Energy Management — Staying productive without burning out

You probably know someone who lives the “perfect” life.

From grade school to college to the workplace, they’ve always been the top student, the top employee, and the top performer. They go to the best schools, work the most prestigious jobs, win awards in competitions or sports, have lots of interesting hobbies, have a vibrant social life, and have a wonderful significant other. They always seem to have endless energy.

At the same time, you hear all these stories of burned-out geniuses or gifted kids. They are smart but struggle in school and workplaces, have poor mental and physical health, and have little social or dating life. What makes the difference? It’s not that they are less intelligent or hardworking.

I’ve talked about time management and hard work on this blog before, but nowadays, working hard doesn't get you anywhere, even if you manage your time well. Younger people are getting poorer on average and typical milestones (first job, marriage, having kids, home ownership, etc.) are becoming harder to obtain for the average person. And it’s not that these people are working less hard than older generations.

Also, many young people today are “burning out”, “quiet quitting”, “lying flat”, or thinking hard work is not worth it at all. They feel like the juice is not worth the squeeze. I empathize with these people, and with so much negativity going around, it’s not easy to keep pushing.

But unfortunately, in this day and age, if you just work hard without a clear direction, you are going nowhere — you’re just spinning the wheel and wasting your time and energy. And with so many distractions available, most people are always exhausted.

You need to manage your energy and put it to good use. Many people can work hard — it’s not a unique skill. If you want to be more unique and thus more valuable, you have to be different.

You must work with a purpose.

Many people are working hard without a clear goal in mind. They don’t have a purpose to work towards, and are either just getting by or constantly chasing the next shiny thing (like a job promotion or raise) that society tells them to go after — they live in fear of missing out (FOMO).

It’s easy to come home from work or school and waste away the rest of your day on electronics and substances, go to sleep, then rinse and repeat. Days turn into months and years, and an entire lifetime flies by.

You need to figure out what you want in life and work towards it. So imagine who you want to be in the future. What would you have so that you’d be proud of yourself? And don’t let societal standards define that.

Society always tells you that you need this this and that. The chase or grind is never-ending — there is always a higher salary, job title, or new shiny toy to work towards. This is what the capitalist system wants — they want you to be a rat running on the hamster wheel constantly chasing the next thing, and this is what drives the system.

Greed is infinite, and soon, giving the entire world to you won’t be enough. Our time and mental capacity are limited, and you simply can’t have it all in your life — you need to prioritize. You need to have a point where you say “It is enough”, whether that is money or fame. Be grateful and content with what you have, and use that for a greater purpose (like helping the world).

So don’t get stuck running the rat race. It’s an easy way to live an unfulfilling life and burn out. If you want to be fulfilled and stay motivated, you need to have an inner/higher purpose driving your work. Don’t be sucked into the hole of meaninglessness.

However, just working with a purpose is still not enough. Working hard without a strategy leads to a lot of wasted time and effort.

So you must work smart.

You probably heard about the 80–20 rule, aka the Pareto Principle — 80% of the results are produced by 20% of the effort. You need to focus on getting that 20% right.

I see too many people working towards the wrong objectives. They work really hard and sink countless hours into their work, but it doesn’t change the outcome. Unfortunately, that outcome has been mostly decided as soon as they picked the wrong objectives at the beginning.

In this day and age, just working hard won’t set you apart from the average person — Many people can work hard. The average person is miserable, and in many parts of the world, especially major cities, you need to make a top 10% or 5% income just to be able to live comfortably and raise a family. You need to work smart to set yourself apart. What you work on is more important than how hard you work.

Working smart is really just optimization — putting in the least effort that results in the most gains (as long as it’s ethical of course). Many smart people are lazy, but that may be a good thing — they constantly think about how something can be done more easily. It’s a problem-solving, or engineering mentality.

You see all these very successful people juggling multiple things at once (jobs, side projects, investments, family, etc.). Working smart allows you to be efficient and accomplish more than you think you can. When you move up in life and take on more responsibilities, being efficient is a must.

You need to focus on the right things and define good goals that will produce the most results with the least effort. Prioritize what is important in your life, and arrange your time and efforts to focus on these important aspects. For instance, if you want to make money, you have to pick a career path that will get you there quicker, whether you like it or not.

But setting big goals can be daunting, and many people don’t have the vision and patience to work years and decades towards a singular goal.

So set shorter-term goals.

Instead of treating a marathon like a marathon, treat it as a series of short sprints. You break your goals down into smaller, actionable items.

Many people today have short attention spans, and when they don’t achieve something right away, they quickly lose motivation and “burn out”.

Even for a given day, you should have a checklist of things you want to accomplish. Extend that to the week, month, and year. It shouldn’t be a long list — focus on 2–3 main goals you want to achieve. Having too many goals will quickly make you feel overwhelmed and subsequently burn out — again, you need to prioritize what is important and set your goals accordingly.

On the other hand, you need to be prepared for opportunities. When you recognize a good opportunity is here, you need to sprint for it. They don’t come around often, and some opportunities can truly change your life (like a dream job, business idea, or romantic relationship). Opportunities will only go to those who are prepared for it, and it won’t always be available.

However, in the end, don’t abandon your grand vision. Sure, things can change over time, and what you want in life can also change, but you should adjust your day-to-day accordingly.

Yet, it is easy to get caught up in the race and chase the goals and results.

Don’t be too attached to the results.

Instead, focus on the process and the journey, and delay your gratification.

If you don’t succeed in a goal, so be it, keep trying or move on. It’s not the end of the world. Looking back, there were many things I could not achieve, and years later, none of those failures were truly devastating.

Treat every failure as a lesson. You need it to grow. Failures are not setbacks — they are a part of the journey to success — so embrace it. The real failure is inaction or being unwilling to try because you’re scared of failing.

And as I said countless times, comparison is the thief of joy. Doesn’t matter how good you think you have it, there is always somebody doing better, and there is always some next thing to work towards — it’s a neverending rat race. Greed is infinite, and you need to pick what to prioritize and how to spend your time and energy. There is always something you’re missing out on.

And more importantly, you need to delay gratification. If you are too eager to see the results, you often do a hasty job and it usually doesn’t end well. Or it becomes a pursuit of dopamine over enjoying the process, and that’s a quick way to become addicted or burned out.

But after all, this blog post is about energy management and being productive with your energy, so how can you make that happen?

You need to develop systems that make you productive.

It could be a routine, a habit, a to-do list, or a set of rules. These systems allow you to be productive on autopilot. You’re being productive without putting in too much effort and mental bandwidth, and you’re less likely to be wasting your time being distracted.

Every day, week, or month becomes a set of activities you follow through — whether that’s working, studying, exercising, eating, or even relaxing. You don’t look at your phone or play video games during certain hours. Or you must go to the gym on these days of the week.

You should first get the basics down — getting 8 hours of sleep, eating healthy, drinking enough water, breathing fresh air, and spending at least 30 minutes outdoors and exercising every day. And staying away from distractions (smartphones, social media, junk food, pornography, alcohol/drugs, etc.), at least for certain times of the day or week.

Trust me, having a healthy habit or routine is better than any supplement or online guru out there. It gives your body fuel and allows your physical and mental energy to recharge so you can focus on important things.

These systems also remove decision fatigue as you know what you need to do at a given time, and it prepares your mind for what’s coming up next. This makes it easier to start the activity and juggle multiple things quickly without feeling overwhelmed.

When you’re as busy as I am, it’s easy to forget things. With the abundance of information and distractions today, it is very easy to get caught up in random thoughts — last-in-first-out (LIFO), and things quickly add up. Having these systems allows you to focus on what is important and do the things that really matter to your objectives.

And without these systems, with the amount of distractions and instant gratifications readily available to everyone today, it is easy to waste hours each day scrolling on social media or watching YouTube and Netflix. It’s easy to fill your void if you don’t have a goal or a purpose to work towards.

Sure, I talked a lot about delayed gratification, but what is the point of life if you just keep working and making sacrifices until you die?

You need to enjoy life and have a work-life balance.

This is common sense, and studies have shown that the most productive people are the “work hard, play hard” types, not the workaholics who put almost all of their waking hours into their work. Productivity falls off a cliff after about eight hours a day.

However, suppose you really want to be in the top 10%, 5% or 1% of income level and wealth (which, unfortunately, is what it takes to live a comfortable lifestyle and raise a family in major cities nowadays unless you come from a privileged background). In that case, you need to put in the effort and make sacrifices to get there. Be prepared to grind for a decade plus.

The 9–5 is a dream for many. Many working towards being exceptional, especially in competitive and high-paying fields (competitive sports, performing arts, medicine, banking, entrepreneurship, tech startups, etc.), are working much longer than average. And unfortunately, that means sacrificing your work-life balance for now to trade for more freedom in the future.

However, you can still have a work-life balance, but after you’ve achieved that level of wealth and financial security. Even when you are grinding, you can take the time out and do things you enjoy, albeit to a lesser degree.

You can also try doing different things, even if it’s the same within the same project or the same line of work. Do some reading instead of working on your code. Do some housework between your work calls.

Our brains thrive on different experiences and context-switching, and doing the same things over and over again will bore you out quickly. You can still be productive this way, but also, don’t be too distracted — stay on your main objectives, and actually try to take time off work to do something you enjoy, rather than trying to grind 24/7.

Society has a burnout problem right now — Since the pandemic, rates of depression, anxiety, and burnout have skyrocketed, and I’ve witnessed the same in my peers. Many youths are dropping out of school and work altogether while not contributing to society. People are socializing and dating less as well.

As I’ll talk about in a future blog post, we have an addiction problem in society with the flood of cheap dopamine (electronics, social media, video games, junk food, porn, etc.), and this addiction is causing a lot of mental and developmental issues in younger generations today.

People no longer have as much time, mental bandwidth, energy, and stamina to do productive things and self-improve when distractions are so readily available.

I’ve once been burned out too after being a “gifted kid” growing up, and almost dropped out of university. But after rediscovering my purpose through religion, and following the steps above, I was able to live a much more fulfilling life — building a good career, cultivating meaningful friendships and relationships, as well as developing productive hobbies.