--- title: "On Managing Your Your Energy" url: https://daily.dev/posts/on-managing-your-your-energy-31txshwd2 source_url: https://softwareleads.substack.com/p/on-managing-your-your-energy type: article source: "Effective Software Leads" published: 2026-08-10T13:15:10.494Z updated: 2026-08-10T13:15:38.490Z tags: ["productivity", "leadership"] reading_time: 12 upvotes: 10 comments: 1 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # On Managing Your Your Energy **[Effective Software Leads](https://daily.dev/sources/softwareleads)** · 12 min read · 10 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary Managing time alone is insufficient for effective tech leadership — energy is an equally finite and critical resource. Drawing on Andy Grove's observation that a manager's work is never truly done, the post argues that productivity depends not just on hours available but on the quality of energy brought to each task. Four types of energy are identified — physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual — each depleted by different activities. Practical strategies include scheduling deep cognitive work during peak mental energy, batching emotionally demanding conversations, and building recovery time between high-drain activities. The author shares a personal example of managing three concurrent projects by restructuring their day around energy rather than time, which made an otherwise unmanageable workload sustainable. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What are the different types of energy that matter for engineering managers? Four types of energy matter for engineering managers: physical (body's capacity to sustain work, affected by sleep and nutrition), mental (ability to concentrate, analyze, and make decisions), emotional (capacity to manage and regulate emotions through difficult conversations and stakeholder interactions), and spiritual (sense of purpose aligned with personal values). These are interconnected — poor sleep reduces mental sharpness, and mental fatigue increases emotional reactivity. _Engineering managers navigating burnout and workload balance track perspectives like this on daily.dev._ ### How should I structure my calendar as an engineering manager to avoid burnout? Schedule deep cognitive work — strategy documents, design reviews — during your mentally freshest hours, typically the morning. Batch emotionally demanding conversations (performance feedback, difficult one-on-ones) into dedicated days rather than spreading them throughout the week. Push low-energy administrative tasks like email and Slack to the end of the day. Build short recovery windows between high-drain activities to avoid carrying depletion into the next meeting. _Those making the IC-to-manager transition find practical scheduling frameworks like this worth bookmarking on daily.dev._ ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@feforeboot** · 1 upvotes > Wouldn't it have been more energy-efficient to write "Your" just once in the title, though? ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Designing for Flow: How Leaders Create the Conditions for Team Productivity](https://daily.dev/posts/designing-for-flow-how-leaders-create-the-conditions-for-team-productivity-sosqujgnj) · RUBYLAND · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Doing nothing at work](https://daily.dev/posts/doing-nothing-at-work-wzxdeddcu) · Tech Lead Digest · 150 upvotes · 6 comments --- Tags: [#productivity](https://daily.dev/tags/productivity), [#leadership](https://daily.dev/tags/leadership) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/on-managing-your-your-energy-31txshwd2)