#55. Atharv’s Chronicle : 15-08-2026 Maximize the Good, Minimize the Rest!

Welcome back to another edition of Atharv’s Chronicle!

Life’s been busy lately – a lot of unplanned events, a lot of unexpected conversations, more than we’d have liked. It caused a bit of worry in the family too. But we’ve learned to handle these things with a little more maturity now. One thing I realised recently – our kids and grandkids will definitely fight over the ancestral property one day. But let’s make sure they’re fighting over a real fortune, and not just a 20×30 plot or a half an acre of coconut farm.

Anyway, back to today’s topic.

Our energy is usually the highest when we wake up. There’s a reason for it. We get a break from our sense organs, a break from responding to stimuli, a break from distractions overnight. If we’ve slept well, we wake up fresh. We start the day with almost zero thoughts, and almost zero distractions. High energy, low distractions – that’s what makes morning the best time to work on things that actually matter.

But as the day goes on, that energy keeps getting used up. Bit by bit, on things that don’t really need it – errands, notifications, small talk, other people’s problems, other people’s opinions. By evening, we’re running on whatever’s left.

So here’s the principle – work when you’re high. High on energy, that is. Check where your energy is going before it gets diluted. Find the hour of the day when you’re naturally at your best, and protect it.

How do you find that hour? Just notice. Which part of the day do things feel easy – writing, thinking, planning? That’s usually your answer. It’s rarely the same for everyone.

There’s a bigger idea hiding in this too – maximize the good, minimize the bad. Whatever’s working for us, we do more of it. Whatever’s not, we reduce it, or just cut it out. This isn’t only about mornings. It applies to health, to relationships, to money, to the people we choose to spend time with, to how we talk to ourselves. Almost every part of life works on the same rule. We all get the same 24 hours. We just don’t use them the same way.

A lot of high performers get so much done simply because they get their important work done early. That doesn’t mean everyone has to wake up at Brahmi muhurtham and start working before sunrise. It depends on your lifestyle, your work, your environment. But whatever your schedule is, the first few hours after you wake up deserve your best effort, not your leftovers. And if those hours happen to be early morning, even better – it’s quieter outside too, so it’s easier to focus.

For me, that’s writing. I script my videos, write my blogs in the morning, I code int the morning, read whatever I’ve bookmarked over the past few days, watch thought provoking videos that make me think and take some notes. Some days, I work out instead. Whatever it is, the first few hours after I wake up are when I get my best work done. Not the most work. The best work. And on the days I skip all this, I can feel it by afternoon.

Now, the other side of protecting this energy is – we need to reduce how much we react to things through the day. And there’s a lot to react to – notifications, ads on TV, posters on the road, the smell of samosa while crossing the road, ads that follow us online, endless scrolling, other people’s opinions, background noise. Some of it we genuinely can’t control. Most of it, we can. Basically, our day is just one stimulus after another. And how the day goes depends on how we respond to them.

Good thing is, we can control most of these responses. We can just notice a stimulus and choose not to react to it. That’s a skill worth building, because every time we react, it drains a little more of the energy we woke up with.

Which is exactly why the first few hours matter so much. This is also when our brain is still moving from Delta – deep sleep, to Alpha, and then slowly to Beta – our normal working, conscious state. Fewer stimuli, more clarity, more energy. It’s the one part of the day that’s naturally built for deep work, if we don’t waste it.

So this week, try this – notice what time of day you’re actually at your best. Protect that hour, no matter what. And notice how many things you’re reacting to without even realising it. Cut down on a few. That’s it. That’s the whole practice.

Hope you are able to relate to it!

See you in the next one

• Atharv Prasanna