Now, this post is not about eating (well, at least not directly) but rather how to manage and make the best use of your internal fuel gauge when doing work—any type of work—be it at the office, home, school or play.

That’s right, paying attention to how you work in relation to mealtime can help you be more productive.

Read on for some tips on how to make the most out of your meals…productivity-wise!

Do Some Scenario Searching.

These three scenarios should sound very familiar:

Scenario #1. You’ve just finished a meal and are satiated. Your batteries are recharged and ready to go.

Scenario #2. You are somewhere between meals. You are neither hungry nor full, but somewhere pleasantly in between.

Scenario #3. You are nearing your next meal. You are starting to feel hungry and tired.

Food is energy, so to better make use of this energy, you need to know how you feel during these three scenarios. Granted, the examples I’ve given above are fairly general; some people may find that they are most alert right before a meal, while others might find they are the most groggy right between meals. The key is to figure out how you feel during scenarios 1, 2 and 3.

Identify Routine Tasks.

Map out an average day from your work, home or school schedule and identify routine tasks. Be sure to include both physical and mental tasks. You might come up with something like the following:

Work: Writing, Reading, Editing, Brainstorming, Proofreading, Shredding

Home: Lifting, Sweeping, Vacuuming, Pushing, Mopping, Washing

School: Studying, Rewriting, Running, Listening, Typing, Transcribing, Researching

Rank Your Tasks By Scenario.

Now that you’ve got your tasks in hand, it’s time to rank them. Which tasks do you find you are most productive at accomplishing during the three scenarios described above: right after a meal, in between meals or right before a meal? Mark your tasks accordingly and keep this information in mind as you plan out your day.

For example, if you need to do some proofreading (a task that requires a lot of concentration and careful attention to detail) and you know that you work poorly right before a meal, well, you probably wouldn’t want to proofread right before lunch. Instead, you could work on another task, such as shredding old documents right before lunch, and work on proofreading right after lunch.

How about you? Which tasks do you find yourself more productive at accomplishing right after, in between and right before a meal?

Related Posts:
Productivity Tip: Task Timing Experiment