I love coming up with different schemes, and here’s a new one. I was thinking about the mental energy required by the different tasks of my life, and it struck me that this energy could be divided into four categories, in descending order of mental demand:
1. Contemplative energy—planning, deciding, creating, inhibiting (holding myself back from saying, doing, or thinking something), setting priorities, making transitions
2. Engagement energy—talking to other people, reading or observing with my critical faculties
3. Audience energy—watching or listening passively
4. Habit energy—mindlessly executing a habitual behavior
One conclusion: when I feel too tired to do anything except Level 3, I should probably be in bed.
To be satisfying, watching TV or checking Facebook should feel like Level 2 activities, not Level 3. Watching Homeland is a different experience from flipping through the channels. True, occasionally, Level 3 is just what I’m in the mood for, but I don’t want to make a habit of it or let myself sink, without realizing it, from Level 2 into Level 3 (which tends to happen within about thirty minutes).
The other day, I had an epiphany: It takes a lot of energy to decide to go to bed. Weirdly, when I’m very tired, I tend to stay up too late. These four levels help show why. I’m stuck in a Level 3 activity and don’t have the energy to boost myself into Level 1 activity.
That’s the value of Level 4. If I make bedtime into a habit—“at 10:30, I start getting ready for bed, in the same way, every night”—then I don’t have to use any precious Level 1 mental energy to get myself to turn out the light.
“There is never any justification for things being complex when they could be simple.”
Edward de Bono
What do you think of these four levels; did I get it right? What activities did I overlook that should be plugged into this framework?
Gretchen Rubin is the author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Happiness Project—an account of the year she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific studies, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier—and the recently released Happier at Home. On her popular blog, The Happiness Project, she reports on her daily adventures in the pursuit of happiness. For more doses of happiness and other happenings, follow Gretchen on Facebook and Twitter.
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