted."

[obstinate]

Very interesting, thanks for posting. A lot of potential ramifications for Mustachians and others. For Mustachians, the most obvious is that if your finances are in order, that's likely to put you in a better mood on average than you'd otherwise be.

For people in general, I think this highlights the importance of forming habits that are likely to lead to better mood:

• Sleep enough
• Hydrate
• Exercise
• Social+emotional contact
• Sex?
• Other things?

This study very much matches my intuition. I'm much more productive on days when I'm happy. That actually feeds in on itself too, because being productive makes me happy. But it's tough to get started when I'm down in the dumps.

[BattlaP]

Fascinating! Very obvious when you think about it, but potentially very useful.
As suggested in the article I'm going to try keeping two separate 'task' lists - productive chores for elevated moods and a list of easy pleasurable tasks for when I'm 'not feeling it' (eg movies/books/articles I've been meaning to consume).

I guess people would have different ratios of good mood/bad mood but it would also be interesting to try and link cause/effects with productive, good moods. Food is a big thing for me, the more the better. Coffee puts me in extremely productive moods but with an edge of hyperactivity, and I tend to have a crash afterwards.

Will definitely be keeping closer track of my moods, thanks for the contribution!

[HenryDavid]

I've always loved the concept of "gumption":
"gumption: noun [ U ] UK ​ /ˈɡʌmp.ʃən/ US ​ /ˈɡʌmp.ʃən/ informal
the ability to decide what is the best thing to do in a particular situation, and to do it with energy and determination."

Always, "a particular situation" includes your mental state: tired, enthused, confident, preoccupied.
You don't start building IKEA furniture at the end of a frazzling day, for example.
This is why self-determining workers can be so productive but not seem to be grinding away all the time--you do the tricky creative stuff when it flows smoothly, and do paper-shuffling when you're all out of juice.

You can deliberately feed your gumption with confidence and enthusiasm-building stuff. Sports coaches do this--why not do it an all areas of life?
Anyway, gumption is a great concept and helps to shape good use of time. Thank you Robert M. Pirsig and the book "Zen and the Art of etc. etc.", which is where I got it from.