throwawaytoday2

I think that's a pre-requisite yes, but there's more to it for sure. I have a project I'm working on right now, and I get decent motivation and energy since it's a goal of mine, and it will make my future better... But I still struggle some days to even get started. And I have nowhere near the energy, creativity, and endurance, that I had when I started programming.

It would seem then that the "manic" and "hyper" part of the productivity, may be contingent on the novelty of the pursuit, as well as a handful of other factors?

Excellent, just bought it on my kindle. Thanks for the reference.

You mention something interesting:

"... and really only when I stay up late"

My "productive mania" that I mention in this thread, was predominantly late at night. I've always been something of a night owl, and at the time in my life where I began programming, I was able to stay up very late, and sleep in late.

Sometimes I wonder if productive mania is attainable only when you're functioning day-to-day, in your 'ideal' sleep cycle.

You touch on something important.

"Do them because you want to, and not because of some other goal like money attention, rewards, etc."

This is an important preliminary step, toward productive mania, I believe. It's not clear though how to induce this. Are we really in control of what we find intrinsically motivating?

Let's say I have a programming project I'm working on. I'm excited about it, but only moderately so. I have a goal of turning it into a business, and making a moderate passive income from it. How can I turn this decent energy and motivation, into something explosive?

It would seem that I need to muster some intrinsic motivation, some desire to work on the project just for the sake of working on it, not for completing it, or making a business from it. I'm not sure how to accomplish that, or if it's even really possible when you're doing something that isn't entirely novel and new.

It's easy when something is new - You're intrinsically motivated to pursue it because it's, novel and exciting. But when you've done something before, it's less simple to find that intrinsic motivation.

I think this is good advice, and you're hitting on one aspect of my aforementioned 'productive mania'. When I started programming, I almost immediately went into building projects I was interested in, would use personally, and friends would use. That probably hard a big impact on why I was SO driven, SO productive, and SO energetic.

I try and work on projects like that nowadays, but I can't hit that extreme level of productivity and excitement. It seems that another aspect of that mind state, was that the 'newness' of programming coupled with the success I was having at it BUILDING something, brought heightened mental activity.

I just wish I could tap into that nowadays. Unfortunately, it seems like the brain comes alive most, in a novel environment.