The Shift in Energy That Changed How I Work and Live

You don’t need better time management, you need a better relationship with your energy.

I remember too many days in former roles sitting at my desk, every hour accounted for, going through the motions while waiting for the clock to strike 5 o'clock.

It felt depleting and numb with glimmers of joy and excitement spread thinly throughout certain moments.

Absolutely nothing had gone wrong and I was not in dire straits. I had been productive, responsive, on top of everything that was expected of me. From the outside, you may say it should have felt satisfying. But it didn’t.

More days than not felt heavier than they should. At the time, I did what most of us are conditioned to do. I assumed the issue was how I was managing my time. That maybe I needed a better system, a more refined structure, a way to move through my responsibilities with greater efficiency and control.

So I looked for ways to optimize. I reorganized my days, tightened my approach, became even more disciplined about how I was spending my time.

But the feeling didn’t go away as I became more rigid. In fact that rigidity was the last thing I needed, how ironic that I thought tightening the grip was the way to create lasting, positive change.

Pushing harder, controlling more was only making things worse. What I couldn’t see then is that I wasn’t struggling with time management. I was disconnected from how I was using my energy within the time I had. And that distinction changes everything.

Time moves forward whether we’re intentional with it or not. It doesn’t expand because we need more of it, and it doesn’t contract when we feel overwhelmed. It simply continues.

Energy, on the other hand, is shaped moment by moment by what we give our attention to, what we agree to carry, what we suppress, and what we allow ourselves to notice.

When I began to look at my days through that lens, the questions I asked myself started to shift. I became less focused on how to squeeze more in, and more aware of what everything I had already committed to was asking of me. I started to notice which parts of my day left me feeling clear and present, and which ones left me feeling drained in ways that weren’t immediately obvious.

That awareness brought a level of honesty that was difficult at first, but necessary. Because many of the things that were siphoning my energy weren’t clearly wrong. They were simply no longer aligned with how I wanted to live and work.

And that’s where most people stay stuck. Their situations aren't obviously unsustainable, rather they're just sustainable enough to continue on.

Over time, I also began to see more clearly the difference between what I now call routines and rituals. Not as a concept, but as something I could feel in real time.

There were things I did because they were part of the structure of my day, and there were things I chose because I knew they would bring me back to center. The difference between the two wasn’t visible on my calendar, but it was unmistakable in my experience of the day.

That realization reshaped how I think about productivity altogether.

Because the question is not simply whether you can do something. It’s whether it fits into your life in a way that is sustainable, energizing, and true to who you are.

You can have a calendar that works perfectly on paper and still feel disconnected inside of it. You can meet every expectation and still feel like something is missing. That’s not a failure of discipline. It’s a signal that something deeper is asking for your attention.

And this is why the pause matters not as something you earn once everything else is done, but as something that allows you to actually be present for what you’re doing in the first place.

A full schedule is not the same as a full life. And the shift that changes that is not found in better time management. It comes from a more honest relationship with your energy: how you’re using it, what you’re giving it to, and what you might be ready to reclaim.

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If you sit with anything this week, let it be this:

Where is your energy going and is it going where you want it to?

That question has a way of revealing more than we expect.

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If this is something you’re exploring in your own life, I’ve created a few resources to support you, including the Mastering Your Mindset guidebook and The Alignment Method, a self-guided course available on my website. And if you’re thinking about how this work shows up more broadly within your team or organization, let's connect.

I Can Fit That In, was selected by J.P. Morgan for it's NextList 2026, recognizing standout books sparking big thinking in an era of transformation. Get your copy today wherever books are sold!