Purpose

Instructions

1. Conduct an energy audit: identify green (energizing), yellow (neutral), and red (draining) activities

   • List all major activities you do: deep work on projects, meetings, email, 1-on-1s, presentations, travel, exercise, sleep, family time, hobbies, exercise
   • Rate each activity: does it energize you (green), drain you (red), or neither (yellow)?
   • The same activity might be different colors for different people: meetings energize extroverts, drain introverts
   • Map when you do each activity: do you do red activities when you're already depleted, or when you have energy buffer?
   • Count the proportion: are you doing 20% green, 50% yellow, 30% red? Or 10% green, 40% yellow, 50% red?

2. Understand the four sources of energy and which are depleted in your life

   • Physical energy: Sleep (7-9 hours), exercise, nutrition, movement breaks, hydration, sunlight
     • Is this your weak point? Most people skip this first, then wonder why they're exhausted
     • Audit: how many hours sleep per night? How many minutes exercise per week? What's your nutrition like?
   • Emotional energy: Clarity on expectations, resolved conflicts, positive relationships, trust
     • Unresolved conflict drains emotional energy passively (you think about it all day)
     • Unclear expectations create anxiety (am I doing this right?)
     • Negative relationships are energy vampires (you dread interactions)
   • Mental energy: Cognitive focus, novelty, learning, problem-solving, decision-making
     • Mental energy peaks in the morning and depletes through the day (decision fatigue)
     • Context-switching fragments mental energy (you never reach flow)
     • Unfamiliar work requires more mental energy than routine work
   • Spiritual energy: Alignment between work and values, sense of purpose, progress toward meaningful goals, community
     • Misalignment between what you do and what you care about is soul-draining
     • No progress on meaningful goals creates drift and malaise
     • Isolation (not working with people who share values) drains spiritual energy

3. Identify which energy source is most depleted in your life

   • Most people have one that's critically low: physical (skipping sleep), emotional (unresolved conflicts), mental (fragmented schedule), or spiritual (misaligned work)
   • Start there. Fixing your sleep won't help if your marriage is in conflict
   • Ask: which energy source, if I restored it, would have the biggest impact on how I feel?

4. Restructure your week to recover more energy than you spend

   • You don't need to stop doing red (draining) activities. You need to recover from them.
   • Structure the week so red activities aren't back-to-back
   • After a red activity (stressful meeting, difficult conversation), schedule a green activity (walk, solo work, time with a friend)
   • Example: customer call at 2pm (often red) → immediate recovery at 3pm (solo work or walk)
   • Build in daily recovery: 30 minutes of exercise, a real lunch break, an evening off screens
   • Weekly recovery: at least 1-2 full days where you mostly do green and yellow activities

5. Protect the foundation: sleep, exercise, and nutrition are non-negotiable

   • These are the bedrock. Without them, nothing else works
   • Sleep: if you're sleeping 6 hours, you can't optimize anything else. Add an hour of sleep.
   • Exercise: 30 minutes of movement at moderate intensity (walk, strength, cardio) at least 4x per week
   • Nutrition: not diet culture, but eating food that fuels your body. Skipping meals depletes energy faster.
   • If you're not protecting these, nothing you do with the rest of this skill will work

6. Address emotional energy drains: resolve conflicts and clarify expectations

   • Unresolved conflict is a passive energy drain: you think about it, worry, anticipate problems
   • Have the difficult conversation. It's uncomfortable for 30 minutes; the drain lasts weeks if you avoid it
   • Unclear expectations create constant low-level anxiety: "Am I doing this right?"
   • Get clarity: what does success look like? What's the timeline? What's the constraint?
   • Toxic relationships are energy vampires. Limit interaction or exit if possible.

7. Optimize mental energy: protect peak hours, batch similar tasks, reduce decisions

   • Mental energy peaks early in the day for most people. Protect those hours for complex, creative, decision-making work
   • Batch decisions so you're not making decisions all day (decision fatigue = depleted mental energy)
   • Reduce low-value decisions: choose outfits the night before, use default meals, autopay bills
   • Context-switching fragments mental energy. Batch similar tasks so you reach flow
   • Save routine work for low-energy times (end of day): admin, email, organizing

8. Reconnect with meaning: review whether your work aligns with your values

   • Spiritual energy comes from alignment between what you do and what you care about
   • If you're doing work that contradicts your values (but pays well), the misalignment drains spirit
   • Some work will always misalign with values. Add green activities that align with values to recover spiritual energy
   • If the entire job is misaligned, you might need to leave or find a role that aligns better
   • Reconnect with why: why does this work matter? How does it serve people you care about?

Output Format

=== ENERGY AUDIT ===

ENERGY PROFILE
Current overall energy level: [Depleted, Low, Moderate, Good, Excellent]
Burnout risk: [Low, Moderate, High]

ACTIVITY ENERGY AUDIT
Activity | Category | Color | Notes
---------|----------|-------|------
[Deep work on projects] | Work | Green | Flow state, challenge level appropriate, progress visible
[Meetings] | Work | Red | Back-to-back, no recovery time, many without clear outcomes
[Email] | Work | Yellow | Neutral, necessary, but takes mental space
[Exercise] | Personal | Green | Energizes, but I'm only doing 2x/week (need 4x)
[Sleep] | Personal | Red | 6 hours/night, should be 7.5-8.5

Proportion breakdown:
- Green activities: [X%] (Target: 30-40%)
- Yellow activities: [X%] (Expected: 40-50%)
- Red activities: [X%] (Should recover from these)

PHYSICAL ENERGY ASSESSMENT
Sleep: [X hours/night] (Target: 7-9 for most people)
Exercise: [X minutes/week at moderate intensity] (Target: 150+ weekly)
Nutrition: [Brief description. Are you eating regular meals? Fueling before/after exercise?]
Sunlight/movement: [How much daily movement and outdoor time?]
Hydration: [Are you drinking water regularly?]

Physical energy status: [What's the biggest gap? Sleep? Exercise? Nutrition?]

EMOTIONAL ENERGY ASSESSMENT
Unresolved conflicts: [Relationships or situations creating ongoing stress]
Unclear expectations: [Work situations where you're uncertain about success criteria]
Energy-draining relationships: [People or roles that consistently exhaust you]
Positive relationships: [People and interactions that energize you]

Emotional energy status: [What conflict or expectation, if resolved, would have the biggest impact?]

MENTAL ENERGY ASSESSMENT
Peak energy hours: [When are you most mentally sharp? Morning? Afternoon?]
Context-switching burden: [How many separate projects are you juggling? How many context switches per day?]
Decision-making load: [How many decisions are you making daily? Can any be automated or batched?]
Flow opportunities: [How often do you reach flow state? Long enough uninterrupted blocks?]

Mental energy status: [What's consuming mental energy without return? Decisions? Context switching? Complexity?]

SPIRITUAL ENERGY ASSESSMENT
Alignment between work and values: [How much of your work aligns with what you care about? 20%? 80%?]
Sense of purpose: [Do you see how your work serves something you care about?]
Progress on meaningful goals: [Are you making progress on what matters to you? Or just maintaining?]
Community and connection: [Do you work with people who share your values?]

Spiritual energy status: [Is misalignment a problem? Lack of progress? Isolation?]

RECOVERY STRUCTURE
Daily recovery (need 1-2 green/yellow activities, 0-1 red):
- Morning: [Your morning routine and what activities]
- Midday: [Recovery opportunity between activities]
- Evening: [How do you recover from the day?]
- Before bed: [Transition from work to rest]

Weekly recovery (need 1-2 days that are mostly green/yellow):
- Weekday routine: [Pattern across the week]
- Weekend structure: [Which days are recovery-focused?]

Gaps in recovery: [Where is energy being spent faster than it's recovered?]

FOUNDATION PRIORITY
Most critical to fix: [Physical/Emotional/Mental/Spiritual?]
Specific action: [Sleep one more hour? Resolve a conflict? Add 30 min exercise? Change roles?]
Timeline: [Start when? How long to see impact?]

Example

Person: Jordan, Software Engineering Director at CloudScale (managing 8 engineers)

=== ENERGY AUDIT ===

ENERGY PROFILE
Current overall energy level: LOW (feels exhausted by Thursday)
Burnout risk: MODERATE-HIGH (working 55+ hours, no recovery)

ACTIVITY ENERGY AUDIT
Activity | Color | Notes
---------|-------|-------
Code review and architecture design | Green | I love this work, feel sharp and creative. But only doing 3 hours/week.
1-on-1s with engineers | Green | Coaching and career conversations energize me. But often cut short due to meetings.
Status update meetings | Yellow | Necessary, but don't require energy. Could be async.
Executive visibility meetings | Red | Performance anxiety, lots of context-switching, no clear outcomes. 3-4 per week.
Email/Slack | Yellow | Mental drain from constant context-switching, but necessary.
Writing specs and RFCs | Green | Deep, satisfying work. No time for this. Need 4-6 hours/week minimum.
Sleep | Red | 6-6.5 hours/night. Should be 8.
Exercise | Red | 1x per week (should be 4-5x). Stopped running due to time pressure.
Team social events | Green | Love my team, these energize. But often cancel due to calendar pressure.
Travel to customer sites | Red | Exhausting, away from family, lots of unstructured time in airports/hotels.

Proportion:
- Green: 15% (should be 35-40%)
- Yellow: 40% (acceptable)
- Red: 45% (should be 20-25%)

PHYSICAL ENERGY ASSESSMENT
Sleep: 6-6.5 hours/night (Target: 8). This is the #1 priority. Consequence: irritable, slower decision-making, feels like running on fumes.
Exercise: 1x per week, 20 min (should be 150+ min/week). Stopped running due to time crunch.
Nutrition: Eating meals, but often skipping lunch or eating at desk during meetings. Coffee at 3pm to push through afternoon slump.
Sunlight/movement: Desk-bound, indoor most of the day. Occasional walks but not daily.

Physical energy status: CRITICAL. Sleep deficit is compounding. Need to add 1.5-2 hours sleep/night and restore exercise routine. This will unlock other improvements.

EMOTIONAL ENERGY ASSESSMENT
Unresolved conflicts: Team is stressed about deadlines. One engineer is underperforming and I haven't had the direct conversation. Tension with product team about scope.
Unclear expectations: Company's growth expectations feel vague. Am I supposed to ship faster? Hire more? Improve quality? Conflicting messages from leadership.
Energy-draining relationships: Product manager (frequent reprioritization, unclear why). Executive (constant performance check-ins).
Positive relationships: 1-on-1s with engineers, peer manager friends, partner (even though I'm too tired to be present).

Emotional energy status: HIGH. Unresolved team tension and unclear expectations are creating constant low-level stress. Conversation with underperforming engineer is urgent.

MENTAL ENERGY ASSESSMENT
Peak hours: 8am-11am (before email and meetings). By 2pm, decision quality drops.
Context-switching: Managing 8 engineers + responding to exec requests + customer escalations + product priorities. Jumping between 6+ contexts per day.
Decisions: 30+ daily decisions (code review feedback, hiring, prioritization, conflicts, approvals). Batching only email/Slack decisions.
Flow: Haven't had a 2-hour uninterrupted block in 3 weeks. Last deep design work was 2 months ago.

Mental energy status: HIGH. The executive visibility meetings and constant context-switching are preventing deep work. Mental energy is fragmented. Need protected deep work time.

SPIRITUAL ENERGY ASSESSMENT
Alignment: 60%. I love the engineering work and my team. But the execution/pressure/metrics/political context doesn't align with my belief that engineering should be deliberate and thoughtful.
Purpose: Company's mission is good (making developer experience better), which aligns with my values. But I'm not doing the work (not engineering), I'm managing it.
Progress on meaningful goals: Have a goal to ship the new SDK. But progress is slow due to context-switching and scope creep. Demoralizing.
Community: Team is great. But I'm isolated in the director role. No peer group of directors I trust. Peer manager friends live in different cities.

Spiritual energy status: MODERATE. Misalignment between my identity (engineer/builder) and my job (manager/firefighter) is creating drift. Missing the deep technical work that used to ground my sense of purpose.

RECOVERY STRUCTURE

Daily recovery (current):
- Morning: 6am wake-up, 20 min shower, coffee. Immediately check email (bad). No exercise.
- Work: 8:30am-6pm. Lunch at desk. No breaks or walks. Afternoon slump at 3pm.
- Evening: 6:30pm home, dinner with family (distracted by Slack). 10pm try to sleep, too wired.
- Before bed: Scroll news/Slack until 11pm.

Issues: No green activities during day. No recovery between work and personal time. Sleep is late and insufficient.

Weekly recovery (current):
- Weekdays: Mostly work, no breaks
- Weekend: Saturday morning cancelled for urgent work call. Sunday trying to recover but anxious about Monday.
- Missing: Exercise, deep work, friend time, sport I used to love (cycling)

FOUNDATION PRIORITY
Most critical to fix: PHYSICAL energy. Sleep debt is undermining everything else.

Action plan:
1. Immediate: bedtime to 10pm (vs 11pm), wake at 6:30am (target 8 hours). No Slack after 8pm.
2. Week 2: Add exercise back: 3x per week, 30 min (running, cycling, gym). Best time: 6am before work or noon lunch break.
3. Outcome: Better sleep should improve mood, decision-making, patience with team, and create space for recovery.

SECONDARY PRIORITIES
Once sleep/exercise foundation is restored:

Emotional energy: Have the conversation with underperforming engineer this week. Get clarity on company expectations from leadership. Block 30 min on Friday retro to celebrate wins (positive emotion).

Mental energy: Protect Tuesday-Thursday 9am-12pm for code review and design work (deep work). This is where green energy is. Need to defend these blocks.

Spiritual energy: Carve out 4 hours/week for technical work I love (architecture, design, mentoring). This is the work that grounds my purpose. Can't let this go below 4 hours/week.

Recovery restructure:
- Daily: 30-min exercise (green energy, not a chore). Solo lunch 1x/week. Slack cutoff at 8pm.
- Weekly: Friday afternoon "win" meeting with team (30 min, celebrate progress, positive emotion). One evening/weekend for cycling or running I used to love.

Timeline: Sleep/exercise changes can happen immediately (this week). Mental energy restructure (protected deep work) happens next week. Emotional energy (difficult conversations) this week also.

Edge Cases

• Structural misalignment that sleep won't fix: If your role fundamentally contradicts your values, better sleep won't solve it. You might need a role change. Sleep and exercise buy you time to figure out the right move, but they're not a permanent solution.

• Physical limitations: Some people have sleep disorders, chronic conditions, or physical limitations that make the "sleep 8 hours" advice incomplete. Work with what your body needs and focus on other energy sources.

• High-stress seasons are inevitable: Some roles (sales, fundraising, product launches) have high-intensity seasons. You can't always have balanced energy. Plan recovery for after the season, not during. Accept the temporary imbalance.

• Recovery isn't always alone: Some people recover through connection (time with friends, team events). Introverts recover alone. Know yourself and design recovery accordingly.

• Giving without receiving: If you're a giver and everyone else is taking energy from you, recovery activities alone won't solve it. Set boundaries on how much you're available.

• Grief and life transitions: Burnout from grief, loss, or major life change (moving, divorce, health crisis) isn't just about optimizing recovery. You might need professional support, not just sleep and exercise.