C1 – Find and fix your sources of mental energy loss

P1.express is a draft now. Please submit your comments in the comment section below or email them to us: info@omimo.org
The review stage ends on 2025-11-01.

What

Once a week, stop and check to see how you’ve invested your time and attention during the week, what your primary sources of mental energy loss were, and how you can fix them next week.

For example, a common source of mental energy loss for many people is unnecessary, poorly managed meetings. Some sources may be simpler; for example, spending time on an aspect of business that has not been generating enough value for a long time. On the other hand, some sources may be more complicated, such as toxic environments, people, and websites. This activity is where you identify such problems and add tasks for fixing them.

Why

What would be considered great work or achievement for one person might be a complete loss for you because you have different goals, opportunities, and environments. For example, a ten-hour activity that has earned you 100 units of money is probably great if you usually earn 10 units of money for that amount of time, but a disaster if you normally earn 1,000.

This means that energy loss is a relative concept that exists for everyone. Anyone can benefit from spotting their own energy losses and fixing them. The energy you save this way can be spent on work, growth, pleasure, family, or anything else.

How

Create a recurring task for this activity. It’s common to do this activity at the end of the week to match the organic cycles of work and life; however, you can do it any other day during the week if you prefer.

Besides checking the tasks you’ve finished during the week, also review those you’ve canceled, because canceling itself needs effort and potentially adds relative value. Moreover, remember that some sources of energy loss may not be directly reflected in your closed tasks; for example, procrastination, task switching, environmental interruptions, perfectionism, and sloppiness. To make sure you won’t forget to check all the sources, create a checklist for it in your recurring task, and try to improve it when possible.

Loss of energy is a broad concept. Depending on your world view and way of life, it can cover many related losses such as those of time, money, reputation, and relationships. Make sure you identify and add every form of energy loss that matters to you to your checklist.

Fixing a source of energy loss needs effort, and what you get from it should justify the effort you put into it. So, be careful not to waste your time on attempting to fix small losses, and focus on the major ones instead.

Create a task for solving each source of major energy loss you identify. It’s okay if you can’t think of any solutions right away; just postpone the task to a few days later and find the solution then.

Common pitfalls

Be careful how you describe problems, because the way you describe them may include an implied solution, which would limit your options. This concept is called anchoring bias. Keep the problem as pure as possible, identify multiple potential solutions, and then select the best.

Some sources of mental energy loss may be very common in your environment or may have been with you for many years. Some of them are even promoted as desirable things by those who sell related products and services. That makes it harder to identify them as sources of energy loss. Using critical thinking and spending enough time in this activity can help you in finding them.

Some sources relate to bad habits and addictions, from smoking to drugs, or even worse, social media! Fixing them lowers your energy in the short term but helps you in the long term. To manage it well, don’t fix them when you should be working on something sensitive, and never fix multiple bad habits at the same time, because that will drain you too much.

Finding solutions for some sources of energy loss is not easy and needs creativity and experience. Don’t limit yourself to doing it alone, but also search online for potential solutions, talk to friends and colleagues, discuss it with experts in that domain, etc.