What is an energy audit?
And why should we all do one?
Optionality’s April theme has been Energy Management. Luckily, I explained exactly what that term means to us in last week’s #Conversationality live-stream on the topic of Energy Management and Peri/Menopause, featuring guest Dr Sophia Yen (great full convo, you should definitely watch!)
PS: No, I don’t know why my video wasn’t coming through for the first 10 seconds or so of this video 😬🤷🏻♀️
Basically, at some point you realize your energy is a unique and finite resource.
Time management or productivity hacks won’t solve an energy management issue. You won’t end up feeling any better than you did pre-”hack” if you’re just making more time for tasks and responsibilities that drain your energy, .
Revisiting Christina Wallace’s “portfolio life”
One interesting take on this conundrum comes via Optionality Advisor Christina Wallace and her “Portfolio Life” framework. She recommends assessing your entire life portfolio (not just career portfolio) like you would a financial portfolio. She recommends diversifying your income streams, and also diversifying what you do outside the professional realm. You have energy coming in and going out. AND you have some drains on your energy that you can’t eliminate even if they don’t represent a net energy gain in your life. These are like your fixed liabilities in a budget. You gotta pay rent, and you gotta spend energy on some responsibilities (I’ll use caregiving as my example) that are non-negotiable.
Christina has a realistic view that you may not be able to fit in every energy boost you wish you could all the time.
You may have a season where labors of love take priority, and a season where traditional paid labor does. You may know you value health-related behaviors, creative expression, and activities that bring you emotional connection…and you may also know that sometimes you need to triage.
Christina was our very first #Conversationality guest more than a year ago, because the Portfolio Life concept is so fundamental to defining your ideal optionality-driven life. It’s relevant and worth a listen today if you need a refresher on the realities (and benefits) of a portfolio life:
The key question you should always know the answer to: What are the assets in your portfolio life outside work? How are you allocating your energy?
Doing an “energy audit” (courtesy of Claire Wasserman)
Lately, I’ve also been appreciating the advice and tactical exercises that Claire Wasserman, founder of Ladies Get Paid, is providing via her Really Good Work Advice community.
Two of her recent “assignments” were really useful for me:
First, do what Claire calls “Perception Mapping: Importance vs. Attention.” This exercise asked that I look at various life categories and rate them for how important I think they are vs. how much time and attention they suck up. We have ideas in our head about what categories are important in our life, but how often do we allow various other responsibilities to take priority? I suppose sometimes they must, but what was useful for me was to acknowledge how often I go for the low-hanging, less important fruit thoughtlessly!
Second, Claire recommends doing an “Energy Audit.” Track your activities and interactions for a period of time and record immediately afterwards (and quickly) what kind of impact they had on your energy. A boost? A drain? A satisfying contribution?
Again, some tasks need to get done; some responsibilities cannot be shirked, but I think I fall victim to being less than conscious of why I’m doing some of what I’m doing and whether I should be doing it as much.
Have you ever done an energy audit, and did it help you re-allocate your energy?
Speaking for Moi: I'm warming up to the notion that some activities that I find incredibly not-draining--for instance, meeting people at live events--I've dismissed for their energy rejuvenating qualities! As though we're supposed to be doing drudgery work to justify our work. On the other side of that coin, I have been much more deliberate about gauging whether a drudgery is really that, or an opportunity in anxiety's clothing. If I wasn't anxious about something related to that activity, would it actually unlock joy and accomplishment?