Pulled an all-nighter on Thursday night, my first this year. I was asked to take part in our school district’s strategic planning session retreat, a two-day affair. Unfortunately, I had a deadline for a draft of a computer game script on Friday morning, so instead of going to bed between the two days of the retreat, I planted myself in front of my computer and wrote until I had to get the kids up to get them ready for school.

Amazingly, I discovered that one of the best ways to stay alert was to take regular breaks for 10-minute sessions on the Wii. There’s something about a quick boxing match on that machine that really wakes you up and gets you going again.