Subtitle:
A systematic approach to identify and optimize energy flows in your daily work
Core Idea:
The Energy Calendar Method helps you visualize which activities energize or drain you throughout your workday by color-coding your calendar, enabling strategic adjustments to improve job satisfaction and productivity.
Key Principles:
- Energy Awareness:
- Work activities impact your energy in three ways: they create energy (green), are energy-neutral (yellow), or drain energy (red).
- Systematic Documentation:
- Review your calendar daily and color-code each activity based on its energy impact to identify patterns over time.
- Targeted Optimization:
- Use the visual data to make intentional adjustments to how, when, or where you perform specific tasks.
Why It Matters:
- Deconstructs Vague Dissatisfaction:
- Transforms the general feeling of "I hate my job" into specific, actionable insights about what exactly causes dissatisfaction.
- Enables Micro-Adjustments:
- Identifies opportunities for small, feasible changes that can significantly improve daily experience without changing jobs.
- Creates Objective Data:
- Provides concrete evidence for discussions with managers about role adjustments or task redistribution.
How to Implement:
- Create Your Baseline:
- For one week, at the end of each day, review your calendar and color-code each activity: green (energizing), yellow (neutral), or red (draining).
- Analyze Patterns:
- Identify which specific activities, contexts, or people consistently appear in each category.
- Design Interventions:
- For red activities: Can they be eliminated, delegated, redesigned, rescheduled, or approached differently?
- For yellow activities: How might they be upgraded to green?
- For green activities: How can you incorporate more of these into your schedule?
Example:
- Scenario:
- A software developer discovers that team meetings are consistently "red" activities while pair programming sessions are "green."
- Application:
- She discusses with her manager about reducing her meeting load and increasing pair programming opportunities.
- She also experiments with changing the environment for unavoidable meetings (taking walking meetings instead of sitting in conference rooms).
- Result:
- After one month, her calendar shows 30% more green activities and 20% fewer red ones, coinciding with higher job satisfaction and productivity.
Connections:
- Related Concepts:
- Job Crafting: Using energy insights to reshape aspects of your role
- Time Blocking: Scheduling technique that can be enhanced with energy awareness
- Broader Concepts:
- Intrinsic Motivation: Energy-creating activities often align with autonomy, mastery, and purpose
- Workplace Wellbeing: Energy management is fundamental to preventing burnout
References:
- Primary Source:
- Ali Abdaal's concept from "Feel-Good Productivity" and related content
- Additional Resources:
- "Drive" by Daniel Pink (for understanding energy-creating activities)
- "So Good They Can't Ignore You" by Cal Newport (for strategic career development)
Tags:
#productivity #jobsatisfaction #energymanagement #worklife #selfimprovement #careerplanning
Connections:
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