Track what fills and drains you across a week

By Friday you are flat and you cannot quite say which parts of the week did it. This walks back through every meeting, conversation, commute and quiet hour, rating each as filling or draining. The pattern that emerges shows where your energy actually goes, so you can do more of what feeds you and less of what quietly empties the tank.

This exercise works best at the end of a week, but you can do it for any recent period. Set aside 25 minutes.

Part 1, Recall the week (10 minutes):
Move through each day mentally and write down every significant activity, interaction, or situation you can remember: work tasks, conversations, commutes, meals, exercise, social time, alone time, admin, creative work, anything.

Part 2, Rate each entry:
Next to each item, mark it with a + (gave me energy), a - (drained my energy), or a 0 (neutral).

Part 3, Analyse the pattern (10 minutes):
1. What activities consistently appear in the + column?
2. What activities consistently appear in the - column?
3. Is there anything in the - column that I cannot remove, but could change how I do it?
4. Is there anything in the + column that I am not getting enough of?
5. What does this map say about the conditions under which I do my best work and feel most alive?

Part 4, Design (5 minutes):
If I could make one structural change to next week based on this map, what would it be?