Four Levels of Mental Energy -- Do You Agree With These?
Gretchen Rubin
6x NYT Bestselling Author | Host of the "Happier with Gretchen Rubin" Podcast | Order "Life in Five Senses," out now in paperback
I love coming up with different schemes–and here’s a new one. I was thinking about the mental energy required by the different tasks of my life, and it struck me that this energy could be divided into four categories, in descending order of mental demand:
1. Contemplative energy—planning, deciding, creating, inhibiting (holding myself back from saying, doing, or thinking something), setting priorities, making transitions
2. Engagement energy—talking to other people, reading or observing with my critical faculties
3. Audience energy—watching or listening
4. Habit energy—mindlessly executing a habitual behavior
One conclusion: when I feel too tired to do anything except Level 3, I should probably be in bed.
To be satisfying, watching TV or checking Facebook should feel like Level 2 activities, not Level 3. Watching Homeland is a different experience from flipping through the channels. True, occasionally Level 3 is just what I’m in the mood for, but I don’t want to make a habit of it, or let myself sink, without realizing it, from Level 2 into Level 3 (which tends to happen within about thirty minutes).
As I wrote about in Epiphany: It takes a lot of energy to decide to go to bed, weirdly, when I’m very tired, I tend to stay up too late. These four levels help show why. I’m stuck in a Level 3 activity, and don’t have the energy to boost myself into Level 1 activity.
That’s the value of Level 4. If I make bedtime into a habit–“At 10:30, I start getting ready for bed, in the same way, every night”–then I don’t have to use any precious Level 1 mental energy to get myself to turn out the light.
What do you think of these four levels–did I get it right? What activities did I overlook that should be plugged into this framework?
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Gretchen Rubin is the author of the blockbuster New York Times bestsellers, Better Than Before, The Happiness Project, and Happier at Home. She writes about happiness and habit-formation at gretchenrubin.com. Follow her here by clicking the yellow FOLLOW button, on Twitter, @gretchenrubin, on Facebook, facebook.com/ GretchenRubin. Or listen to her popular podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin.
Grantwriting Consultant at Self-Employed
1yAs an introvert, engaging with people is very different from engaging with reading or any critical faculties. In the case of engagement with people, then I would flip 1 and 2 contemplative/planning.
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1yWhat about restorative energy. When you go for a walk or hike or other restorative activity. You come back energized and creative, ready for level 1.
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7yGretchen - where would you put the energy required to "go on". Sometimes when I am done with a task that fits into any one of the four categories defined by you, someone will give me a helping hand (something the say, their presence or a just a physical touch) and it gives me what I need to go on even though the four energy spaces you have defined are void of energy. Is what I described just a top-up of one your energy categories or is there another category that gives us the motivation to carry on with a task or job?
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7yMs Gretchen, cognitive energy? just another thought, isn't it better to go with the flow. I feel that when we have a Passion to do something, the energy level is so high.