The power of when

Written by Stuart Haden on November 21, 2018

The ‘power of what’ calls upon you to notice your energy levels in the moment. You are firing on all cylinders. But what is firing – body, heart or mind. What do you need more of, what do you need less of? Fuel in the tank.

Shifting gears slightly the concept of Hedonic Calendaring, (Kotler and Wheal) introduces the ‘power of when.’ Offering a way to hack optimal performance without coming undone. A method to integrate hard and fast processes with the slow and steady. Encouraging a long term sustainable practice. 

In short notice what gets your juices flowing and assign how often you should be tackling each activity. A simple spreadsheet that I have created captures the following 5 step approach…

  • Note all of the things that you love to do to get out of your head/into the zone.
  • Work out how potent/distracting your given flow activity is – the higher the risk/reward ratio, the less often you should do it.
  • Sort your flow activities into one of 5 buckets – daily, weekly, monthly, seasonally and annually.
  • Connect your practices with pre-existing cultural rhythms to make them self propelling rituals.
  • Build into each year a force hiatus – a stretch where you set all your indulgences up on a shelf, go 30-days cold turkey, using this time to recalibrate.

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” Chartres. This posting was inspired by Stealing Fire, Chapter 10: hedonic engineering