What is zapping your energy?

Recently I noticed that the battery on my phone wasn’t holding its charge like it used to.?I’d leave the house with decent battery strength and before you know it, I’m down to desperate measures, power saving just to keep a signal and avoid the dreaded shut-down before I get home.

Eventually I’ll need a new battery or phone that’ll hold a charge, have more stamina and off I go again.?Lucky phone.?Us humans don’t yet get the option of plugging in a new battery so stamina is something we need to master for ourselves.

Because I'm not keen on spending money when I don't need to, when this first happened, a quick google suggested I should look at what was draining the battery, see if you really need it. Wise words and a window on a whole new world of insight I had no idea was there. At the press of a button, my phone told me what were the main culprits and often they were things that I didn't really value, use or notice.

Removing these hungry hippos immediately helped my phone and made no difference to my daily life.?What a win. Though I did eventually have to replace the battery.

Of course humans are not machines.?We have a pulse, we have variability.?We don’t have the ability to just go get a new battery but this energy equation still applies.??Marie Kondo has risen to fame decluttering people’s homes, we are habituated to collecting and gathering stuff.?And so it is with our lives.?We collect activities, engagements, commitments, obligations and concerns often without even realising it. Some of these things drain energy but others add great joy and excitement and kinetically create energy.?We just don’t have a little button to do the math for us and tell us what’s what.?

So it’s on us to do our own energy audit.? Some things make our energy go ZIP. Ask a parent who'll tell you yes kids can certainly zap your energy but in an instant they can do something that will make your soul sing again. This is a form of zip. Ask me at work how I'm doing ploughing through that excel spreadsheet and it's absolutely a zap moment for me, but when I understand the story within the data, I can bounce right back.

The trouble is we can't always predict the order and sequence of zip and zap. And sometimes we go through periods where it's all zap. Worse, as we start heading towards this point of burnout, we have a habit of doubling down on things that are pulling on our energy and actively remove the things that provide a boost. Even in simple terms how often have you skipped lunch to meet a deadline, dropped your exercise class, grabbed calorie rich and nutrient poor food on the go all to save time. You're saving time, but it's not helping your energy level.

Ultimately it's our energy levels that will catch us out. We might promise ourselves that we'll eventually take the foot off the accelerator and take time to recover. Like the battery that won't take a charge any longer, we can reach a point where our energy goes into the deepest sleep, we get the urge to give up and shut-down. At this point your company may bring in its employee assistance programme to get you going again if you're fortunate enough to have one. Hopefully when they catch you, there's just enough energy in the tank to start the recharge process.

Energy levels fluctuate throughout the day. We're all a little different with our circadian rhythm. Me, I'm a morning person which means my creative energy is high early on and I try and put more routine things in the afternoon that pull on a different part of my brain. I've learned that I can't stop things that zap my energy but I can intersperse them with things that do.

Every-time you have a gap in your day you have a critical decision to make - what task do I start next? I bet the productivity wizard inside you is telling you that you should consider urgency and importance as a decision criteria. On the face of things this is sensible. But not from an energy perspective. Completing one high intensity task and then starting another immediately after may be correct from a productivity perspective, but without energy, your performance on task is likely to diminish, you'll take longer, do it less well and in short actually be less productive.

By doing your own energy audit, you can look at your own energy equation, highlighting the things that create a natural solar recharge in your life and which elements truly drain your energy, place a huge burden on the system and seemingly give you very little return for the expense of your energy.

You can do this on a sheet of paper or you can use a template like the one I’ve given you.?Reflecting on where you are right now – consider what are the big challenges zapping your energy right now.?To help you out, but stop this get over-complex, I’ve suggested you may consider four aspects;

-???????WORK; by which we can also mean career or business if you own your own

-???????FAMILY & FRIENDS; by which we can also mean significant others however defined

-???????HEALTH; both physical and emotional health

-???????GROWTH; which can be learning or our emotional growth, I’ll let you define what works for you

You can scrub things out, start again, write all over it.?Just put up there the big things you think at the moment are zapping your energy.

Now shift to the left hand side and do the same but this time consider what are the things that really give you a zip in your energy levels.?At work it could be a specific project or co-worker that you really get on well and collaborate with.?Within your family it may be love you receive or give.?And so forth.?There will be something, there’s always something.

Next take a step back.?As you look at the energy zappers in your life compared the energy zips, what’s the balance looking like??Is there enough zip to overcome the energy drain, or are the zappers just way too strong?

Then in the middle against each of your four headings write down one actionable thing, that’s within your control that you can do to improve the outcome of your energy equation between the zips and the zaps.??It could be, spend more time with someone you love, spend less time with someone who you know has a negative impact on your mood.?Look for a new project that gives you more natural vigour and enjoyment over what you do now.??There may be some things that are energy zappers that can’t be avoided right now, but you may be able to counter their effect by introducing something new as an energy booster.?It will all be personal to you.

If this is your first time doing an energy audit then aim for actions that are within your gift right now.?As you get more advanced in this technique you can learn to spend energy to save energy – for example moving closer to where you need to work involves spending energy on a house move to save energy on the daily commute.??But that’s the advanced stuff that can come later.?For now pick things within your immediate control.

And when you’ve done all that.?You have a starting point of understanding your energy equation and how we have a choice to subject ourselves to the “ways things are” or buck the trend, take control and change the balance for our own good.? You may be seeking to improve your productivity and if you are, then good for you. Energy management eats productivity tools for breakfast, if your day's loaded with energy zappers, no productivity tool is going to save you. Is it time to add a little more zip into your day?