Hey friend,
In this episode, you will learn how to prevent the problem of having no energy to do great work.
If you prefer watching, you can find the YouTube video here. If reading is your thing, then enjoy the transcript below.
Welcome to The Daily Recall show. I'm your host, Vasili.
Today you will learn how to get more done by managing your energy levels.
In the past couple of decades we’ve come to work from anywhere and anytime. Location and time are not the constraints anymore. You always have internet access and can do great work from your phone. The problem is lack of energy.
The best way to approach the energy problem is to prevent it from happening in the first place. To always have lots of energy.
Let’s think backwards and ask the opposite question:
What should you do to have no energy at all?
The question itself is more useful than any advice you will pick up from this video. Because you can apply it to yourself instead of picking up stuff that worked for me.
For example, if I tell you to wake at five am every morning to have more energy, that’d be a terrible advice. Because I have no idea what your circadian rhythm is. And if you’re a late person and begin waking up early, you'll be fighting your own biology. But if you ask yourself this inverted question, then you'll figure out a bunch of things that make you less energetic and then you can work through that list to prevent them from happening. It's that easy.
Anyways, I will share a list of energy suckers that you might find yourself struggling with as well. Just don’t take it for granted and always think for yourself before applying this advice.
So what should you do to have no energy at all to perform great work?
Do work that you hate doing. If you just follow this advice, I guarantee you will have no energy at all. You will procrastinate all the time. So that’s a good start.
Eat badly. If you screw up your nutrition, you will screw up your energy levels. So just eat the stuff that makes you feel terrible the next day. Drink too much alcohol. And you will have no problem at all with having no energy.
Never exercise and never do any physical activity of any kind. Just sit in your chair all day long. That’s a great way to have no energy because if you do not impose short term stress, which is called hormesis, on yourself, then your muscles deteriorate over time. And that’s how you come to have no energy because your physiology is connected to how much energy you have. So that’s a good one as well; never exercise.
Sleep badly. You have probably noticed this for yourself. If you have a couple nights of insufficient sleep, then you quickly realize how screwed you are. You can’t lift a finger without filling yourself with coffee.
Drink too much coffee. If you drink 5 or 7 cups a day, your energy levels will be unstable. You will always feel either pumped or drained. So if you want to have no stable high energy levels, just drink too much coffee.
Always be worried, anxious, and emotionally unstable. For example, you had a really intense conversation with your girlfriend last night. And now you keep thinking about this stuff all day long. And instead of writing the thing down to deal with it later you keep coming back to this thought over and over again. Purging your working memory. That’s an especially good one because you will have no focus as well.
Always do deadline-based work and keep your calendar full of meetings. Working under a deadline imposes constant stress on you so you will have no problem with having no energy.
Never write anything down. Have the same thought over and over again. That’s how you easily get to zero energy levels because your working memory will be overloaded with all this stuff that's flowing at you. You will end up having no good thoughts and will be stressed all the time because of all this cognitive load that comes through your head.
Never decide. Whenever you not decide on any decision that is right in front of you, you actually decide to not decide. Psychologists call this decision fatigue. And the more you keep snoozing the decision, the more energy it will suck up from you.
Just to recap -
The best way to solve the energy problem is to prevent it from happening. You can approach this problem by asking the opposite question - what should you do to have no energy at all. When you get your answers, just flip them back - ie a negative prescription "sleep badly to have no energy" turns into a positive advice of "get sufficient sleep to have stable energy levels during the day." Enrich this list by adding more things that make you energetic and you'll be ready to deal with this energy problem by preventing it.
Tomorrow, I will cover how to fix the energy problem. It's 3:07 pm and you find yourself in a "brain gone" mode - what should you do to fix that state and come back to your high performance mode?
See you tomorrow!
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
#23 How to Get More Done by Managing Energy Levels - Part 1: Prevent