Proportionately Invest Your Energy
Rather than aiming for balance, take the finite amount of energy you build up each night and invest it proportionately across your work, your family, your personal life and your community.
Dandapani explains why he struggles with the word balance and prefers proportionate. Energy is finite and rebuilds while you sleep, so the daily question is not how to split it in half between work and life but how to distribute it across everything that matters.
What this talk covers
- He struggles with the idea of a balanced life or work-life balance, and prefers the word proportionate.
- We have a finite amount of energy each day, which is why at some point tonight he will be exhausted and say he is going to bed.
- Energy builds back up while you sleep, depending on how well you sleep, so you wake up with that finite amount.
- Rather than dividing that energy in half between work and life, distribute it proportionately across work, family, personal life, community and everything else.
Rather than think balanced, I prefer to use the word proportionate.Dandapani
Questions
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He does not think so. Balance implies splitting your energy in half between work and life, and what has worked for him is investing his finite daily energy proportionately across all the parts of his life.
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Because at some point tonight he will be exhausted, with no energy left, and go to bed. The energy builds back up during sleep, and you wake with that fixed amount for the day.
Transcript
198 words · 1:10
I often hear people say we should live a balanced life, or we should strive for finding some kind of work-life balance. I think that word balance is something I struggle with. Rather than think balanced, I prefer to use the word proportionate. What do I mean by this?
I always tell people that we have a finite amount of energy each day. We only have so much energy each day. Why do I say that? Because, come some point tonight, I'm going to be exhausted, and I have no energy left, and I'm going to say, I'm going to bed.
Depending on how well I sleep, my energy builds back up again. And then when I wake up in the morning, I have that finite amount of energy that I built up while I was sleeping. Now, I have to take that energy and not divide it in half in a balanced way between work and life. What has worked for me in my life is to take that finite amount of energy and proportionately
distribute it or proportionately invest it into my work, into my family, into my personal life, into my community and everything else.