The book Designing Your Life has a wonderful model for energy management.
For any aspect of your work, monitor the following three components:
- Engagement – does it excite you when you are doing it?
- Energy – does it drain you or do you actually maintain your energy levels?
- Flow – does it lead to a feeling of ‘flow’.
You cannot continually do tasks which reduce your energy, especially if they are not engaging. But you should also rule out doing too many engaging tasks (activating tasks) if they leave you drained afterwards.
Flow is pretty much always a good thing.
[This article is part of the Innovation Snippets series]