“Your energy is currency. Spend it well. Invest it wisely. Use it Intentionally, consistently, and by your own design.” — Adrienne Bosh

“Whatever excites you, go do it. Whatever drains you, stop doing it.” — Derek Sivers

＝能量管理＝精力管理

比 時間管理 更重要！

Don’t manage your time, manage your energy.

David Hawkins’ Levels of Consciousness（情緒能量表）

There’s no such thing as working too hard. There’s just being under rested. — Don’t focus on energy output (working too hard). Focus on energy production (recharging activities).

Willpower Is Not A Limited Resource & Ego-depletion Is A Myth

• After a particularly grueling day, I’d sit on the couch and veg for hours, doing my version of “Netflix and chill,” which meant keeping company with a pint of ice cream. Even though I knew that eating ice cream and sitting for a long time were probably bad ideas, I told myself that relaxation was my well-deserved reward for working so hard.
• Psychological researchers have a name for this phenomenon: it’s called “Ego Depletion.” The theory is that willpower is connected to a limited reserve of mental energy, and once you run out of that energy, you’re more likely to lose self-control.
• However, recent studies suggest we’ve misunderstood willpower, debunking the theory of ego depletion.
  • [@jobEgoDepletionIt2010]
    • People who viewed the capacity for self-control as not limited did not show diminished self-control after a depleting experience.
    • …reduced self-control after a depleting task or during demanding periods may reflect people’s beliefs about the availability of willpower rather than true resource depletion.
  • [@jobBeliefsWillpowerDetermine2013]
    • …following a demanding task, only people who view willpower as limited and easily depleted (a limited resource theory) exhibited improved self-control after sugar consumption.
    • In contrast, people who view willpower as plentiful (unlimited) showed no benefits from glucose—they exhibited high levels of self-control performance with or without sugar boosts.
• Here’s the key point: Simply believing that we’re “spent” or mentally drained can create a sense of fatigue, a phenomenon linked to the nocebo effect. Clinging to / Holding onto the idea that willpower is a finite resource can be harmful/detrimental, making us more likely to lose self-control and make poor decisions. In reality, ego depletion is driven by self-defeating thoughts, rather than any biological limitation. It’s not the sugar in the lemonade that sustains mental stamina—it’s the placebo effect in action. ¹
• Moreover, willpower functions like an emotion. Just as we don’t “run out” of joy or anger, willpower rises and falls depending on what’s happening to us and how we feel.
  • If mental energy behaves like an emotion rather than fuel in a tank, it can be managed and harnessed accordingly: When faced with a difficult task, it’s more productive and healthy to view a lack of motivation as temporary, rather than assuming we’re spent/drained and need a break.

The Energy Razor

• If you don’t schedule actions that produce energy, assume they’ll never happen.
• If you don’t monitor actions that drain energy, assume they’ll keep expanding.

My ability to do any serious mathematics fluctuates greatly from day to day; sometimes I can think hard on a problem for an hour, other times I feel ready to type up the full details of a sketch that I or my coauthors already wrote, and other times I only feel qualified to respond to email and do errands, or just to take a walk or even a nap. I find it very helpful to organise my time to match this fluctuation: for instance, if I have a free afternoon, and feel inspired to do so, I might close my office door, shut off the internet, and begin typing on a languishing paper; or if not, I go and work on a week’s worth of email, referee a paper, write a blog article, or whatever else seems suited to my current levels of energy and enthusiasm.

“The Energy Investment Portfolio” by Ali Abdaal

• Dream Investments: Things that you want to do at some point, but probably not right now; can be as long as you like.
• Active Investments: Things that you want to work on right now (e.g., this week); should be limited (~5) based on how much time and energy you’ve got to invest in them.

The Power Law for Energy Management

≈ 冪律

舉例來說，你可以將第 n 個最重要的主題的關注度分配為 $(m-1)/m^n$，其中 m > 1。這裡的 m 代表注意力分配的集中程度：當 m 越大 時，注意力會更加集中在前幾個主題上，後面主題的比重會迅速下降；反之，當 m 越接近 1 時，注意力的分配會較為平均。

換句話說，m 控制了你專注的「銳利度」— 它越大，你越聚焦於最重要的少數關鍵項目；它越小，你越傾向於在多個主題之間平均投入。

當然，你無法如此精確地分配你的注意力，但這個公式至少提供了一種在有限資源下進行合理取捨的靈感。