Hacking Life – Energy Drivers

Over the past few months, one of my ‘know yourself’ projects have been to understand the impact of – Food, Sleep, Play, Work, Initiative-Work on my energy and happiness. By Initiative-Work, I refer to everything I do beyond being an Associate at a-connect.

And I’ve realized the priorities are as follows –

1. Sleep
2. Work
3. Play
4. Initiative-Work
5. Food

Now, this means a few things:

– Food doesn’t impact my happiness as much as I thought. As a result, I find myself finding a combination (eg: a couple of lunch places I like) that works and sticking to it. Not much variety required. No frills.

– As a result of this, one of my bigger challenges during the day is to make sure I eat (!). Once I get into a state of ‘flow’, I often forget to eat for long periods/postpone it and that’s resulted in more than a fair share of stomach trouble! As a result, I have alarms on my phone every 4 hours..

– Initiative-Work is very important to my happiness and keeps me going. However, I find I’m less driven if I’m not feeling ‘utilized’ at work. Much less driven actually.

– Play and exercise has a direct impact on all additional initiatives. Most of my ideas pop up during my early morning Hour of Power.

– But the biggest revelation of them all has been the importance of sleep to my energy. I have been pushing myself to sleep 8 hours for over a year. And, now my Sleep Cycle alarm clock confirms an average of 7hrs 30 mins of sleep.  The difference between a sleep deprived day and a fully rested one is pretty stark – during the former, the period following lunch in particular is less productive, I need to listen to high octane music and getting through some parts of the day can feel like a chore while during the latter, I feel myself literally powering through. And of course, I have numbers to back this up.

Essentially, this little experiment has been exciting as I’m beginning to understand what makes me tick. The results have led to conscious choices very regularly. For example, I was back home late last night and had 2 choices – sleep 6 hours, do my exercise and go to work or sleep 8 hours and go to work. And I made an informed choice. And of course, I’m willing to bet the day has been far more productive and happier than the alternative would have been.

What is also cool is that each person has their own ‘drives’. I know friends who don’t value sleep as much as I do and others who don’t value work (;)).

What are your energy drivers?