What I’ve Learned In One Minute…

Hi Friends,

Why is it that sometimes when you want to do work, you just can't focus, but if someone asked you to go run a 10k, you'd do it in an instant? Or that some days you are absolutely dragging yourself to the gym, but if someone gave you a bit more time in the library, you'd happily work on your essay for another three hours? Or you're having a conversation with one of your dearest friends, someone you haven't seen in months, and you can't seem to bring yourself to listen to them say another word over a cup of coffee?

If you're anything like me, you are not alone. I've been wondering about this for months and I'm still working on developing the idea further. But I wanted to share something I've been sitting with, a concept I'm calling Daily Energy Maintenance, or DEM, and how understanding it has started to change the way I move through my days.​

What is Daily Energy Maintenance?

DEM is simply the understanding that your body has an overall battery for the day, and within that battery, different types of energy exist for different types of tasks. It is also understanding what gives that energy back and what quietly takes it away before you even get to use it.

The idea is not that you have one big tank that runs out by the end of the day. It is more that you have several smaller tanks, each one feeding a different part of how you show up, whether that is at your desk, in the gym, in a conversation, or even in a quiet moment with yourself. And the goal, at least for me, has been to understand how to use what I have each day in the most intentional way possible.

The Types of Energy We Have Each Day

I started noticing this when I began asking myself why I could push through a hard workout but couldn't sit down and write a paragraph straight after. Or why some days I could read for hours but the idea of going to the gym felt genuinely impossible. It did not make sense to me at first because I felt like energy was just energy. But I started to realise that what I was experiencing was not laziness or inconsistency. It was just that different tasks were pulling from very different places inside me.

So I started mapping them out.

1. Executive Energy

This is the energy behind your agency. The energy you need to oversee your life, to plan, to make decisions, to think about what needs to happen and in what order. When this one is present, you feel like you are the one directing your day. When it is low, everything becomes reactive. You are no longer choosing how to spend yourself, you are just responding to whatever is in front of you. I have had days where I could still sit and do the work but could not for the life of me figure out what to do first. That is executive energy running on empty. And I think it is also the energy that inspires agency in the first place, the sense that you have ownership over your own life and how you move through it.

2. Willpower and Discipline Energy

If executive energy is what gives you the vision, willpower and discipline energy is what gives you the legs. It is the energy to do the thing even when everything in you is resisting. And what makes this one distinct from every other tank on this list is that it is always depleting. No matter how well your day goes, no matter how rested you are, this one will always be lower by the end of the day than it was at the start. It is the one tank that does not get a break. Which is also why I think it is the one that rewards training the most. The more you practise using it, the more capacity it builds over time.

3. Focused Energy

This is the energy required to go deep on a single demanding task and stay there. Writing a research assignment, working through a complex problem, processing something that requires real analytical effort. It is not just about sitting down. It is about being able to actually engage with the thing in front of you at the level it is asking of you. This one tends to be the most expensive for me and also the first to go when the day has already been full.

4. Creative Energy

This one sits somewhere slightly different to focused energy, even though they can look similar from the outside. Writing something personal, brainstorming, making something from scratch. On days where my focused energy is completely gone, I have sometimes found I can still do something creative. And on other days the opposite is true. They draw from a similar place but they are not the same tank.

5. Physical Energy

This is the energy you need to actually move your body and do it well. And I want to be specific here because there is a difference between the discipline to get yourself to the gym and the energy to actually be present in the workout once you are there. You can have one without the other. I have shown up to sessions before where my body was there but nothing else was, and I have felt that difference clearly.

6. Learning Energy

The energy to take in new information for the first time and actually absorb it. Watching a lecture, listening carefully, trying to genuinely understand something rather than just sit in front of it. When this energy is low, everything becomes passive. I will watch an entire video and retain almost nothing. I have started to notice that the best way I can tell whether this energy is present is whether I can immediately recall what I just took in, in the moment, before it fades.

7. Social Energy

This is the energy to show up in a room and give yourself to the people in it. To be engaging, to make plans, to bring energy to others around you, to be the person who makes everyone feel seen and included. It is outward and expansive. I have days where this comes naturally and days where the idea of being around a group of people, even people I love, feels like it is asking something of me that I simply do not have available.

8. Emotional Energy

This one is different to social energy even though they can feel similar. Emotional energy is the energy to go deeper with one person. To listen properly, to be vulnerable, to have a real conversation that requires you to be fully human and present. I have sat with people I genuinely love and felt myself unable to give them the attention they deserved. That is not a character flaw. It is just that tank running low. And recognising that has made me a lot more honest with myself about when I am actually available for the people around me.

9. Spiritual Energy

The energy I need to spend time with God in a way that feels like real connection rather than obligation. I have had mornings where I open my Bible and feel completely refreshed afterwards, ready for whatever the day holds. And I have had others where I felt like I could not hear anything at all, like I was going through the motions without knowing why. I am still sitting with why that shift happens. But I think it belongs here, in the same conversation as everything else.

Your list might look different to mine. You might have more tanks or fewer. But writing them out lets you see clearly where your energy is actually going each day and what is quietly being asked of you before you have even decided how to spend it.

DEM Rechargers

Not everything in your day takes from you. Some things give back. And I think understanding what genuinely restores you is just as important as understanding what you are spending. These are the ones I have found matter most.

1. Sleep

Sleep is the foundation of everything else on this list. But what I have come to understand is that it is not just general restoration. Sleep is the only recharger I have found that genuinely restores executive energy and willpower energy. Those two tanks, the ones that give you agency and the capacity to follow through, are almost entirely dependent on how well you slept the night before. When sleep is poor, you do not just feel tired. You become reactive. You stop directing your day and start just responding to it. Everything becomes harder to manage, not because the tasks changed, but because the part of you that oversees everything is running on almost nothing.

2. Environment

Where you are shapes what you are able to do there. I have noticed that being in the right space does not just make a task more convenient, it actually lifts your energy for that specific type of work. The library does something to my focused energy that my bedroom simply cannot replicate. The gym does something to my physical energy that no amount of motivation at home quite matches. Even being outside, away from screens and noise, has a way of resetting something that is difficult to name but very easy to feel. Environment is not just a backdrop. It is either working for you or against you.

3. Exercise

This one is interesting because it sits on both sides of the conversation. Exercise is a type of energy you spend, physical energy specifically, but it is also one of the most powerful rechargers I have found for everything else. When I run a 5k in the morning I come back feeling like the whole day is possible. There is something about having already done something hard before most people are awake that gives me a kind of momentum I cannot manufacture any other way. And even at 6pm, after a long and taxing day, I have found that finishing a workout sends me home feeling like I accomplished something real. It makes going to bed early feel earned rather than forced. Which means better sleep. Which means a better next day. The cycle runs in both directions and I think that is what makes exercise so uniquely valuable within DEM.

4. Prayer and Stillness

This one works differently to everything else on this list. It is not a quick fix. The restoration it offers is not always immediately obvious and some days it does not feel like much at all. But I have come to see it as a long arc recharger. Intentionally being still, talking to God, removing myself from the noise of everything I am trying to manage, brings me back to a centre I did not realise I had drifted from. It quiets the mental traffic. And over time, not just day to day but week to week and month to month, the effect it has on how I carry myself and how I show up is significant. It is probably the recharger whose absence I notice most slowly and whose presence I am most grateful for.

5. Solitude and Doing Nothing

There is a difference between rest and solitude. Solitude is intentional. It is choosing to be alone with no input, no content, no stimulation, just yourself and whatever comes up in the quiet. I have found that without it, accessing executive energy becomes almost impossible. That sense of agency, of feeling like you are the one directing your life, needs silence to develop. You cannot hear yourself think when you are always surrounded by noise or other people's energy. But I have also noticed that too much solitude carries its own cost. When I spend too long alone, something in my social and emotional energy quietly stiffens. I become less naturally present with people, less able to access what I am feeling internally, almost as if I have been sitting with one emotional frequency for so long that I forget how to move between them. Solitude restores but it also needs to be balanced.

6. Music

Music is context dependent and I think that is the most honest way to put it. The right playlist in the gym does something real for my physical energy. It lifts the session in a way that silence cannot. But that same energy in the wrong context, a hip hop album on while I am trying to write something that requires focus, actively takes from me rather than giving. Music moves energy. Whether it moves it in the right direction depends entirely on what you are trying to do and what you choose to put on.

7. Food and Nutrition

What you eat shapes how much energy you have and what type of tasks you can actually sustain throughout the day. I have explored this in much more depth in a previous issue of WILIOM, which I will link here, but the short version is that food is not just fuel in a general sense. It affects specific tanks. The wrong meal at the wrong time can make focused energy almost inaccessible and the right one can extend it significantly. It is worth paying attention to.

DEM Drainers

Just as some things restore your energy, others quietly take from it before you even get to decide how to spend it. These are the ones I have had to become most honest about.

1. Doom Scrolling

This one is probably the most obvious but also the easiest to underestimate. It is not just that it wastes time. It is that it consumes your attention in a way that leaves you feeling more drained than when you started. You pick up your phone with nothing specific in mind and put it down twenty minutes later feeling vaguely worse. That is not nothing. That is energy you will not get back.

2. Negativity

Persistent negative thinking, negative environments, negative conversations. They all pull from the same place. I have noticed that when I spend too long around negativity, whether that is a conversation that went badly, a mental spiral I did not catch early enough, or just an environment that feels heavy, everything else in my day becomes harder to access. It is a slow drain but a consistent one.

3. Overconsumption of Content

There is a difference between consuming something intentionally and just consuming. Podcasts, videos, social media, music, all of it running constantly in the background. It feels passive but it is not. Your brain is still processing, still engaged, still spending something. And when you finally sit down to do something that actually requires your energy, you wonder why there is so little of it left.

4. Unresolved Conflict and Tension

This one runs quietly in the background all day. When something is unresolved with someone you care about, it does not switch off while you are trying to work or rest or be present with someone else. It sits there. And it is spending your emotional energy whether you are actively thinking about it or not. I have had days where I could not figure out why I felt so flat until I realised I was still carrying something from a conversation that had not been properly resolved.

5. Overcommitting

Saying yes to too many things means you are allocating energy on paper before the day even begins. You wake up already in deficit. And the problem with overcommitting is that it is not always obvious in the moment. Each individual yes feels manageable. It is only when you look at everything together that you realise you have promised more of yourself than you actually have available.

How to Order Your Energy in the Day

The way I have come to think about it is that willpower and discipline energy is not just another tank. It is the guide. It is the thing that tells me how to distribute everything else. And because it is always highest in the morning and always lowest by the end of the day, it has become the axis around which I try to build everything.

The Morning

My mornings are where I try to spend the energy that costs the most. Executive energy first, planning the day, seeing what needs to happen and in what order, giving myself a sense of direction before the noise begins. Then spiritual energy, time with God in the quiet before everything else starts competing for my attention. I have found that spending this time in the morning does something for the rest of my day that I cannot replicate at any other point. It is not just habit. It is that the stillness of the morning makes that kind of presence actually possible in a way that the afternoon or evening rarely does.

Then focused energy. Deep work while my discipline is still high and my mind is still fresh. Research, writing, anything that requires me to go deep and stay there. This is the window I protect most because I have learned that once it closes, it does not really reopen the same way. If you want to see what all nine tanks look like at the start of a day before anything has been spent, I have put together a rough illustration of that just above this section.

The Middle of the Day

After focused energy has been largely spent, I move into people. Social energy in the middle of the day rather than at the end. This was a shift I made after noticing that when I saved social time for the evenings, my discipline was so low by then that I would overspend it. I would stay longer than I should, give more than I had, and wake up the next day already in deficit. Moving it earlier means I actually show up for the people I care about rather than just being physically present while running on empty.

The Afternoon and Evening

Physical energy sits here. The gym, a run, movement of some kind. And what I have noticed is that this tank needs less discipline to access than almost any other. It almost does not need to be forced. Which is why I can place it later in the day without it suffering the way focused energy would if I tried to do the same. And it rewards me at the end of the day regardless of when it happens. I come home feeling like I did something real, which makes going to bed early feel earned rather than like I am giving up on the day.

Executive energy returns in the evening but in a quieter form. Not planning, not directing, just reflecting. Looking back at the day, checking whether I moved in the right direction, being still with whatever came up. It is a softer version of the morning's oversight and it helps me close the day with some intentionality rather than just letting it fade out.

What I Have Learned About the Crossovers

The thing I have had to be most honest about is that some energies do not coexist well. Focused energy and emotional or social energy in particular. When I have spent a long time in deep work, my capacity to be genuinely present with people afterwards is significantly lower than I would like it to be. I used to be hard on myself about that. Now I just try to plan around it. I do not expect myself to go from four hours of focused work directly into a meaningful conversation and show up fully for both.

And discipline after around 6 or 7pm is largely gone. Anything that requires resistance, restraint, or real decision making needs to have happened before then. Once that window closes, I try not to ask too much of myself in those areas. Not because I am giving up on the evening but because I have learned that pretending discipline is still available when it is not just leads to worse decisions and a harder next day.

Below is a rough illustration of how my energy actually shifts throughout a typical day, just to give you a sense of what this sequencing looks like in practice.

MORNING

MIDDLE OF THE DAY

EVENING/ NIGHT

Your version will look different to mine. The sequencing that works for me might not work for you at all. But I think the exercise of mapping it out, of actually looking at what you have and when you have it, is worth doing at least once.

I have only recently started paying attention to this and I am genuinely curious where it leads. DEM is still a concept I am developing and I cannot wait to see what it has to offer over time.

TL;DR

Your body does not run on one type of energy. It runs on several, each one feeding a different part of how you show up in your day. Understanding which tanks you have, what fills them, what drains them, and when each one is most available is what Daily Energy Maintenance is about. The goal is not to optimise yourself into a machine. It is just to move through your days with a bit more honesty about what you actually have to give and when.

QUICK HACKS

1. Tomorrow morning, before you open your phone or check anything, write down your nine energy types and give each one a score out of ten based on how you feel right now. Do it again at midday and again in the evening. Do that for three days and you will start to see your own pattern clearly.
2. Next time you sit down to do focused work and nothing is going in, do not push through. Stop, ask yourself which tank is actually low, and swap to a task that matches what you actually have available right now. You will get more done by working with your energy than against it.
3. If you have been saving your social time for the evenings, try moving one social plan to the middle of your day this week. Notice whether you feel more present and less drained afterwards than you normally would.
4. Before you make any significant commitment this week, pause and ask yourself which energy tank it is going to cost you and whether you actually have that available on that day. If the answer is no, either move it or say no.

WINS & LESSONS

Win: I procrastinated less this week. I am not entirely sure what shifted but something did and I noticed it. I also took this week as a deliberate step back from social media and consumption in general, just to reset. Not the best decision for the algorithm but genuinely the right one for my sanity.

Lesson: I have been learning that sleep is not just about how long you get but how consistent you are with it. I had a night this week where the total time was fine on paper but I started two hours later than usual and I felt absolutely wrecked the next day. It was a good reminder that the body keeps score in ways that the clock does not always show.

QUESTION FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

If you mapped out your nine energy tanks and tracked when each one is highest and lowest throughout your day, what would your ideal energy sequence actually look like and how different is it from how you are currently spending yourself?

Alright that's it from me.

In a bit,

Motheo