Physics and Personal Progress
By: Orna Mukhopadhyay
Tags: Self Improvement, Physics, Productivity

Who knew that studying for my physics finals would lead me to a productivity x physics crossover?

Velocity

Let’s start off with something simple, and probably the first thing you’d ever learn in an introductory physics course: what is velocity? (Kinematics, woo!🍻)

The answer: velocity is your motion with direction. Unlike speed, when it’s just the number (or magnitude of the vector, if you will). If you’re riding a bike in the opposite direction of your friend, but you’re both going at the same speed, you have the same speed but a different velocity.

If you’re doing things at a certain velocity, you will progress faster than someone going at a slower velocity; more often than not, you’ll also be in different directions. Someone who is grinding out fifteen essays every week is facing a lot more velocity in their writing skills than someone who is only doing one every week (under the assumption that they are doing this consistently every week). This is disregarding the quality of the essay, which we will get to later.

With physics, the velocity vector doesn’t completely dedicate itself to the x-axis or y-axis either; you can go at an angle.

In our context, this should be split up into two different directions. Remember the Pythagorean theorem? Yeah, this should be something like that.

These “component vectors” have a smaller magnitude than the culminating vector. There is less of a focus in one particular direction, and more of a focus in two (maybe three, if you really want to get complex). So in those two directions, even while you’re having a lot of velocity in general, your focus is split — and thus, you’re moving slower in the two directions than you would when you go in one particular direction.

However, if you have to feel split up in multiple directions, don’t worry! There is more to it.

Acceleration + Force

We have acceleration, or in layman’s terms, “speeding up or slowing down.” More specifically, it is the change in velocity over a certain period of time. Essentially, if you change your velocity, you can either progress faster or slower, depending on the direction you take — and this is your acceleration.

Acceleration is typically caused by an external force applied to the object, based on Newton’s second law.

A force is defined as a push or pull, and brings a person out of their constant state. With an external force acting on the object in motion, they will be forced to accelerate in the direction of the force — and thus, change their velocity.

Going back to the bicycle example: let’s say someone was biking to their workplace. Suddenly, they realized the amount of time they had was too little, or maybe they were just bored with going at the same pace. So, what does the person riding the bike do? They pedal faster, applying more force on the bike in the particular direction of the intention. The bike accelerates, and thus moves faster. Thus, they were able to go to their work faster.

Basically: if you push yourself, you will get yourself on the grind and working faster. Personally, I noticed it myself. I did virtually no physical activity during the first two months of the pandemic — I was always studying for my AP exams. After they were done, I was bored. My mom started telling me to go work out, so I forced myself to watch and follow along with a Chloe Ting workout. I did this for a few days, just forcing myself — and then I noticed that it became a habit. One hour and thirty minutes of HIIT workouts became characteristic of my summer.

A key thing to remember: keep out the force that is not going to be valuable to you, and maximize the force that goes in the direction that you want to go.

Momentum

This brings me to another point: the point of building momentum.

Your momentum is the product of the mass and the velocity of the object in motion. Essentially, it is proportional to your velocity, but it is factoring in your mass.

Thus, there are two ways of increasing your momentum: either an increase in mass or an increase in the magnitude of the velocity (and thus, acceleration). A change in velocity is easier, ideally, than a change in mass simply because you have to apply a force in order to increase it. Thus, you can change momentum by applying a force over a certain time period. That is essentially how you activate something into momentum, and the term for this is impulse.

When you’re making progress with something, the “mass” is the quality of the things you do to build that progress. This means that there are two ways to keep a consistent momentum:

Move fast and produce results quickly, although they may not be of the best quality.

Increase the “mass” and produce results, but the speed at which they are produced may not be the same.

However, if you make yourself go faster and produce results of higher quality at the same time, you would be increasing your momentum (i.e. building it up).

In the case that there is no net force on the system, momentum is conserved. When there is a net force (which results in impulse), momentum changes. By adding the force (or the push to get out better results at a faster rate), you are activating an impulse that, when properly sustained, can result in a higher momentum.

Energy (and specifically, Kinetic Energy)

In physics, work is done whenever we apply a greater amount of force over a certain displacement. They must be in the same direction — if the force applied is in the opposite direction of the displacement that you are hoping to achieve, this is counterproductive as you are essentially doing negative work, and this removes the energy. With positive work done, you gain more energy.

Thus, when you’re working on something — you must be directionally inclined to do so.

Thanks, Khan Academy!

Note that the consideration of components should also apply — it’s better to fully have the net force in the direction of motion (i.e. your progress in a particular focus of yours) than splitting it up between multiple areas. That way, you maximize the parallel component of force. This is better than it is in the opposite direction, however.

But then, what is energy? Energy is essentially the physical quantity is an object’s capacity for doing work. It comes in many forms: potential, kinetic, chemical, nuclear, thermal, etc.

Here, because it’s so focused on Newtonian mechanics, we’ll only focus on the first two.

Potential energy is basically the energy that you have when you’re stagnant. You’re not really doing anything, but you have that potential. The important part is leveraging this potential. For an object, it’s typically based on their gravitational potential energy (and thus, they must be at a maximum height). For spring, it must be stretched to its maximum amplitude. For us, it is our stagnation — endless curiosity and learning, but not doing anything with that learning.

By gaining velocity, and producing quality results, you can decrease your potential energy and convert that to kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is calculated as:

Basically, the greater your velocity, the greater your kinetic energy is — and the more you are progressing. The quality of your work (mass) is also a key factor, but it is not as important as having that velocity. You might also notice the relationship with momentum:

This does highlight that the quality of your work, while important, is not as important as maintaining the speed. When it becomes a habit that is continuous over time, you will find the quality gets better. Don’t obsess over quality too much: as Nike says, just do it.

To Sum It Up:

All of these physics principles: velocity, acceleration, force, momentum and energy relate together in some way.

When you’re figuring out your priorities and specifically, how to 10x yourself, go in a particular direction and stick to it. Otherwise, the work done is not effective.

Maximizing your velocity will be the biggest factor in increasing your kinetic energy.

Always seek for impulses in your momentum that propel you in the direction, rather than against.

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