Learn why stewarding your energy matters as much as managing your time, and how paying attention to your capacity can help you live with greater intention.
Stewarding Your Energy, Not Just Your Time
I have been thinking lately about the difference between managing my time and stewarding my energy.
They sound like they should be the same thing.
They aren’t.
I can have three free hours on my calendar and still not have three hours’ worth of energy available to me.
I can have enough time to do something and simply not have the capacity for it.
And I am beginning to think that matters.
We talk quite a bit about managing our time. We make schedules. We prioritize. We create routines. We learn to say no to some things so we can say yes to others.
All of that can be helpful.
But time is only one part of the equation.
Because having the time to do something doesn’t necessarily mean having the energy to do it.
Energy Is Something We Are Meant to Steward
I recently came across a book called God Cannot Multiply What We Mismanage.
I haven’t come to you with a book review. I haven’t even finished the book.
But the title stopped me. It made me think about stewardship in a slightly different way.
We understand that we are called to steward the things entrusted to us:
- our resources,
- our homes,
- our relationships,
- our time.
Why wouldn’t our energy be included?
I am not suggesting that we are each given some fixed amount of energy that we simply need to conserve.
In fact, I think the opposite may be closer to the truth.
Our capacity is not the same from person to person.
And it isn’t even the same from day to day.
- Health affects it.
- Stress affects it.
- Sleep affects it.
- Life circumstances affect it.
Some seasons require more from us than others.
Some days we have a great deal to give, others we have very little.
So perhaps the question isn’t, How do I make sure I never run out of energy?
Perhaps it is:
What energy do I have available right now, and how can I steward it well?
That feels much more realistic to me.
We Don’t All Wake Up With the Same Number of Spoons
There is a concept called Spoon Theory, developed by Christine Miserandino to explain the experience of living with chronic illness and having a limited, fluctuating amount of energy.
The metaphor is simple.
Imagine that you wake up each morning with a certain number of spoons.
Every activity costs a spoon—or sometimes several.
- Getting ready for work.
- Driving.
- Making dinner.
- Going to the grocery store.
- Having a difficult conversation.
- Taking care of someone else.
And you don’t necessarily wake up with the same number of spoons every day.
Some days you might have twelve, some days you might have five.
Some days, you may have used most of them before lunchtime.
I think there is something useful in that metaphor even beyond chronic illness.
Because, in one way or another, we all have a finite amount of capacity.
And we don’t always know what the day is going to require of us.
The point isn’t to compare our number of spoons with someone else’s.
It is to notice the ones we have.
That is where stewardship begins.
Your Body Has a Budget, Too
I’ve been learning that my body has a say in my schedule whether I like it or not.
There are things I can put on a calendar that my body may not be prepared to accomplish.
There are days when something that sounds perfectly reasonable on paper feels enormous in real life.
And I think this is one place where we can get ourselves into trouble.
We make plans based on what should be possible instead of paying attention to what is actually available.
But our bodies are not machines that produce the same output every day.
- We get tired.
- We get sick.
- We carry stress.
- We recover from things.
We move through seasons of greater strength and seasons of lesser capacity.
Sometimes stewardship looks like using the energy we have well.
Sometimes it looks like resting so that we may have more tomorrow.
And sometimes it simply looks like admitting, I don’t have enough for that today.
That isn’t laziness.
It’s information.
Emotional Energy Is Real, Too
Physical energy is only part of the story.
Some things don’t make us physically tired so much as emotionally tired.
A difficult conversation can take more out of us than an hour of ordinary work.
Conflict can linger long after the conversation ends.
Constant interruptions can wear down someone who needs quiet to think.
Being around people can energize one person and drain another.
And sometimes we don’t realize how much emotional energy we are spending because none of it appears on our calendar.
This is where knowing ourselves becomes important.
Some of us are naturally more introverted, some are more extroverted.
Some need solitude to recover, while some need connection.
Some need movement, others need quiet.
Some need a little beauty around them before they feel like themselves again.
There isn’t one correct way to restore energy.
There is only the responsibility to pay attention.
Know What Restores You
I think we sometimes treat rest as though it is simply the absence of work.
But rest can be much more specific than that.
What actually restores you?
For me, sometimes, it is quiet.
Sometimes it is just being home.
Sometimes it is doing something ordinary and familiar with no particular deadline attached to it.
Sometimes I need sleep, sometimes I need to be outside.
Sometimes I need to stop taking in everyone else’s thoughts and opinions and simply hear my own again.
That is useful information.
If I know what restores me, I can begin to protect some space for it.
Not because I am trying to construct a perfectly balanced life.
But because I am learning that I cannot continually spend energy without allowing myself to receive some back.
Stop Spending Tomorrow’s Energy Today
There will be days when we use every spoon we have.
- Life happens.
- A child gets sick.
- A parent needs help.
- Work becomes unexpectedly demanding.
- There is a crisis.
- Someone we love needs us.
That isn’t failure.
The problem is when we make a habit of spending tomorrow’s energy today.
When every week requires us to recover from the week before.
When every weekend becomes a frantic attempt to catch up.
When we continually say yes because we technically can, even though we know the yes will cost us more than we have available.
That is where stewardship gets practical.
We begin asking different questions.
Do I have the energy for this?
Is this mine to carry?
What will this require from me?
What will I have left afterward?
And perhaps most importantly:
Is this worthy of the energy it will cost?
That last question has been especially helpful to me.
Because stewardship doesn’t mean we never spend what we’ve been given.
It means we spend it intentionally.
Steward the Energy You Have Today
Maybe this is another part of learning to live with margin.
Margin isn’t only empty space on a calendar.
Sometimes margin is leaving enough energy in reserve that an unexpected need doesn’t completely undo us.
- Sometimes it is choosing the easier dinner.
- Sometimes it is declining the invitation.
- Sometimes it is going to bed instead of finishing one more thing.
- Sometimes it is recognizing that today is a three-spoon day and adjusting accordingly.
And sometimes it is recognizing that today is a twelve-spoon day—and being willing to use those spoons for something meaningful.
I don’t think the goal is to become someone who never gets tired.
That isn’t realistic.
And I don’t think the goal is to manage our energy so perfectly that nothing ever catches us by surprise.
Life doesn’t work that way.
I think the goal is simply to become more honest about what we have.
- To notice.
- To listen.
- To choose.
To spend our strength on what matters.
Because our energy is part of what has been entrusted to us, too.
And perhaps good stewardship isn’t about holding tightly to every ounce of strength we have.
Perhaps it is about knowing what we have today—and then deciding what is worthy of it.