The Strange Economics of Energy

I noticed it immediately on Monday morning. I was yawning before the day had even started.

My energy was completely down.

The strange thing was that only the day before, around three in the afternoon, my energy had been at its highest point of the whole week. We had our first football match of the season. On paper it didn’t look promising. We are last in the table and the other team is first. But sometimes football is not about the table.

Before the match our trainer pushed us very hard. You could feel his belief. That energy moved through the whole team. In the end we drew the game, but for us it felt like a victory.

And of course, when something feels like a victory, you celebrate.

After the match we had a few beers together with the team. Nothing extraordinary, just the normal ritual after a good game. But time moves quickly in those moments. The match started at three, and somehow I only came home around eight in the evening.

Julia had exactly the reaction you would expect.

“Now I know why you’re tired.”

She was right.

I picked up my son and went straight to bed. Our son fell asleep immediately, and I did too. But then something happened that often destroys the next day without you realizing it in the moment.

At three in the morning I woke up.

Completely awake.

I tried to sleep again, but it didn’t work. So I took my phone and started scrolling through social media. Two hours disappeared like that. I stayed in bed the whole time, sound off, screen very dark, so Julia could keep sleeping.

Eventually I slept again for maybe one hour.

When the alarm came in the morning, my energy was gone.

What makes it interesting is that the week before had actually given me a lot of energy. I had spent four days in Austria visiting customers. That kind of travel can drain you because every meeting needs a different mindset. You leave one customer, you are still processing what happened, and already you are driving to the next one.

But that trip was good.

The weather was perfect — around sixteen degrees every day, sunshine, clear skies. Small things like that make a big difference when you are on the road.

And I was traveling with my colleague. When we work together, the trips are always enjoyable. We talk about customers and about business but also about life. Between meetings the car becomes a kind of moving office and sometimes a comedy show.

One meeting in particular surprised both of us.

We visited a customer whose sales had dropped badly the year before—about twenty thousand euros. We expected a difficult conversation. My plan was simply to present some additional products and see if we could slowly rebuild the relationship.

I started explaining the first product. Ten minutes later, the customer said, “Send me the data. I’ll list it.”

So I presented the next product.

Again: “Send me the data.”

Then the next one. And the next one.

Suddenly everything was working. Every product I presented was accepted. When we walked back to the car afterwards, we actually shouted like two football players who had just scored a goal.

Those moments give you a huge mental boost.

But after four days like that the battery also becomes empty. I noticed it the Friday after the trip. I sat in front of my laptop clicking through emails, but my brain simply refused to work. My hand was moving on the mouse, but my mind wasn’t there.

That kind of mental tiredness is much harder than physical tiredness.

Running around on a football field makes your body tired. But when your brain is empty, work becomes impossible.

Normally I avoid that situation with one simple system: my to-do list.

Every Friday or Monday morning I write down everything that needs to be done. Follow-ups from customer meetings, product training for key accounts, emails, administrative tasks — everything goes into my calendar. When I finish something, I delete it.

Crossing something off the list gives me a small sense of victory. It keeps the day moving forward.

This week, for example, I am working completely from home because there is so much follow-up from Austria. Many emails, many small tasks, updating product lists, and organizing training for customers. Next week senior management will come, so I want everything prepared.

Working from home sounds comfortable, but it also requires discipline.

When I work, I work.

There is no shopping in between, no quick family tasks, no distractions. Julia sometimes asks if I can quickly help with something, but during work hours my answer is simple: after work.

My lunch break is also very practical. Usually I eat in front of my laptop. Julia brings me a small meal and I take maybe ten minutes before continuing.

Some people would say that is unhealthy. Maybe they are right. But I know myself. If I take a long break, my energy drops. I once tried taking a nap after lunch. The result was always the same: instead of ten minutes it became one hour, and after that my energy was completely gone.

So I prefer to keep moving.

The funny part of working from home is when Julia also works from home. That happens about once a week. Then we sit in the same room with our laptops.

It sounds romantic, but it has its challenges.

Apparently I am a very loud person when I speak to customers on the phone. Julia sometimes reminds me that I am not alone in the room. And of course there is one clear advantage for me: when my coffee is empty, I can ask her for another one.

She is not always impressed by that arrangement.

When I think about my energy as a kind of budget, most of it clearly goes into work. Maybe sixty or seventy percent. The rest goes to family, football, friends — the things that help me recover.

Some people might say that is too much focus on work. But for me the situation is simple.

I love my job.

When you enjoy what you do, it doesn’t feel like something that steals your energy. It becomes part of the energy itself. And compared with people who work eighty hours a week in some investment bank in Frankfurt, I think my balance is still reasonable.

Still, there are things I could improve.

Maybe waking up earlier would help. Five or six in the morning, starting the day calmly before everything begins. At the moment I often lie in bed thinking, “Thirty minutes more… then I start.”

And sometimes that turns into three in the morning with a phone in my hand.

Life has its rhythms. Work, travel, football, family, sleep, sometimes too little sleep.

But in the end I know one thing very clearly.

I am a very active person.

And even if that sometimes makes Julia shake her head, it is also the way I recharge.