energy-management
refoundai/lenny-skills
Manage energy for sustained performance by identifying what drains vs energizes you and scheduling for impact.
What is energy-management?
Help users optimize their energy levels rather than just their time to avoid burnout and increase productivity. Use this when someone is burned out, trying to find their zone of genius, scheduling work strategically, or identifying what activities drain versus energize them.
- Diagnose current energy state by identifying draining vs energizing activities
- Audit calendar and categorize time by energy impact to find your zone of genius
- Design work rhythms that protect and regenerate energy over time
- Distinguish between mental, emotional, and task-based energy drivers
- Track post-activity energy signals to guide delegation and career decisions
How to install energy-management
npx skills add https://github.com/refoundai/lenny-skills --skill energy-managementHow to use energy-management
- 1.Ask the user what activities give them energy after completing them
- 2.Identify what's currently on their calendar that they're dreading or that drains them
- 3.Help them categorize their work into energy buckets (energizing, neutral, draining)
- 4.Isolate their zone of genius work and brainstorm what could be delegated
- 5.Create a sustainable schedule that protects time for energizing work and includes recovery
Use cases
- Help someone feeling burned out restructure their week to include more energizing work
- Guide a manager to identify which tasks they should delegate to create space for high-impact work
- Audit a calendar to find patterns of back-to-back draining meetings and create recovery time
- Support someone discovering their superpowers by tracking which activities generate vs deplete energy
- Design sustainable work rhythms that balance high-energy and recovery activities
- Product leaders and managers seeking sustainable productivity
- Anyone experiencing burnout or energy depletion
- People trying to identify and focus on their zone of genius
- Teams optimizing for long-term performance over short-term output
energy-management FAQ
Managing time focuses on fitting tasks into calendar slots efficiently. Managing energy recognizes that some tasks energize you while others deplete you, and optimizes for sustained performance by spending more time on energizing work and delegating or batching draining tasks.
Pay close attention to how you feel after activities and interactions. Track whether you gain or lose energy from meetings, tasks, and projects. Look for patterns—certain types of work, people, or contexts consistently energize or drain you.
Effective delegation matches tasks to people's superpowers. Work that drains you may energize someone else. By delegating draining tasks and focusing on your zone of genius, you create space for higher-impact work while potentially energizing others.
Start by auditing your calendar to find even small pockets of energizing work. Expand those incrementally. Identify which draining tasks could be delegated, batched, or eliminated. If the role is fundamentally misaligned with your superpowers, it may signal a need for role redesign or career change.
Energy management actually improves deadline performance. Working in your zone of genius generates momentum and higher quality output. Schedule demanding work during your peak energy times and protect recovery periods to sustain performance through crunch periods.
Full instructions (SKILL.md)
Source of truth, from refoundai/lenny-skills.
name: energy-management description: Help users manage their energy for sustained performance. Use when someone is feeling burned out, trying to find their zone of genius, scheduling for productivity, or identifying what drains vs energizes them.
Energy Management
Help the user manage their energy for sustained performance using frameworks from 5 product leaders who have optimized their personal productivity and avoided burnout.
How to Help
When the user asks for help with energy management:
- Diagnose the current state - Help them identify what's draining vs energizing them
- Audit their calendar - Review how they're spending time and categorize by energy impact
- Design for their superpowers - Help them spend more time in their zone of genius
- Create sustainable rhythms - Build routines that protect energy over time
Core Principles
Schedule for energy, not just time
Anneka Gupta: "Being able to manage my energy levels and figuring out how to schedule my time for my energy has really allowed me also to figure out how to have that abundant mindset in all situations." Manage mental and emotional energy, not just calendar slots.
Identify energy drivers and drains
Bob Moesta: "Think of moments where you actually go into a situation and you get energy from it. At the same time, those moments where you go in and you get the life sucked out of you - that's an experience." Use this framework to identify what to pursue and what to delegate.
Audit your calendar by energy impact
Claire Vo: "Categorize the way you're spending your time into those buckets, and then put the bottom buckets away. Just focus on that top bucket and go, 'How can I be here more?'" Find your 'zone of genius' work and delegate energy-zapping tasks.
Use superpowers to create energy
Donna Lichaw: "If you subscribe to this idea of managing your energy, not your time, this will help you do that. If you're using your superpowers, you will have more energy." Working in your strengths generates energy rather than depleting it.
Pay attention to post-activity energy
Paul Millerd: "Pay really close attention to what gives you energy after you do the thing. Say you have a call. Did that give you energy or did that sap you of energy?" Track what energizes vs saps you after every interaction or task to guide career direction.
Questions to Help Users
- "What activities give you energy after you do them?"
- "What's on your calendar this week that you're dreading?"
- "If you categorized your work by energy impact, what would be in the 'zone of genius' bucket?"
- "Are you using your superpowers regularly, or mostly doing things that drain you?"
- "What could you delegate to create space for energy-giving work?"
Common Mistakes to Flag
- Ignoring energy signals - Pushing through energy drains without addressing the root cause
- Optimizing only for time - Filling calendars efficiently without considering energy impact
- Avoiding delegation - Holding onto draining tasks because 'it's faster if I do it'
- No recovery time - Scheduling back-to-back draining activities without breaks
- Treating all tasks equally - Not distinguishing between work that energizes vs depletes
Deep Dive
For all 5 insights from 5 guests, see references/guest-insights.md
Related Skills
- Running Effective 1:1s
- Having Difficult Conversations
- Delegating Work
- Managing Up
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