Fuel Before Focus

It’s 10pm. Eyes heavy and tired, I find myself staring dejectedly at habit streak app, or a document on a personal project. “Not much to report today”. Another day of failure.

With mid-year approaching, I found myself with a few frustrations lately on slow or lack of progress on a few targets for this year. Since I’ve seen the impact of burn out last year, I’m reluctant to throw myself into more work and instead decided to step back and do some thinking.

What came out of it (and a couple of long walks) was a realisation, which admittedly sounds simple, but was apparently missing from my equation of productivity: Energy. I had the plans, I had the tools, but I was failing due to lack of fuel to get to the destination.

Most of the productivity literature, as well as daily reminders (on X and other places) focus on motivational stuff (from inspirational quotes to memes) or tools and mechanics (inbox zero, anti-todo, GTD). The reality, however, is that without requisite energy, progress will invariably get stalled, results falter and it gets harder to continue streak with every passing day.

So how do you define this energy? It is a combination of physical, cognitive, and emotional. Each one of them is important and intertwined with others. When your energy stocks are depleted in any one of these areas, the other two try to pull weight but they can only do so to an extent. Ideally it is important to have ample stores of energy to draw from in all three areas to get going (even when results are not apparent, or the path is not clear).

Being conscious of energy stores, monitoring and replenishing them is key to drive growth and success. Don’t just track your habits or side-project actions, track your energy to optimize the dynamics to maximize your success.

Original Post https://akhan.me/fuel-before-focus/