For the diagram challenge, I looked at visualizing how a shift in my caffeine consumption has helped my schedule. The jumping off point for the visual (and inspiration for the habit change) came from a book called Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky (the Google duo that brought us Design Sprints). In Make Time, they discuss strategies for optimizing your daily habits to focus on what matters to you. 

For most of my adult coffee-drinking life, I've experienced a dramatic energy slump in the afternoon. It had a major impact in my productivity and mood. I'd dealt with it for so long, that I chalked it up to the life of a night owl coffee drinker. 

The Make Time strategy is to shift when you drink your first cup of coffee. The book explains that caffeine doesn't actually "wake you up". Instead, it mimics a molecule called adenosine. Your body produces adenosine when it's tired, to make you feel drowsy. If you drink coffee when you feel drowsy, the caffeine molecules bond with receptors in the brain, blocking the adenosine. The problem is that the adenosine doesn't go away, it just builds up, so when it does finally bond with your brain, you crash.

Their suggestion is to avoid reaching for a cup of coffee first thing in the morning. Allow the natural "wake up" chemical (cortisol) in your body to get you going, and then drink coffee a couple hours after you've woken up. Caffeine doesn't help much while cortisol is operating. For most people, cortisol is at its highest level between 8am and 9am, so a 9:30am cup of coffee should maximize the caffeine effectiveness. Then, try to be done with any coffee drinking by around 2pm, so that the adenosine can naturally build up to bring you to a normal sleepy state at bedtime.

I don't know if it works for everyone, but for me, I was amazed that I could actually beat the afternoon slump. I now feel alert through the whole day, and because I'm not drinking coffee into the afternoon, my nighttime routine is less frantic, and I fall asleep easier. If anyone ends up trying it, let me know how it goes!

View this challenge on Storytelling With Data: Diagram it!