Each individual carries their own energy signature

Gallup conducted a workplace poll revealing that twenty percent of employees put in more than sixty hours a week, and nearly fifty percent of employees clock in at least fifty hours.

Hooray. Americans are finally number one at something again.

And yet, multiple psychological studies have shown that humans can only concentrate for about half of that amount of time, and only do real work for about a third of that amount of time.

As usual, that’s capitalism for you. It only works when more and more is being produced, aka, more and more hours being put in.

This research is compelling, and some organizations are taking measures to be more accommodating to their teams with fewer hours. But most are missing the big picture.

The type of energy we bring to our workplace is far more valuable than the number of hours we work there.

Each individual carries their own psychic ecology and their own energy signature, everywhere they go. When we learn to manage that energy skillfully, not to mention, have compassion for other people’s energy too, we all get more done in less time, more sustainably.

The number of hours we work becomes irrelevant.

Something that’s been helpful for me is viewing energy as a spectrum. Viewing it as a distribution of different approaches we can take when we show up each day. Here are several questions to help you figure out where you might index on that energetic range.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Do you suffer necessary evils, or do you take control of the stuff sapping your energy?

Are you a serial over committer without much regard for limits of time, or do you set boundaries on your how many new projects you take on?

Do you direct your vitality towards defending your ego, or arrive to the office with your psychic energy saved for the real work?

Can you identify both where are people naturally not getting energy, and where you can merge with the slipstream energy of the moment and be carried by it?

Do you dedicate an inordinate amount of time to experimenting with organizing details, or do you get your projects into good enough shape to accomplish your goal?

Notice how none of those questions referred to the quantity of hours, only the quality.

That may seem anti capitalistic, but it’s really just pro contentment. Maybe one day our country will unlearn some of our materialistic roots and get more intentional about bringing quality energy to the world. 

Do the people you work with value the contributions of your temperament, or just your time?