Energy Audit Elimination Ladder
Track energy by hour, then stop, delegate, or transform the drains
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 99%
The Energy Audit treats energy, not time, as the scarce operating resource. Review every hour across one or two recent weeks, including unscheduled activity, and mark it green if you ended with more energy or red if you ended with less. Look for repeated patterns rather than reacting to one difficult hour. Put each drain through a three-part elimination ladder. First ask whether it needs to happen at all and stop it if not. If it is necessary, ask whether you personally must do it and delegate when the answer is no. If it must happen and must involve you, ask what would make it exquisite or energy-raising, then change the environment, format, or companionship. Repeat the audit to see whether the redesign actually worked.
Origin
Mochary credits Diana Chapman, who learned from Gay and Katie Hendricks, for the energy-audit concept.
Core principles
- 01Energy rather than clock time is often the binding constraint
- 02Removing drains is easier than adding energizing activities
- 03Calendar memory should include unscheduled activity, not appointments alone
- 04Every drain should pass through stop, delegate, and transform questions
How to run it
- 1
Reconstruct the week
Review one or two weeks hour by hour and record what you actually did, whether or not it appeared on the calendar.
Pro tip Use a representative period rather than an unusually quiet or chaotic week.
Watch out Calendar appointments alone omit unscheduled drains.
- 2
Color the energy effect
Mark an hour green when you ended with more energy than you started and red when you did not. Use your experienced change rather than whether the activity looked productive.
Pro tip Judge the end state immediately after the activity when possible.
- 3
Stop the unnecessary
For every repeated red item, ask whether it needs to happen. Decline or remove activities whose value does not justify their cost.
Pro tip Save kind refusal language for requests that recur.
Watch out Expect some blowback when a previous yes becomes a no.
- 4
Delegate the necessary
If the activity matters, ask whether you must personally perform it. Transfer it with sufficient context, authority, and support when someone else can own it.
Pro tip Challenge assumptions that only you can make the relevant decision.
Watch out Delegation without authority merely adds coordination work.
- 5
Make the remainder exquisite
When the work must happen and must involve you, identify a change that could make it energy-raising. Alter the company, music, location, batching, or meeting design and test the result.
Pro tip Ask the literal question ‘What would make it exquisite?’
Watch out A pleasant setting should not impair judgment on consequential work.
In the wild
Mochary says people often make draining internal meetings exquisite by appointing an owner, using a pre-written agenda, time-boxing topics, and having participants pre-read and pre-write comments before the meeting.
→ The verbal meeting begins closer to a decision instead of starting with basic understanding.
Tim and Mochary test whether legal work must happen, whether precursor activities can stop, whether someone else can handle it, and whether Tim may be exaggerating the time because the emails feel painful.
→ A broad complaint becomes a set of specific stop, delegate, and redesign questions.
Common mistakes
Auditing time instead of energy
The exercise is not a conventional time budget; it asks whether each activity raises or reduces capacity.
Stopping at identification
A colored calendar creates no benefit unless recurring drains are stopped, delegated, or transformed.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for people with enough calendar control to stop, delegate, or redesign recurring energy drains.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal as a justification for abandoning essential duties or shifting unpleasant work to others without support and authority.
From the transcript
“What we have is limited energy.”
“marking it green, "I ended that hour with more energy than I started," or red, "I did not end that hour with more energy than…”
“Does this actually even need to happen?”
From the episode
#658: CEO Coach Matt Mochary — Live Coaching with Tim, Why Fear and Anger Give Bad Advice, How to Perform Personal Energy Audits, The Power of Accountability Partners, Delegation Tips, Strategies for Hiring the Right People, and More
Matt Mochary