The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal (2003) by performance psychologist Dr. Jim Loehr and journalist Tony Schwartz is a book about practical self-care based on a scientifically based approach to managing energy in order to engage more fully with work and life.

It posits that energy, not time, is our most precious resource, and that our performance, health and happiness depend on skillful energy management.

After hearing about "fixed-schedule productivity" on Cal Newport's Deep Questions podcast, I couldn't adhering to a fixed schedule system (such as timeblock planning) when my physiology and environment so heavily influence my ability to concentrate and work. This made me wonder if there was such a thing as "flexible-schedule productivity"; subsequent searches led me to this book.

Principles of Full Engagement

Principle 1: Full engagement requires drawing on four separate but related sources of energy: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.

Principle 2: Because energy capacity diminishes both with overuse and with underuse, we must balance energy expenditure with intermittent energy renewal.** (Known as "oscillation", as opposed to "linear" activity that does not balance expenditure with renewal.)

Principle 3: To build capacity, we must push beyond our normal limits, training in the same systematic way that elite athletes do.

Principle 4: Positive energy rituals---highly specific routines for managing energy---are the key to full engagement and sustained high performance.

Types of Energy

• Physical: Fundamental source of fuel, obtained from breath and food. Sleep is the most important source of recovery.
• Emotional: Comes from accessing positive emotions like enjoyment, challenge and opportunity. Key emotional muscles are self-confidence, self-control, social skills (dammit!), and empathy.
• Mental: Powers focus and realistic optimism. Key mental muscles include mental preparation, visualisation, positive self-talk, effective time management, and creativity.
• Spiritual: Derived from connection to one's values and purpose beyond self-interest. Not religious and not paranormal, though some may draw spiritual energy from these pursuits. Key spiritual muscles are passion, commitment, integrity, and honesty.

Training for Full Engagement

Full Engagement starts with defining purpose, which subsequently becomes a powerful and enduring source of energy. Values are the foundation of purpose: when you know your values, you have a basis for all your decisions about life, behaviour, and work. A value in action is a virtue.

Poor energy management typically stems from "expedient adaptations" (hacks) for immediate benefit at the cost of longer term gain. Examples of expedient adaptations may include:

• pessimism to shield against disappointment, but that prevents you from acheiving a desired outcome;
• multitasking to feel productive and excited, but not really accomplishing any of your tasks to a high standard;
• defensiveness to protect ego and keep others at bay, while denying ourselves the opportunity to behave honestly and responsibly;
• excessive substance use to dull suffering, allowing problems to compound and fester over time; and
• continuing to work without rest, eventually burning out.

Given enough time, these adaptations become barriers to high performance and long-term satisfaction.

Training for Full Engagement involves establishing rituals — a structured approach to expending and renewing energy. Such rituals give us the means to put our values and priorities into practice. For lasting change, rituals need to be precise and specific for the first thirty to sixty days, aiming to firmly establish one new ritual at a time so it can stick.

How I'm feeling about all this

In our quest for excellence and exceptionality, we often succumb to the pressure to keep working, inadvertently (or even deliberately) skipping activities and opportunities for energy renewal. This lack of self-care is burning us out, making us miserable, and contributing to misery we may inflict on others.

Though there were points I had to remind myself this book was written 20 years ago and was targeted primarily at business professionals, I found its ideas useful and validating. The Full Engagement system offers a sensible framework for understanding and appreciating the mechanisms for how self-care can improve and sustain high performance over the long term.