More Answers... (06/23/26 Newsletter): The Energy to Move

Hi Everyone, 

Here are More Answers... to help you head into the work week. Remember, you can see previous newsletters at askchrista.com/MoreAnswers.

Today’s topic: The energy to move.

Yes, I know, it seems redundant. Anyone could argue, "OK, Christa, but you can't move without energy," and to that I say: sure you can, if you already have momentum or inertia. 

"Moving" doesn't always mean WE are the ones spending energy, and I want to bring that point to the forefront so you can allow yourselves to ebb and flow throughout your workday based on what you have to give (Schwartz & McCarthy, 2007).

As a kid, I remember how much I loved shoving a half-filled gallon of milk forward just to watch it scoot further down the countertop at home in jerky motions, overtaken by the inertia of the milk sloshing to the back of the jug, then the front of the jug, then the back of the jug, then the front of the jug. I only had to move it once to get it going. The rest wasn't energy because of physical action, it was inertia, and we can thank Newton (and probably thousands of others who made the same observation) where an object set in motion continues motion until an external force, such as a wall or a hand or gravity, stops it (OpenStax, 2016).

We experience that at work, too, and I don't mean when we're coasting through the end of the week until we go on vacation, or coasting into a week coming off of a vacation. Coasting is more about the motion of falling because of gravity, slowed and controlled through the physical structure (wings) giving lift.

Work inertia is an important part of how we can find ways to restore while we have to keep up with pace, yet so few consider it as a strategic use of your time and energy. This is related to how people sustain performance under demand, and we've all been there, right? (Hobfoll, 1989; Schwartz & McCarthy, 2007). Let's change that... and of course, it's no surprise I've found a way to include a Hobfoll article (I fangirl about his Conservation of Resources theory every chance I get...)

Being Strategic with your Energy

This may sound like you're gaming the system, and so be it. But you will do much better for yourself, your work, your team, and your organization when you're able to give your best each day. Not your most, but your best, and that's an important distinction I make all the time.

When you think about how much time we all spend at work and on work-related tasks, it becomes easier to see how often energy is expended without thought (or as so many say these days, "intention"). Research on human performance and stress management consistently shows that resources like attention, focus, and emotional regulation are the most critical resources for performance while also being the first resources to be depleted. As a result, there's a cycle of replenishment and restoration that's needed in order to recover and maintain effectiveness (Hobfoll, 1989; Schwartz & McCarthy, 2007).

Now, we all feel the pressure to maintain the same top performance day in and day out. Sometimes we do it because there truly aren't enough hours in the day to do the work we need to do and do it well, not perfectly, just well. And sometimes there's an expectation, from us and from others, to perform at high outputs all the time. 

But if we dig a few layers down, a lot of times we try to sustain high energy in order to sustain high performance, and most times that's from a habit or a cycle we simply can't get out of. We're in a frame of momentum, or... inertia. We got the half-filled gallon of milk going, and now it's moving across the proverbial countertop on its own, nearly in perpetuity, waiting for the waves to slow enough to stop.

But in those examples, I could argue that we "let" that type of habit, momentum, and inertia happen without having much of a say in it. What I'm talking about in being strategic with your energy is the exact opposite. You control when you push the half-filled gallon of milk, and let the resulting motion carry forward through inertia rather than continuous effort.

But What the Heck Does That Mean?

OK, that last part may have pretzeled-up your head, but instinctively, you know what I'm talking about: learning how to protect your energy by using momentum and inertia in your favor.

For example, you might work four hours on a presentation and get an "OK, that's good." Or you might work one hour on a presentation and get the same response. You might work really hard to answer all your emails and feel satisfied that you checked off the boxes, then realize you're never really done.

You might be in an organization where only a few things get done each day because the culture is more about the energy of process and working and less about the energy of process leading to results.

Whatever the case, it's time to calibrate your energy into the mix of your environment and determine what you have to actively move versus where you can let inertia bring you forward.

Here's a non-work, real-world example, and I'm going to bring up physics again. 

If you're into race car driving, you've heard of how drivers strategically position themselves behind one another to 1) accelerate while 2) using less fuel. Essentially, they are using the car in front of them to break through the air, create a pocket right behind them that you move into, and that pocket (creating "draft") pulls your car close while using their speed to move (NASA Glenn Research Center, n.d.). 

If you've ever driven on a highway (or "freeway" if you don't live in the northeast or mid-atlantic <wink>), and you've moved passed a big 18-wheeler, you probably felt your car "catching air" or feeling the "bad draft" of the truck, where your car moves through and past the air of the truck. Well, race car drivers, specifically NASCAR cars, use that air strategically to increase their speed with far less active energy used.

That's what I'm talking about for this post, more or less.

Now back to work...

There is activity and work and energy happening all around you at work, and your work is closely related to or even shared by co-workers work (most of the time). The goal isn't to do less or do your worst and expect to gain or leverage or ride the coattails of those around you. The goal is to be more strategic with your energy and more thoughtful with where you put it.

For example, do you need to produce an A+ all the time when your work requires a more average approach to an average-funded effort with others being smart about providing average outcomes? Average isn't bad: it's getting the job done and meeting the expectation, so if average works, do average so that when the A+ is needed, you've got the energy to go all in.

Or are you low in energy and feeling you can't easily generate what is needed to get the work done to the level you and others expect? Well, who can you draft? How can you be strategic about feeling it's a low-energy day or week, and determine how to 1) go faster than your low-energy self feels, and 2) save on energy?

Afterall, the best teams and the greatest organizations win because they know how to level the energy and resources to get the right work done at the right level and the right time.

Beware of Temptations: Do Not Stop Moving...

I say all of this as a starter to being strategic with your energy so you can put it to its best use every day (not the MOST use, but the BEST use), but I say it with a warning label: resist the urge to slow down or lose momentum to a full stop. As with all aspects of physics, it takes far more energy to start or restart (OpenStax, 2016).

The most sustainable professionals I have observed are not the ones who constantly push harder or expect 100% all the time, but the ones who know when to ratchet things up then ratchet things down SO THAT they don't have to stop completely (or break down, which is when your brain says, "OK, I guess I'll have to take over"). 

So beware of burn out and feeling disengaged. The strategy I'm sharing is not about slowing down to a halt or giving in to low energy. It is about learning how to level out your own internal resources, then leverage the resources around you to keep going. 

.

Booster for the Week!

Here's a wonderfully simple and interesting (and short!) video that explains how drafting works in racing from Speedway Motors and Loni Unser, one of the best speedcar racers out there. 

(the video reviews side drafting, too... makes me giggle with excitement when we can see how science works in the real world...)

With kindness,

Christa

(Helpful? Interesting? Please feel free to forward and invite others to subscribe at askchrista.com/newsletter.)

References

Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74(3), 513–524. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.74.3.513

NASA Glenn Research Center. (n.d.). Beginner’s guide to aerodynamics: Drag. https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/drag1.html

OpenStax. (2016). University physics volume 1. Rice University. https://openstax.org/details/books/university-physics-volume-1

Schwartz, T., & McCarthy, C. (2007, October). Manage your energy, not your time. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2007/10/manage-your-energy-not-your-time

(remember: most public libraries in the USA offer access to academic papers; however, if yours does not, then Google these papers or chapters to see where they are listed, how you can learn more about them, and how you can find similar papers to learn more about this topic)