Week 3: Energy Inventory

Where Your Time Actually Goes vs. Where You Want It to Go

Talking about invisible leaks reminds me of the day last year that I learned how to change a tire. Turns out that learning is my biggest energizer.

I did something really annoying last week. I tracked every hour of my day for five days. Not just the calendar appointments, but the invisible time-sucks. The 20 minutes scrolling before I got out of bed. The hour “quickly checking” email that turned into three. The mental energy spent worrying about conversations that never happened.

By Wednesday, I wanted to quit the experiment. Not because it was hard, but because I felt kind of called out.

I spent 12 hours that week on things that mattered deeply to me. And 31 hours on things that... didn’t. Things I’m good at. Things people expect from me. Things that keep the machine running. But not things that actually fill my cup or move my work forward.

The Invisible Leaks

Last week, we mapped where we’re authentic versus where we’re performing. This week, we’re following the money trail: where is our actual energy going?

My PT asked me last week if I had enough time to do my PT exercises. I laughed because, of course, I have 20 minutes a day for them. But am I doing them? Not really. Why? Because lots of less important things are stealing that time. So many of us feel like we don’t have enough time or energy for what matters. But the truth is usually messier. We’re spending our finite resources on things that don’t deserve them, and we’re so used to it that we don’t even notice anymore.

It’s not that we need more hours in the day. It’s that we need to stop bleeding energy into things that don’t energize us back.

It’s like a bank account. (Note: I owe an update on what I’ve learned by giving both of my daughters checking accounts this year, but more on that another day.) Every activity either makes a deposit or a withdrawal. Some activities are investments that create compound returns. They might take energy initially, but they leave us MORE energized than when we started. Other activities are pure withdrawals. They cost us, and we get nothing back.

The women who are thriving in midlife? They’ve gotten ruthless about their energy budget. They know exactly what costs them and what pays them back. And they’ve made the hard calls about where they’re willing to spend.

Why This Matters for 2026

We can’t build a bold new year on exhausted reserves.

If we want to enter 2026 with actual capacity for what we’re planning - whether that’s launching something new, pivoting careers, finally writing that book, or just having energy left at the end of the day- we need to know where our energy is currently going and make strategic decisions about where it should go instead.

This isn’t about optimizing every minute. It’s about getting honest about the gap between how we’re spending your finite resources and how we actually want to spend them.

This Week’s Reflection: Your Energy Audit