Energy Neutral

Listening to Rob Dyrdek talk about optimization gets me excited to take a look at my personal systems.

There is an idea about energy neutrality that I think is worthy of considering here on the blog. And I'll try to summarize now. It's not about being efficient or productive for productivity sake, but rather ensuring that you have the energy and space to focus and spend time on the things that bring you the most joy.

The idea of energy neutrality? What do I say? I guess I could benefit from relistening to that podcast. But the way I understand it is that being energy neutral is exerting the least, or the most, or the exact amount of energy needed to complete a particular task. Perhaps not just any task, but regular and often mundane tasks.

Rob argues that it is our natural state as human beings to gravitate toward being energy neutral. I think it is interesting that he doesn't say 'lazy'. This is perhaps why this idea stands out to me.

He says that we all have systems, and sometimes those systems help us and sometimes they hurt us, in the short term or long term. But he also states that we can design our systems and optimize them to help us truly accomplish what we want. I think that is a big them on the podcast.

I must say I need to learn, and listen more to really be able to coherently think about and describe energy neutrality.

He use examples around food. He mentiond how he has his meals, I think lunch specifically, is on automate so that he has the mental and physical freedom that thinking and planning his meals would take if he did that every single day. He mentioned that if McDonalds is across the street from your place that the system for you to get food could easily have McDonalds be a solution to your hunger problem.

I don't like where this blog post is going. It's been a week since I've written and I feel like I'm not describing my thoughts well enough. But then again this is me free writing so it doesn't have to be pefect. I'm supposed to just get something on the page.

After listening to this podcast I was starting to think about the personal systems that I can modify and automate and optimize so that I can get my resources back. And by resources I'm talking about time, money and energy.

I've been realizing lately how limited I am and how mundane, daily tasks are super draining. I want to figure out how to break free so that I'm operating more efficiently and thus able to produce more, but I have a limiting belief that I need my wife on board to do it.

This reminds me that I need to talk about my paradigm shift from asking permission now to asking for forgiveness later.