Do you suffer necessary evils?

Take control of the stuff sapping your energy

Gallup conducted a workplace poll revealing that twenty percent of employees put in more than sixty hours a week, and nearly fifty percent of employees clock in at least fifty hours.

Hooray. Americans are finally number one at something again.

And yet, multiple psychological studies have shown that humans can only concentrate for about half of that amount of time, and only do real work for about a third of that amount of time.

As usual, that’s capitalism for you. It only works when more and more is being produced, aka, more and more hours being put in.

This research is compelling, and some organizations are taking measures to be more accommodating to their teams with fewer hours. But most are missing the big picture.

The type of energy we bring to our workplace is far more valuable than the number of hours we work there.

Each individual carries their own psychic ecology and their own energy signature, everywhere they go. When we learn to manage that energy skillfully, not to mention, have compassion for other people’s energy too, we all get more done in less time, more sustainably.

The number of hours we work becomes irrelevant.

Something that’s been helpful for me is viewing energy as a spectrum. Viewing it as a distribution of different approaches we can take when we show up each day. Here are several questions to help you figure out where you might index on that energetic range.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Do you suffer necessary evils, or do you take control of the stuff sapping your energy?