4 Coffee Tricks That Will Make You 10x More Efficient

Nearly 500,000,000,000 cups of coffee are consumed worldwide each year.

That's a lot of caffeine! Caffeine — which has multiple pharmacological and physiological effects — is actually the most widely used central nervous system stimulant in the world.

But I doubt that many people understand the power of coffee/caffeine and know how to use it properly.

I’ve been drinking coffee for years now. Over time, I’ve figured out how to best navigate my coffee consumption to maximize the benefits caffeine has on my life.

In this article, I want to discuss a few tiny tweaks to your caffeine consumption that can help you do the same. Let’s dive in!

Here are 4 coffee tricks that will caffeinate you much faster:

1. Substitute gum for coffee sometimes

Most people fail to understand that coffee retains power only as long as it can stimulate you. Many of us drink coffee way too much and in turn, our bodies get tolerant, and the effect is reduced.

We drink it when we wake up.
We drink it when we’re feeling sleepy and don’t want to sleep.
We drink it when we’re bored.

Basically, people drink coffee all the time.

I should know. I was one such person. However, I decided to change this when I realized that the effect of coffee on my body was getting reduced with time and I needed to drink more and more coffee just to get the same effect as earlier.

The scientific term for this effect is called tolerance.

To retain the power of coffee on my body, I had to reduce coffee use and use it only when I truly needed the power of coffee in my life.

So I did. But that didn’t last.

How to replace coffee:

You see, reducing coffee intake created a vacuum. I especially felt this vacuum when it was the middle of the day, and I felt sleepy but I couldn’t afford to sleep because I wanted to study.

To solve this issue, I re-began drinking coffee whenever I felt sleepy in the middle of the day. I continued for a while, before deciding to reduce consumption again. I went back and forth a few times actually, never finding a solution that works.

Enter, Gum.

I might sound stupid here, but Gum changed the way I consume coffee forever. You might be thinking what has Gum got to do with coffee? Fair question. Let me tell you.

You see, I was using coffee as a way to not feel sleepy whenever I felt sleepy. But then, I figured out that I could use gum to do the same.

Now, whenever I feel sleepy while studying or working, and I cannot or don’t want to drink coffee, I chew a piece of gum instead.

Why gum works as a coffee replacement:

When you chew a piece of gum, you’re fooling your brain into thinking that you’re eating something. And your brain knows that it cannot sleep when it’s eating — so it stops trying to get you to sleep.
At the same time, no food is actually going into your stomach. This is great too. When you eat something, blood from your all over your body — including your brain — is diverted to your stomach to help you digest and absorb that food. This is why people feel the need to nap post-lunch.
In a way, gum wakes you up the same way coffee does. And by substituting gum for coffee at times, you avoid being increasingly tolerant to caffeine.

Does this mean you’re meant to completely swap coffee for gum? Nope. Not at all.

Coffee is powerful. I simply want you to restrict coffee consumption for some specific purposes. We’ll talk about that in the next point.

Note: This doesn’t mean that you keep chewing gum all day, every day. This simply means that it’s a nice alternative to coffee if you want to reduce caffeine consumption. Also, if you’re going to do this, find a good brand of sugar-free, high-quality gum.

2. Restrict your coffee consumption

Coffee is actually very powerful. Research after research has shown that coffee...

Reduces reaction time and improves performance
Improves cognitive performance by allowing you to better access the neural circuits associated with learning and memory
Boosts metabolism

In short, coffee can send you into a superior state of energy. But most people drink coffee even when they have to do easy work. That’s not a very wise use of caffeine’s power.

What I want you to do is reserve that superior state of energy only for cognitively and physically challenging work in your life.

For instance, I drink coffee only when:

I’m going to have a good writing session
I’m going to give an important 3-hour-long mock test
Or if I’m working out

Earlier, I would drink coffee mindlessly. I would drink it whenever I felt like drinking it — irrespective of what I’m going to do after drinking that cup of coffee.

But now, most of my caffeine consumption is restricted to the highest actions of my life. This works beautifully because:

By restricting coffee consumption to these purposes, you decrease overall consumption. This reduces the chances of tolerance. And consequently, the power of caffeine is retained — and exploited properly.
By restricting coffee consumption to higher actions in your life, coffee begins to enforce higher actions. For example, sometimes — I schedule a writing session just because I want to drink coffee!

Other than for the purposes of these higher actions, I avoid coffee as much as I can. I might drink coffee at times with a friend to enjoy a good conversation or if I’m going to read a great book. But these are exceptions.

3. Assign one purpose to your caffeine session

We discussed some short-term cognitive benefits of caffeine in the last point. To put it simply, caffeine sends you into a superior state of energy.

However, it’s also important that you learn how to channel that energy to the task at hand.

Here are a couple of maneuvers to ensure that.

Before drinking coffee: Browse through your task list and assign ONE purpose to your caffeine session

At any given time, I have a number of cognitively-challenging tasks to work on. That’s true for everyone. But earlier, I used to make the mistake of not clarifying to myself exactly what I’ll be working on before drinking my coffee.

I would drink my coffee and waste my time trying to decide what to work on. Often, I’d just mindlessly alternate between many tasks. This would dilute my focus and prevent me from doing deep work.

Now, every time before drinking my coffee, I browse through my list of tasks — and choose ONE task to focus my entire energy on. Examples:

"I’ll write this article about X."
"I’ll write the copy for this particular digital product."
"I’ll review the questions for this test."

This gives your one cup of coffee a singular purpose — which allows you to focus.

After or while drinking coffee: Walk through the gateway of flow

Once I take my first sip of coffee, I only have one goal: to enter flow. That’s what allows me to do the best work with absolute focus.

Here are a few things I do to enter flow:

I put my phone on DND and lock the door to my room, especially when I’m at home.
I put on my noise-cancellation headphones.
I play the "Peaceful Music" playlist on Apple Music.
I set a timer for an hour or 90 minutes because a timer ensures I stay focused. It both enforces a stay of flow — and prevents you from going out of it.

I’ve found that it takes me around 10–20 minutes to enter a state of flow. But once I’m in it — after consuming coffee — the focus I achieve and consequently, the work that I do is extraordinary.

4. Don’t drink coffee immediately after waking up

Most people, like myself in the past, ingest caffeine right after waking up — within 30 minutes or so.

But there’s a problem with this approach as laid out by Andrew Huberman, a professor of Opthalmology and Neuroscience at the Stanford School of Medicine in this informative podcast.