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Welcome to another edition of the 1% Habits Newsletter!

This is where you’ll get up-to-date information on small wins to improve your habits, productivity, and life satisfaction. 

Let’s get to it.

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📈 Why Energy > Time (and How I Proved It)

Lately, I’ve been dedicating more and more time to my AI Music Project — the one I first wrote about here: The Rule That Got Me 12K Daily Spotify Streams and later here: Learning From Kids Half My Age.

The project has grown far beyond a “side hustle.” One of the biggest reasons? I stopped treating it like something I’d squeeze in whenever I had time. Instead, I started working on it during my peak energy hours — those windows in the day when I feel most creative, focused, and inspired.

That shift has made all the difference.

And here’s the thing: you don’t have to guess when you’re at your best. You can figure it out by doing an energy audit.

👉 To make this easier, I recommend the energy audit worksheet that’s included in our Time Management & Productivity Printable Bunde. It’s a simple, printable system you can use to track your energy, spot patterns, and design your days around what fuels you most.

What Is an Energy Audit?

An energy audit is a way to track your activities, notice how they make you feel, and identify patterns. Instead of just managing your time (like a calendar does), you’re managing your energy.

As Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy wrote in Harvard Business Review (“Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time”), energy is our most precious resource. Time is finite, but energy can expand or contract depending on how we use it.

The goal of an energy audit is to:

● Pinpoint the activities, people, and environments that energize you.

● Identify the ones that drain you.

● Adjust your schedule so your most important work happens when your energy is highest.

The Four Dimensions of Energy

Drawing from Ivy Ivers’ framework and HBR’s research, here are the four dimensions to pay attention to:

1. Physical Energy

● Boosters: Exercise, quality sleep, hydration, healthy food.

● Drainers: Poor sleep, too much sitting, sugar crashes, over-caffeination.

2. Mental Energy

● Boosters: Creative problem-solving, flow-state work, reading, learning.

● Drainers: Multitasking, endless notifications, repetitive busywork.

3. Social Energy

● Boosters: Supportive friends, inspiring collaborators, meaningful conversations.

● Drainers: Negative people, gossip, purposeless meetings.

4. Spiritual Energy

● Boosters: Work aligned with your values, gratitude, reflection, purpose-driven projects.

● Drainers: Misaligned work, purposeless tasks, neglecting your “why.”

When you look at life through these four lenses, you start to see energy patterns you’d otherwise miss.

How to Do an Energy Audit

Here’s a simple step-by-step process you can try this week:

1. Track your days. For 3–5 days, log what you’re doing every couple of hours. Score each activity: +2 (energized), 0 (neutral), -2 (drained).

2. Note the context. Write down the time, who you were with, and your environment. Sometimes it’s not the activity itself but the context that matters.

3. Spot patterns. Look for trends. Are mornings sharper? Do certain people energize or exhaust you?

4. Identify peak zones. Protect your high-energy times for your most important work (like I now do with my AI Music Project).

5. Adjust. Move draining tasks to low-energy times. Batch errands. Add more of what fuels you.

6. Revisit. Repeat every few months — your energy shifts with seasons, health, and life changes.

What I Learned From My Own Energy Audit

When I started paying attention, I realized my best creative energy comes in the morning — usually between 5:30 and 8:00 a.m. Recently, I was spending my time on a fairly mindless task (for another project). Now, I dedicate it to my AI Music Project.

The result? More progress in the past few weeks now that I stopped treating it like a “side project.”

I also noticed that other mindless tasks in the afternoon left me mentally fried. So I batch them together and leave space afterward for recovery — a walk, a workout, or even a short nap.

The audit didn’t just change how I work. It changed how I feel each day.

Final Thoughts on Energy Audits

My AI Music Project only started to take off when I aligned it with my peak energy. That’s the real lesson here: success isn’t just about working harder — it’s about working smarter, in sync with your natural rhythms.

An energy audit helps you see clearly what fuels you and what drains you. Once you know that, you can design your days around the activities and people that inspire you most.

So here’s my challenge: spend a few days tracking your energy. Use a notebook, an app, or better yet, grab the Time Management & Productivity Printable. It’s a simple tool that can help you unlock more focus, more creativity, and more results — without burning out.

Because when you manage your energy, not just your time, you give yourself the power to do your best work — and enjoy the process along the way.

Talk soon,

Steve

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