Managing One's Energy - Willpower, Decision Fatigue & Energy Marbles

If you knew me and my family intimately, you would know that my mom has Multiple Sclerosis, and that she was diagnosed when I was roughly 12. If you haven’t had someone in your life fighting a chronic disease, count your lucky stars! If you have (or struggle with this yourself), then you can appreciate that your upbringing/situation might have been a little different from the other kids in your neighborhood in a variety of ways.

One aspect that was certainly different for me is that energy conversations were commonplace in my house. “How are you feeling? Do you need to take a break? What’s important to get done today? Do you need me to take care of dinner?”

When you’re faced with a chronic disease, energy management is especially important, because physically you just don’t have extra to give. There is no reservoir to tap into. It wipes you out and not just for that day, but days - plural. 

With my Mom’s energy in mind, my dad who is an excellent communicator, and also has highly illustrative visual examples (likely where I get my love of analogies) he came up with this concept for my mom to help communicate where her energy levels were at - i.e. the energy marbles concept.

Per this analogy, I like to think of Tootles from the movie Hook and his bag of marbles. If all your energy fit into a bag and each marble was a unit of energy - how are you spending your energy marbles? Are you pulling them out of the bag like you have an unlimited supply? Are you using them on the things that don’t matter to you? Are you using them on things that shouldn’t have energy dispensed to them?

I ask these questions, because as much as we would like to believe differently, we don’t have an unlimited supply of energy marbles. We HAVE to be cognizant of how we are spending our energy, we HAVE to spend time recharging, and we HAVE to protect our energy marbles. This is foundational for your mental, physical and emotional health.

Now take this visual of energy marbles and apply this to terms you are likely VERY familiar with - Willpower and Decision Fatigue.

How the Oxford Dictionary defines these two words is:

WILLPOWER

noun

• control exerted to do something or restrain impulses.
  "most of our bad habits are due to laziness or lack of willpower"

DECISION FATIGUE

noun

• difficulty in making a good decision experienced as a result of the number of decisions one needs to take.
  "the hiring manager can experience decision fatigue, which can cloud her judgment"
  

Based on these definitions, willpower is control and decision fatigue is an end result. Here’s how they are truly linked. “Willpower is like a muscle, and each time you have to make a decision, you deplete some of your willpower. The more decisions you make about things like which groceries to buy, the less willpower you’ll have for focusing on what’s really important.”*

We (myself included) are constantly pulling out energy marbles on decisions that don’t actually matter and are depleting our willpower - leaving us fatigued by the end of our day, with nothing left. 

Willpower - Decisions = Fatigue

OR

Full Energy Bag - All the Marbles = Pooped

So if you’re asking yourself, how does this all tie together? What’s the takeaway? Here’s the takeaway - it’s time to look at your life and see where you can make fewer decisions, automate and/or remove decisions from your life altogether.

Below is a list of areas where I have stopped making extra decisions, to alleviate dispensing that energy marble that I otherwise want to use somewhere else. By no means is this a complete list, but I feel that these are areas that we ALL have on our plates and if any of this helps you make less decisions - amazing!

Meals - A basic meal plan & order on-line for pick-up or delivery

My husband is the cook in our house, unless we’re doing a big to-do then I take over with all my favorite mediterranean inspired dishes. But on a daily basis, we rely on my husband.

He and I took one of our son’s nap times, and came up with about a month’s worth of dinner recipes that we love and would happily eat on repeat. At this season in our life we just pick about 7 recipes for dinner, we make turkey sandwiches for lunch and go between oatmeal and avocado toast with eggs for breakfast and fruits and nuts for snacks. That’s it. I hit Trader Joe’s and Costco maybe every other month to stock up on some ready made things for when we need to just heat something up and we are fans of good ol’ beans and rice on particularly hard days.

Here’s the game-changer move - order your groceries on-line for pick-up or delivery. Here’s why:
1) It saves you actual time
2) You aren’t inclined to throw in your cart anything that is not already on your list
3) It helps keep you in budget
4) Repeating point 1 - it saves you actual time!
We order groceries on Sunday, I pick them up after dropping my son off at daycare on Monday on my way home. Boom - no extra trip, food in my fridge, meals done and dusted for the week.

Another note here - you can order so much on-line for pickup or delivery thanks to COVID. Maximize this! Time is precious, your energy is precious. Driving somewhere, wandering aisles with no agenda… that’s throwing those energy marbles away. 

Clothes - Capsule Wardrobe 

Clothes and getting dressed everyday doesn’t charge me up. I work from home, I have a kiddo, I like getting dirty - this is a recipe for needing durable and casual clothes. I have a nice outfit or two, but otherwise, I am about as casual as they come. Here’s the thing; it took me far longer than I care to admit that no, I wouldn’t wear that colorful skirt, strappy heels, etc. My favorite outfit is a denim button down with jeans and shoes I can easily jog after my son in. Canadian tuxedo for the win anyone?

Once I leaned into what I actually liked wearing - keeping a nod to current looks and a nice thing or two in the arsenal, my days of getting dressed became WAY easier. I don’t hold to a number, or any particularly rigid plan when purchasing clothes, but I do keep my closet seasonally appropriate and slim. I like this concept from Sherry at Young House Love (link to article here). If each item was to receive a grade from you - and you tallied your closets’ GPA - how close to a 4.0 are you? Bottomline, I want ‘A’ pieces and if they aren’t, I really consider, do I need this in my closet?

And for the odd thing that comes up, like a wedding - I rely on Rent the Runway (RTR). I have personally had a 10/10 experience with RTR. Another way I utilize RTR is for whenever I travel for work, I rent the amount of clothes I need for the trip to be entirely business professional and my coworkers (who I don’t engage with regularly) think I’m a trendy fashionista. Seriously, every trip I get asked “where do you buy your clothes?!”

Save the space in your closet, buy what you love and what you know you’ll wear, and rent the rest!

Household Chores, Laundry & Cleaning - Designated Days

We each have our own rhythms as to when our energy is high and low, when we can fit things in, but clean houses are something I feel that we all aspire to have. To jump right in - The day the cleaning lady comes, is like my monthly hit of a mini Christmas. My WHOLE house is clean in one go, even if it’s just for a few minutes. Worth. It.

But that’s once a month and I will just make the statement now, that if you can afford to have the support of a cleaning person/group on a consistent basis - it is a real luxury you should incorporate into your budget and life.

Below is a topline view of how I manage the main cleaning tasks for the remaining days in the month. I will also note here that I don’t like spending my weekends cleaning, so I try to capture as much of the cleaning as I can during the week so that my weekends are free and clear to do whatever I feel like doing!

KITCHEN:
After dinner, my husband and I tag team cleaning up the kitchen so that it’s clean for the next day, we run the dishes at night and the next morning while making breakfast one of us puts the clean dishes away and we have an open dishwasher during the day to just drop dirty dishes and utensils to be plopped in directly. The odd pot or pan and item can live in our sink til we clean all that up after dinner… and then the cycle repeats.

LAUNDRY:
Monday is the day where I have the most meetings where I don’t entirely have to be present for them - so I do laundry. I change our sheets, dump everyone’s laundry baskets into the laundry room and just set timer reminders to go move the loads throughout the day and by the end of the day everyone has clean sheets, towels and clothes are put away since I have been folding, hanging and putting back all the items that got washed. Then I officially don’t think about laundry for the rest of the week.

BATHROOMS:
I moved all our cleaning supplies onto a trolley (this trolley in fact). Once or twice  a week, maybe more if we’re sick and an extra wipe down of surfaces is in order, I roll my trolley around the house to all our bathrooms and give everything a quick wipe down and scrub. This takes me about 20 minutes. I dump all the trash into a bag hanging on the trolley, change all the hand towels to clean ones, and fill the soap dispensers. We have hard water here in Arizona, so if I don’t give our bathrooms consistent attention, hard water builds up. The best thing I have found to combat hard water build up, without using harsh chemicals, are these little pads by Shaw’s Pads.

FLOORS:
I am not a ‘leave your shoes at the door’ person. I know it would probably save me with the amount of crumblies on the floor that I acquire, but I am the person that kicks up dirty boots onto coffee tables in my house. I could change, but I have no desire to ;). So, I have two vacuums - the heavy duty one that gets everything and a cordless vacuum for when I need to capture the floofs and granular bits that are on the floor. If I’m walking around barefoot and I just feel like I’m picking up more than I care to with my feet, I spend 10 - 15 minutes zipping around the main living areas picking up the bits. If a real pass with the big momma vacuum is needed, I wait til my lunch break and do it then.

The other suggestion, that I don’t personally have, but has been recommended is a roomba. The thing to remember with a roomba is that it will require daily disposal of the dustbin, but roomba fans claim that it has helped with allergies, and minimizing time spent on floor clean up.

Finances - Dave Ramsey & Ramit Sethi 

My Aunt and Uncle are Dave Ramsey converts. I was visiting them in the summer of 2015 and my Aunt imparted on me how she managed her family finances with no debt and no credit cards. They were in their 40’s at that point - their house was paid off, they were saving for their kids college funds, they owned their cars, had a cabin in the mountains, and were considering buying a boat - in cash. To a 20 something - that sounded like black magic, like too good to be true. You’re entirely debt free and you own everything outright…wha?!

I can attest - his steps work. I am now 35 and with Dave Ramsey’s steps, I too am debt free. I own my vehicles (3 trucks and a motorcycle). I have over 100K saved in retirement, a year’s worth of salary to cover both my husband and I in the event we lose our jobs and I live quite comfortably. My husband and I use his Everydollar App to track expenses and plan our household budget. What I like about the paid version of the app is that each person has full visibility to income and expenditures and it is very easy to categorize where your money is going. It took my husband and I far too many failed systems to get on the same page - I won’t even begin to scratch the surface of how different our perspectives were on money and how to manage it. This is what works for us.

My other recent favorite is Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You to Be Rich. Should you decide that having a credit card is something you want to keep in your life, and there are many positives to credit cards in my personal opinion, then read this book. I would advocate that you get your debt in order and get committed to a spending plan for your household BEFORE bringing credit card’s into the picture. Ultimately, both authors tend to have the ethos that if you don’t have the money, don’t spend like you do. Ramit takes next steps into how to automate savings, save and spend on what you value and life a wholly enriched life!

Personal Time - When You Get To Do You 

You better believe that we plan personal time in my house. My husband and I are both introverts that need alone time to recharge. I go about carving out personal time in two ways.

1) Due to our flexible schedules, we both are largely available for pick up and drop off’s. So we switch throughout the week - I take Monday, Wednesday and every other Friday. He takes the other days. The days that I am not on Mom duty in the morning and evenings, I do me time.

The rule with my husband and I is that unless there is really a need for an extra set of hands, you are free to do whatever you want to do. I typically spend this time going to pilates, meditating, gardening, reading, working on other projects that I am involved in, connecting with friends, whatever sounds like fun to me.

You could use this time to do life stuff, but I advocate that you take your opportunities that make you feel like you when you can. As a working parent, you have to build this in, otherwise you’re not going to prioritize you, or rest.

2) The other way I get me time in is I wake up early. I’ve naturally been an early riser (like 6 AM), but I slowly worked my way to waking up between 4:30 - 5:30 most days. The only way I made this work is I now go to bed no later than 9 PM. I just don’t get anything done after 8 PM, so for me - it was an easy trade-off to make to move my wake time earlier to maximize when my energy is higher. If you find that your energy is higher in the mornings, I suggest experimenting with this shift. The buffer of having a little quiet time in the morning, and not waking up to the sound of your kiddo through the monitor really helps me ease into the day more balanced and charged.

Doctor’s & Maintenance Appointments - Plot Out All Your Yearly Appointments in One Go

We all have the same doctor’s appointments throughout the year, and if you’re like my family, my kiddo has his set of doctors and my husband and I share the same set for ourselves. When I set appointments now, I do it all in one go. I connect with the receptionist, book the year’s worth of appointments, drop them in my phone calendar, text my husband the dates and times and done.

The same is true for car maintenance and other areas that require in-consistent attention. Other areas (depending on your life) that could have this sort of methodology applied are: yard maintenance, a cleaning person/group, car detailing, dog walking/training, etc.

Ultimately, anything that is repeatedly done in your life, can also be scheduled out far in advance. The other benefit of getting ahead of the curve is that you get to cherry pick the best appointment time slots versus whatever is available at the time.

Travel - Plan Around Daycare Breaks, Holidays, & Special Family Dates

I do not like winging spring and summer break. I don’t like feeling like I’m ready for the holidays after the holiday break is over. I REALLY like traveling and taking vacation - so, like many of you, I work for an organization that has a limited amount of vacation time and I guard my PTO like each hour is a gold bullion bar in a lock box in Switzerland. I want to maximize my time off every time I put a PTO request through. I should mention here that I am balancing Life Coaching, a FT job and being a Mama (so I REALLY value my time off!). 

Usually in early January, I look at the year ahead - holidays, school breaks, and when there are typical work requirements (sales meetings, trade shows, etc.) and I list those dates all out on a piece of paper.

Then my husband and I have a nice dinner, put the kiddo to bed and dream about what our year is going to look like from a vacation standpoint. Who we want to see, what we want to do, where we can get extra support from grandparents or other family members and we rough out a plan.

If you fall into the camp of “but, I don’t like having my life planned out like that so far in advance.” Let me share the one reason I love this strategy. I have a year’s worth of fun to look forward to! This doesn’t mean plans don’t change, or that we don’t incorporate spontaneous things/trips, but it does mean that there is guaranteed family time, we’re working with the flow of our life, we don’t rush to come up with plans when we remember that spring break is two weeks away.

Another way that I like to incorporate fun things to do is as we are entering a season that I want to make sure we do a number of things that feel seasonally appropriate. I make a list of ideas that feel fun and can be done at any time.

For example; During the holidays I have a list of things that will make the holiday overall feel festive. This is separate from an advent calendar in that there isn’t a designated day to do the thing, but as we get into the season, I keep this list on the fridge and check-in to see if I can do something spontaneously to add richness to the time I’m in.
- Make hot cocoa with homemade whipped cream
- Go cut down our christmas tree
- Buy and wear matching family PJ’s
- Make a door wreath with fresh cuttings 
- Have a candlelit evening in front of the fire
- Watch a Christmas movie
- Make a pie
- Pop a bottle of bubbles, just because

You get the gist. The point is that you can do this in any season - Here are some other ideas;

Spring
- Go visit a tulip flower farm
- View the cherry blossoms at a japanese garden
- Start seeds indoors (like tomatoes)
- Put fresh flowers in pots

Summer
- Have a watermelon seed spitting contest
- Go to the beach/pool
- Go camping locally
- Have a bonfire in the backyard
- Sleep outside 
- Go to a u-pick farm

Fall
- Go pick pumpkins at a family farm
- Make pie
- Have apple cider 
- Crochet a new beanie
- Think of something you’re grateful for
- Start a fire 

Exercise - Sweat with Sweat
I have tried many exercise programs, types, regimes, but right now what works for me is Pilates. I like that it’s strength training, there is stretching involved and I can tell a difference in my body when I go. And I plan in 2 - 3 sessions a week in the mornings that I am not doing drop-off. 

When I can’t make it to the pilates studio, or have to skip due to life - my fail safe backup is the Sweat App. Yes, there are many free and paid programs out there today, but what I like about Sweat is that it offers a huge variety for whatever type of exercise you prefer to get. There are options for 15 minutes (if that’s all the time you have) and I don’t have to think. I hop on, turn on my music and do what the instructor tells me to do. That’s it, I’m done and I just got a little movement in my day. If you need an inexpensive program to use consistently or sporadically, Sweat may just work for you too. 

Document Saving - Google Drive/Dropbox
I have worked with all types of organizations that rely on varying file management systems. The one that has always worked for me, and is largely available to all of us is Google Drive and/or Dropbox.

I have found that since I have a google account with my personal email, it’s just easier for me to use the google suite than dropbox.

I don’t like having a crazy amount of folders, files, images, etc. just floating around based upon when they got created or uploaded. My file system resembles this:

Main Level Folders -
House
Health
Cars
Finances
Travel/Vacation
Pet
Daycare/School
Images/Pictures
Taxes

As you click into any of these main level folders - they get more and more detailed. Here’s an example of ‘House.’

House -> Insurance
House -> Repairs & Maintenance
House -> Manuals
House -> Receipts/Bills 

If you were to pop into my ‘receipts/bills’ folder you find that it’s broken up by year to month
2022 -> Jan -> Feb -> March
2021
2020

From here I tend to compile repeat bills such as; gas, electrical, trash, internet, etc.

So when it comes to tax time and I am having to pull together costs for everything - it’s all easily filed away and easy to find. This file management system can work with just about any file management software, but I suggest you find a program that connects and works well with your life and you go all in on making it easy for yourself. 

To-Do’s - Asana & Google Calendar
I was notorious for writing to-do’s on mail, in my phone, on a notepad - in about a million different places. However you like to manage your to-do’s and the mental load of your household (which if you didn’t know that was a thing - it’s REAL) I say with as much fervor as I can, pick one spot - digital or paper, that you go to for keeping all these pieces together. Having different places for the lists in your life does more harm than good. Same can be said for your calendar - have ONE calendar, and I also suggest a digital calendar because…automatic reminders.

My to-do management system is Asana. I am biased, I use this for work as well as personal, but keeping all the floating reminders and to-do’s in my life has become exponentially cleaner and easier since utilizing Asana. The other benefit - it’s free to use, sync’s to computers and phones, and can be color coded!

Like my document saving - I tend to lump things into categories and then create sub-tasks for dates. This helps keep me focused on the to-do’s I can make a difference on and also plot out upcoming to-do’s assuming that it’s not time sensitive to my immediate future.

To-Do’s -> Jan 2022
Books I Want to Read -> Personal Development, SciFi, Fiction, etc.
Household
Travel

The other pro - if you can get your partner on-board, you can share tasks in asana, assign due dates and bring awareness to your partner for things that you would like them to do. Example; Car Maintenance, due xx/xx date. Then you can periodically check in with your partner on the things that need to get consistently done without it turning into a “what do I need to do again?” conversation.

And we share a family calendar (via google), so that both of us know what is coming up and we can plan who is in charge of the activity.

We also have a big family calendar and ‘hub’ in our house next to our kitchen to help our son recognize our family plans, where we house all the school papers, keys, his chores and meal plan for the week.

Automatic Purchases 

I don’t have too many items on auto-pilot, because I don’t like having an overload of backstock of items (limited storage space over here), but I do have a number of items that do come on a monthly basis that I don’t have to worry about. And I advocate that you experiment with a number of household items that you know you go through quickly so that you too are never left flat footed on essentials. Also, I try to purchase sustainable products when and where I can within my budget. Maybe what I have chosen won’t work for you, but consider sustainable alternatives whenever possible, please and thank you!

• Toilet Paper and Other Paper Goods - I am on a septic system, so I’m even more cautious of the items we put down our drain. I have found Who Gives A Crap Bamboo Toilet Paper works great! I love their reusable Dream Cloths for all the spills - and they do good too!
• Cleaning supplies through Aspen Clean - I order our laundry detergent pods and dishwasher pods monthly with a re-supply of surface spray every 3 months. 
• Vitamins - I invest in a naturopathic doctor twice yearly to assess my blood results and see where I can be supporting my body nutritionally on the micro level through additional supplementation. I put these vitamins on a monthly order so that I’m never out! 

Other Miscellaneous Pro Tips - 

• If you’re coming home from a trip, order your groceries on-line for delivery when you get back so that you don’t have to worry about having food in the house when you get home. 
• Hire an accountant for your taxes, just do it. Stop struggling on this, unless you’re an accountant and you love this stuff. 
• If you have a child 2 and under - order Montessori toys on subscription. No extra toys that they don’t play with, age appropriate items guaranteed and Montessori toys (for the most part) don’t have noise making attachments - bliss. 

There’s a million ways to ease our lives, and put more energy and focus back into our energy marble bag, but it does take front-loading that effort and being willing to experiment with what does and doesn’t work for you. My offer to you is - what if it works better than you imagined? 

Activity Framework

Create a list of all the areas in your life that cause you anxiety, stress, or general unhappiness.

Example:

- I Dislike Laundry

Now, brainstorm or dream up all the potential solutions that may alleviate or eliminate your frustration in this area. Think outside the box! Unconventional ideas may spark creative solutions!

• Outsource all laundry to a service 
• Do household laundry on a designated day(s) 
• Have your partner do adult laundry, you do kid laundry
• Ask your laundry loving mother in law to do yours too
• Designate family members to do their own laundry on specific days 
• Remove all hanging clothes options, and only fold and have things on hooks <- I had a cousin do this. 

Now experiment - try something for a week or two and see if it helps. If not, go back to the drawing board! To not overwhelm yourself, pick 3 of the most energy consuming tasks, and give them a go versus trying ALL the new things all at once ;).

And if you are like - "Wow, I want more 1:1 help here!" Just email me at [email protected] and we can dig in beyond this blog post!

*Ramit Sethi 

** Please know that these are all items I have personally used and would recommend, I do not receive any financial or other gains by recommending them. I truly have found them helpful!