· 1 min read
Mapping what gives and drains your energy
A simple one-week exercise that shows where your energy really goes.
"I'm just tired." It's the sentence I hear most often in a first conversation. But tired of what? Almost nobody knows exactly, and without that answer every solution is a guess.
That's why I give everyone the same exercise.
The exercise
For one week, keep track of what you do in blocks of an hour. Give each block a score from −2 to +2:
- +2 you come out with more energy than you went in
- 0 neutral
- −2 it drains you
Don't think, just fill it in. Weekends too.
What you'll see
After a week there are patterns. For one person it's meetings with more than six people, for another it's working in the evening, or the days without any contact at all. Sometimes the work itself turns out fine, but the commute to it isn't.
Watch out for surprises in particular. Things you thought cost you energy but got a +1. And the other way round.
And then?
You don't have to cut all the minus blocks; usually you can't. Start with one:
- Pick the block that scores −2 most often.
- Think of the smallest change that would make it a −1.
- Try that for two weeks.
Small, doable, and therefore sustainable. That's how you win back room step by step.
