In 1907, William James complains that psychologists have ignored the topic of "the energies of men"—that is, the practical stamina available for "running one's mental and moral operations".
Have good frameworks emerged for this in the past century?
jstor.org/stable/2177575
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There's "cognitive load", "ego depletion", "self-efficacy", etc… none of these really seem to hit the nail on the head here.
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"Everyone is familiar with the phenomenon of feeling more or less alive on different days. Everyone knows on any given day that there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of that day do not call forth, but which he might display if these were greater."
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Buddhist writings on dullness ("laya") are a bit closer…
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This was a very interesting overview of work attempting to characterize "mental effort". This article doesn't attempt to explain day-by-day variation, but I may find something like that in the cite tree…
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Replying to @andy_matuschak
perhaps doesn't hit the nail on the head either (if you're focused on 'energy'), but there are recent lines of work on resource-constrained mental effort and motivation. maybe easiest to trace branches from here? annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.114 (non-paywalled: wouterkool.com/papers/Shenhav)