The Secret To Daily Energy

Without Energy, All You Have Is Ideas..

I've always had the dream to compose music for blockbuster film trailers, create awe-inspiring digital art and write impactful newsletters with depth and insight.

But, guess what? I didn't start, and I didn't start for years..

That's what I want to talk about in this letter:

• What kept me from starting - and no, it's not for the reasons you might think or have read all over the internet

• How creativity depends on and draws from mental, emotional, and physical energy levels

• Why most routines steal creative energy rather than build it

• How to build, maintain, and sustain creative energy stores

Two years ago, I experienced, what would be the most impactful year-end review since I started at my 9-5 10+ years ago.

To keep a long story short, after receiving stellar reviews all year during all my one-on-one meetings with both my immediate manager and customer manager, I was berated over an out-of-office autoreply I had running during our busiest time of the year. My boss claimed it was "offensive." All it said was that I might be slow to respond due to high work volumes and competing priorities. There was nothing performance-related (no balls were dropped, and we made our numbers), nothing behaviorally related (I didn't behave aggressively). No, it was something completely trivial.

Why is this important? Because if you've read this far, you know what I'm talking about - I needed a change - a big one.

I've never received a "bad review" let alone ever been berated like that in my entire 10 year career working for this company.

This was the catalyst that woke me up and made me realize that this was not what I wanted for my life. It launched me into the deepest downward spiral of resentment, then depression, and finally a burnout that lasted for over two years.

Take Back Control: Overcoming Overwhelm to Prevent Burnout

The silent killer of dreams - is a mind burnt out:

• No energy

• No clarity

• No creativity

• No productivity

Outdated coping mechanisms, energy sapping routines, and cumbersome recovery methods are ill-equipped to fix burnout. Ways of coping and "recovering" are a means to preserve and or protect energy - not generate it. But, when you reach burnout, you have no energy left to preserve let alone protect.

How to fix this?

I knew that if I could just get energy (mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually) I could create, and if I could create something I was proud of, a positive feedback loop would result and that would be the road out of burnout. What I needed was a self-perpetuating, self-propelling energy ecosystem.

The Essential Need for an Energy-Generating Routine

You need an "energy-generating routine" just as much as you need an "energy-generating diet."

If you understand a bit about food, you know that not all foods provide the same health and energy benefits. Macro nutrients—proteins, carbohydrates, and fats—make up the core of your food, while micro nutrients are the vitamins and minerals within it. This means that foods with the same calorie count can have vastly different nutrient makeups, leading to different health impacts on your body. Food will either enhance or harm your health, and it will either replenish or deplete your energy levels. Understanding this difference is key to making choices that support your overall well-being.

Just like with food, not all routines will generate energy. In fact most routines take too much energy to start, let alone maintain over the long term. A routine can become frustrating, when it burns through more energy than it generates, preserves or protects. Worse still, is the routine that you can't wait to escape from on the weekends, vacation, or through other illicit means.

How to fix this?

The choices you make in structuring your routine are crucial. Why? Because when you start a new routine, your mind calculates the "work" required to begin, sustain, and maintain it. If the perceived effort outweighs the perceived reward, you won't want to commit to the routine. Think of it this way, when structuring your routine, what you are really structuring is a powerful framework of micro nutrients for your mind to operate within.

The components of an energy-generating routine's framework are like the macro nutrients of food. They are broken into three main "nutrients" - the "fill, empty, use your mind framework". These nutrients of routine are what keep your mind focused, engaged, and energized. The mind becomes activated when in an environment optimal for deep work, play, and rest:

• Fill your mind in the afternoons with books, learning, and conversation - that align with your goals (for me it is books and learning related to film music, digital art, and personal philosophy)

• Empty your mind with walks, training, and contemplation - use this time to empty your mind and allow it to begin making connections with what you are learning, reading, or researching in the "fill" part of the framework. This allows space for seeds (ideas) to be planted in the subconscious mind. These ideas will eventually reveal themselves to the conscious mind in the form connections and clarity.

• Use your mind in the morning with creation, output, and focus - use this time to execute toward your goals. For example, my weekly project is writing a newsletter sharing how to align with creative energy. My weekend project is composing film music, and creating digital art. If you would like to listen to or view my creations please follow me on social media:

Think of the systems and processes of daily structure as the micro nutrients of creative energy. Some very simple examples of the micro nutrients of structure are:

• 60-90 Minute Time-Blocks - scheduled time for deep work

• 10-20 Minute Walks - empties the mind and creates space for creative energy to become

• 30-45 Training Time - signifies the daily change over from deep work to deep rest

• 30-60 Minute Personal Learning - scheduled time to learn and fill the mind

Daily Framework For Energy: 3 Simple Steps to Building a Self-Sustaining Energy Ecosystem

Creative energy is wild, powerful, energizing, focusing, and liberating. Follow these 3 steps to build a framework for a self-perpetuating, self-propelling energy ecosystem.

Step 1.) Focus Your Mind: Define The End Points Of Your Day

Step one is all about defining when you will wake up and when you will sleep each day. This will vary depending on your life situation. The main goal is to look at your day, and decide what start and end times are reasonable, and how comfortably they can be sustained over the long term.

As an example, I start my day at 7:00am (even on weekends). I go to sleep at 10:00pm every night (even on weekends). It will take about 2-3 weeks to get used to not "sleeping in," but if you stick to the structure, you won't need to sleep in anymore. Your body's natural circadian rhythm will heal, generating even more energy.

The goal here, is to set end points that:

• you can and want to sustain even on weekends

• you can maintain for at least 2 weeks (after 2 weeks reassess. If anything needs to be changed or experimented with further, do so - through trial and error, you are looking for optimal start and end points that suite you)

This step is crucial, because it provides the basic daily structure for your mind to operate. What I found by implementing this, is that it takes perceived strain off the mind. Without definite and consistent daily start and end points, the mind subconsciously will not allow itself to relax. It will constantly think it has more time to "create later" and later never comes. An unrelaxed mind is a stressed, chaotic, and distracted mind. The first energy an unorganized mind steals is creative energy. Define the end points of your day.

Step 2.) Use Your Mind: Develop An Enjoyable Sustainable Morning Routine

This is very important. Before I continue with the mechanics of step 2, I caution attempting to build a morning routine before you define the end points of your day. Without first defining the end points of your day, your mind won't have the subconscious order needed to ease it into this next step.

Step two is about carving out a minimum of 1 - 2 hours for a morning routine that you find enjoyable, maintainable, and sustainable over the long term. The goal is to create space for your mind to focus and engage in deep work.

Deep work involves periods of intense focus on cognitively demanding tasks, free from distractions. This is when you produce your best, most valuable work.

How to begin thinking through this?

Think about the actions and motions of your morning. What actions must be done every morning without fail - these could be necessities like making and eating breakfast, brushing teeth, daily grooming etc.

After the necessities of the day have been planned, now decide what deep focused work you will engage in and for how long (I like to work in 90 minute time blocks). Deep work could involve:

• Composing a piece of music

• Writing a page of a book, newsletter, or creating social media content

• Creating art (digital or analogue)

• Building a personal brand/business

• Performing high priority tasks at your 9-5

The point is to think through your morning and decide what are the most cognitively demanding tasks and set a specific time to do them when the mind is fresh.

Step 3.) Fill And Empty Your Mind: The Secret To An Energy-Generating Routine

After a productive morning, you need a way to continue propelling your energy forward rather than crashing back into distraction, procrastination, and burnout.

Step three is about creating daily flow in your energy-generating routine. What is flow?

Flow is a state of complete immersion and engagement in activities that challenge you just enough to match your skills, resulting in a sense of effortless concentration and enjoyment. In a daily routine, achieving flow involves structuring your day with clear goals, balancing tasks that require varying levels of skill and challenge, and eliminating distractions to maintain focus. This state not only enhances productivity and creativity but also brings a profound sense of satisfaction and fulfillment - mental energy.

How do you do this especially when you have so many competing priorities from a job, to family, to simply taking care of yourself?

With the end points of your day defined and a solid morning routine in place, begin structuring the middle part of your day using the "Fill and Empty your mind" part of the framework. Don't over think this. Step 3 is the most challenging step of this process. Through trial and error, it took me 2 months to find a balance that flowed.

The way to begin: start by paying attention to your energy levels throughout the day while you work through steps 1 and 2. Make adjustments to the middle of your day (the micro nutrients above) to find what order generates flow for you.

Fill your mind. Ask yourself: what is it that I want to create? Do I already know how to create it or must I learn to create it?

• If you don't know what, where, or how to start - fill your mind by researching your interests or things you may be interested.

• If you don't know what you want to create - look at what you already fill your mind with. Is it just mindless social media scrolling, or is there a deeper yearning to create similar content? For example: like watching Netflix documentaries? This could be a longing to study history. Like following interesting content creators on social media? This could be a longing to create similar content. Reverse engineer why you like what you like. This will often provide clues to what you long to create.

• If you know what you want to create, but don't know how or where to start - fill your mind with research on what you need to learn to start. Learning could be in the form of books, e-books, audible books, or online courses from relevant mentors, authors, creators, or influencers.

The goal with "fill your mind" is to align your mind's daily consumption with what you are passionate about creating. Structure the micro nutrients of your daily routine to allow time to fill your mind.

Empty your mind = active rest = self-recharging.

Active rest refers to engaging in restorative activities that invigorate both the mind and body, promoting deep rest and replenishing creative energy. Unlike passive rest, which might involve doing nothing or low-effort activities, active rest includes deliberate, mindful practices such as walking, training, and or contemplative pursuits. These activities provide a break from routine work, allowing your subconscious mind to process information and ideas, Active or deep rest, ultimately enhances your mind's clarity, creativity and productivity. It is essential for maintaining balance, preventing burnout, and sustaining long-term creative energy.

Why emptying your mind works:

• Walking - allows the mind to clear (empty) and actively rest from whatever task it's been focused on for the past 90 minute time-block

  Training - in the form of yoga, weights, boxing, running, cycling etc. provides a hard cutoff from deep work, but at the same time gives you a huge burst of mental, physical and emotional energy.

• Contemplation - the mind needs time to think, meditate, and ruminate to order itself.

Active rest or deep rest, is important because it allows your brain to recover and process information subconsciously. When you step away from deep work, your mind continues to work on problems in the background, leading to insights and solutions. This mental downtime refreshes you, making you more focused and productive when you return to deep work. Regular breaks prevent burnout and sustain high levels of creativity and efficiency over the long term.

These steps are the simplest way to order your mind and then day with the goal of generating energy. Step 1 is crucial. When starting out, just focus on getting solid start and end points in place. Once your mind and body feel comfortable with that change, move on to Step 2. Once Step 1 and 2 feel comfortably sustainable, then move on to Step 3.

If you are just coming out of burnout, you won't have energy. Take your time. Take it slow. Implement one step at a time. With practice, time, and filling, emptying, using your mind, through deep work, play, and rest - you will gradually see your energy improve.

The Secret Sauce To Daily Energy: How I Implement the "Fill, Empty, Use your Mind" Framework.

The secret sauce for creative energy generation: How I implement the "Fill, Empty, Use your mind" framework:

• Engage in deep work for 3-4 blocks of 60-90 minutes each day

• Take 10-20 minute walks between time-blocks - listen to audio books, instructional YouTube videos, and or pod casts on topics related to my interests or "Domain of Master - Dan Koe"

• Implement a hard cutoff of 30-45 minutes for gym training after deep work - at 4pm I STOP working for the day, this includes 9-5 and or any other side hustle I'm doing.

• Augment the framework with one or two coffees; - or one coffee (morning) and one pre-workout (before training) if you prefer