Sometimes it’s the smallest thing. A cluttered inbox. An important voice-mail you need to return. The birthday card you need to send. These types of things are simple but when you don’t get around to taking care of them, they can drain your positive vibes. You keep thinking about them till they leak all your energy. And once these energy leaks build-up, so does your stress level. In this episode, we talk about how to take care of these energy leaks before they drain you.

Podcast

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A Stuffed In-box

Today’s episode is inspired by my inbox.

For the past year, I’ve been working to keep my emails down.

-I’ve unsubscribed from a ton of newsletters. Essentially, if the newsletter doesn’t make me smile, it’s gone.

-Every day I do a little bit of clean-up. I then mark off on my habit tracker that I’ve done it.

It’s been going great.

Except for last week. I subscribed to a new newsletter I really wanted to look at and they sent me a gagillion emails. Life was also really busy so I didn’t get to my emails.

And my inbox got crazy.

This REALLY stressed me out.

I felt like my life was out of control.

My inbox had become an energy leak.

Your Energy Leaks

We all have different energy leaks.

For you, maybe you couldn’t care less about your inbox. Maybe it has 10,000 emails and that doesn’t bother you. I know people like that.

But I bet there are things that drain your energy.

Here’s what I did the week I noticed my emails were getting the best of me.

I got out a piece of paper and wrote

ENERGY LEAKS at the top of it.

I then wrote down all the things that were leaking my energy.

-the shoes I need to return
-the clothes I need to buy for my kids
-the Spotify subscription I want to renew

All these small things that are filling up my head and making me feel stressed and worse, it effects my self-image.

Instead of feeling like a woman who “has it together,” I feel disorganized, I can’t focus, I’m overwhelmed.

So what do you do?

How to Plug The Energy Leaks

Step 1: First, you’ve got to get them out of your head. Most of the time, You don’t even realize they’re there.

You may want to create a master list like the one I did (either on paper or electronically). Know that you’re going to be editing it!

I have a paper planner and I like to put these things in my planner as I think of them.

Step 2: Look at the list every week.

Every week I like to look at this list and then I’ll do a few things.

First, is there something on the list I can delegate?

Last week I realized that I had something on my list I could easily delegate. I needed a new charger for my mac.

My husband has an online store he likes to use to buy chargers. He’d be much better at doing this task than I’d be.

I asked him to please do it and a week later, my charger arrived in the mail.

Done and done.

But you see that if I hadn’t written it down, the thought I need a charger would have stayed in my brain for 5 years. Writing it down and realizing it was something I could easily delegate helped get it done.

Step 3: Schedule a few of your energy leaks into your week

Pick a few energy leaks and decide that you’ll work on them this week. It’s up to you how many you’ll work on. Maybe even just ONE thing you’ve been procrastinating is enough.

Or maybe you want to pick a few.

It’s up to you.

How I Manage my Energy Leaks

The system I gave you is very simple. You write down the leaks, you look at them, and you do a few tasks every week.

But if you’d like to know how I handle them, I’ll share my system with you.

And if you’ve been listening to all my episodes, you may already know how I regularly deal with these leaks.

My system is one that I created and it’s called

GEMS

If you want to know more about GEMS, listen to Episode #41.

It’s been one of my most popular episodes. It’s especially resonated with people with ADD, which shocked me. I had no idea when I came up with the system that it would also help people who had difficulty focusing, but it’s a very simple system, designed for working moms, so it makes sense it would also work for people with ADD.

The G is a big goal I’m working towards. For example, right now I’m working on buying furniture for my office. Every day I do a little task towards this big goal (ex. researching online stores, measuring the space, etc.)

E is something to ease my mind. This is an energy leak. It’s usually something small like a phone call, maybe processing 10 emails. I have it built into my day to address my energy leaks.

M is a micro-action that’ll help move me forward. For example, I had an energy leak for months about making a certain medical appointment. My micro-action was to email myself the phone number so that the next day when the office was open, it would make my call just a smidge easier to do. Sometimes those micro-actions are more powerful than we realize.

Just that little action of sending myself the phone number got me to do that task I’d been delaying for probably 6 months or more.

Never underestimate the power of micro, my friend.

Lastly, S in the system is for self-care.

This part of the system is especially important for people who don’t have self-care habits. It reminds them to take a walk.

It’s a System

I wanted to show you that taking care of these energy leaks is something I build into my schedule so that I can take care of them regularly.

I won’t lie and tell you I get to my GEMS every day. But I can tell you that I eventually get to them.

And that feels amazing. I know if I write something down it may not happen for weeks, or maybe even months. But because I have a system where I look at them and put them on my to-do, they usually get done in the long run.

And that helps my confidence.

It helps keep my family more organized.

And I want for you to feel this way. My ultimate goal for you is to feel more balanced and of course, if these energy vampires are draining you, you’re not going to feel balanced.

Plugging up these leaks regularly is very important so you can feel balanced, confident, calm, and organized.

Little tiny action done regularly to plug these leaks is going to help you so much so you can feel more balanced and get these nagging things done.

I’m proud of you for being on this journey to create more balance in your life.
Love,
Rina