Very nice and valuable input erikmvs, thanks for that!

hey, lots of questions ;-)

1) TIME BLOCKS*
According to scientific researches our brain can be focused 90-120 minutes and after that it needs a break. Some researches shows 90 minutes, some 90-120. Therefore optimal block should last 1.5 hour, maximum 2 hours. I think it also depends on the individual preferences.
45-50 minutes is true when it comes to children, therefore you have breaks in school after each 45 minute lesson. At least in most of countries ;-)

In the optimal scenario you should have small breaks during a session, at least 5-10 minutes after 90-120 minutes, but in reality it's not always possible. During a break try to go outside, take a breath of fresh air and "scan" by our eyes as big area as possible. According to researches it helps to restore your attention.

2) *PRIME TIME*
Prime time is the time of our the highest effectiveness and we need to use it wisely. On the other hand you can use the time when you are usually a little bit sleepy e/g/ after big meal to complete irrelevant tasks like reading emails or news.

When it comes to food and diet, I leave this area for dietitians, they will provide you with more accurate information, but according to any research drinking water is definitely a very good idea ;-)

3) MONOTASKING
Monotasking refers to being focused just on one task e.g. when you play poker, don't chat on fb or watch movies.
"One big task a time" strategy refers rather to the general planning strategy for weeks or months. Please have a look at the video 27 min. You can see my schedule for the first half of the year. According to this strategy you complete one task and then you start another one. But for each task, for each block of time you can use monotasking.

To sum it up:
Monotasking => each activity
One big task a time => strategy of planning which maximizes your learning effect

Your last question concerns notes. I definitely recommend taking notes during watching educational video. In my opinion you will achieve better result by watching 1 video, making many notes and refreshing them reguarly than by watching 3 videos which you will forget after some time.

I'm not a dietitian, but yes, drink lots of water. Tea (green tea, no sugars) is great as well. It provides natural energy similar to that of coffee without the "crashing" effect.

Also, there are many types of food that improve brain performance such as blueberries. Most important thing is to maintain steady blood sugar levels. This means NOT eating large meals. Eat small meals steadily throughout the day to avoid spikes and drops in blood sugar.

A quick example:
Breakfast: Oatmeal with fruits
Snack: Fruit and some nuts
Lunch: Salad with turkey, chicken or fish.
Snack: Carrots with unsweetened peanut butter.
Dinner: Salmon veggies and bulgur.

Try to eat something roughly every third hour, and limit high calorie carbs such as pasta and rice for days where you are very active (exercise/workouts).

Food is an advances science, and as consumers it's a dangerous jungle out there with a wealth of misguided, ungrounded information in the shape of fad diets and self-proclaimed fitness coaches with no real training.

One tip for steering around the less trustworthy, is to look for dietitians rather than nutritionists. A dietitian has gone through academic and practical training and is licensed. "A nutritionist is a non-accredited title that may apply to somebody who has done a short course in nutrition or who has given themselves this title. The term Nutritionist is not protected by law in almost all countries so people with different levels of and knowledge can call themselves a “Nutritionist”" (http://eatrightdc.org).

Well, this turned out to be a long post. Hope it was helpful.

I wish so hard I could manage to make recreational players play on the time schedule I want!
But it's not like that, we are the ones that provides entertaiment to fun players at the time they want to play.
If your goal is to play in blocks, play at a organized site. But many of the times you have to stay longer than you should, and play more than you should, then you take out another time to balance your daily routine. If it is possible we do it as we plan, but most of the times we are forced to adjust.
It's like a tennis player. He/she does know when the match starts but not when it ends, sometimes a match can last for more than 4 hours, and that is not recomended for a sport player at all. But again, they don't decide when to finish. And sometimes when to start either.
To make this job right you have to be flexible, you only decide how flexible you want to be at the job.

Hope this helps!
Gl!

I think that MorronGun has already given you a really good answer.
Sometimes you will have a huge fish at the table and a break will be a waste of value.
Sometimes you may not feel well and you may need a break faster e.g. after 40 minutes.
Sometimes you will feel like you are "in the zone" and you will be ready to play very well for 3-4 hours in a row.
A detailed answer to your question will require discussing new concepts and at least 15-20 min video, but in short you need to find a balance between flexibility and your plans ;-)

+1, was about to recommend this too, then saw your comment. I read this in February and it helped me improve in many areas.

Hey, very good input to the topic! Thanks for that! I wish there were more comments like this ;-)

You are right about Eisenhower's decision matrix, very good point!

Also agree with multitasking, that actually we are shifting quickly between tasks. But still you can measure the time difference between completing one task after another with so called multitasking. I agree that literally speaking it is not multitasking, still I think that most of people understand it this way. And thx for the link!

However I have a little bit different point of view on planing. I have also stressed out the importance of scheduling time blocks which is pretty similar to deadlines. But in my opinion you cant move these business strategies to poker reality because time management for poker players is just much easier. Of course poker is a very tough job from both mental and strategical point of view. But from time management perspective it is one of the easiest jobs in the world - you have some sport, education, session and your other duties. And that's it. Whereas in business you need to shift between different projects, you have many meetings, you have administrative work, you need to delegate many tasks etc. In business TM is much more complicated and I agree that my methods would be too simple but imo for they are sufficient for professional and semi-professional players. Would be interesting to hear more on that from other players ;-)

I think it depends on the individual. Poker may be simpler in its planning than in business. But I think they share many similarities. The reason for assigning a specific time to your time blocks, is that it helps avoid procrastination and laziness. You don't just have to do something at some point, you have set a specific time to do it. Plus, it gives you a nice overview of the rest of the day and how much time you have available for other things. :)

It is different. For a lot of people it will be in the morning, others needs some time to catch the right speed of work. Some people prefer working in the evenings.
The best way to find out is testing and checking out how do you feel with working at 9 am 11am 2pm etc. when do you have the most energy and focus

Thanks :-)
I would say it's a very complex topic which requires at least a whole length video because it depends on the type of the music, number of beats per minute, lyrics etc.
Long story short,it depends on what you want to achieve. For many players their A-game is related with being calm, so you can suport that by listening to calm music. However very often after some time your level of focus and energy decreases. This might be a good time for more energetic music, to give yourself a fresh shot of energy and play longer :-)