Basic Energy Economics

The Sock Test: Why You Have Time But Not Energy

The word "economics" is derived from a Greek word "oikonomia" which means "household management" or "management of house affairs" i.e., how people earn income and resources and how they spend them on their necessities, comforts and luxuries.

There's a sock on your floor.

You see it as you walk by – it's just lying there, clearly out of place.

And you keep walking.

"I'll get it later," you think. "Can't be bothered right now."

This isn't a post about tidiness. That sock is telling you something far more important than the state of your housekeeping. That sock is a diagnostic tool – one I've used for years to measure something we rarely track with precision: our vital energy levels.

I call it "the sock test," and it's remarkably accurate.

The Sock Test Explained

Here's the test in its simplest form: When you see something small that needs fixing – a sock on the floor, a wrapper to throw away, a dish to put in the sink – and you can't summon the will to take that tiny action, you're likely experiencing an energy leak.

Contrast this with times in your life when you're flowing with energy. You're walking through a park, spot a piece of trash that isn't yours, and without thinking, you pick it up and find a bin. No internal resistance. No mental calculation. Just a natural response that feels effortless.

The difference between these two states isn't about time – picking up the sock takes seconds. It's about available energy.

The Time Fallacy

"I don't have time for that."

How often do we say this? About exercise, meditation, cooking healthy meals, or pursuing creative projects? But here's the uncomfortable truth I've found: in most cases, this is a fallacy.

People actually have more than enough time – what they're lacking is energy.

We throw away time because we lack energy. We scroll mindlessly for an hour but "can't find time" for a 20-minute workout. We watch three episodes of a show we don't even like but "don't have time" to read.

So if you can't dedicate time to something you want – perhaps what you're missing isn't time at all. It's energy.

Energy Leaks: The Four Fundamentals

If you've failed the sock test, it's time for honesty. Here are the four areas any good psychologist would have you examine first:

1. Are you consuming well? This isn't just about food (though that's crucial) but about all consumption – including digital information, news, and entertainment. You become what you eat, and you become what you consume.

2. Are you moving your body? Love it or hate it, we have physical bodies that need movement. When we exercise, our brains feel better. A healthy body supports a healthy mind.

3. Are you sleeping well? The quality and consistency of your sleep might be the most underrated energy factor. No productivity hack can compensate for poor sleep. If you are interested in optimising your sleep, I recommend the book "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker.

4. How are your relationships? Are you connected or isolated? Are your relationships nourishing or depleting?

Often, failing the sock test means at least one of these foundations needs attention.

The Advanced Level: Egregores

Beyond these fundamentals, many people leak energy to what I call "egregores" – thought forms or energy patterns that take on a will and agenda of their own. Companies are powerful egregores in today's world. But also products and cultures, big or small, have their own agendas that want to reel you in and grow.

Relationships with these egregores can manifest as addictions to substances, unhealthy attachments to work, engagement with social media platforms designed to capture your attention, or any pattern that takes more than it gives.

Think of it as having transactions happening in your energy savings account without your awareness. Sometimes we give more energy to companies or habits than we receive in return. Sometimes we borrow excessive energy from egregores like coffee or alcohol, not recognizing the percentage-based interest we'll have to pay back.

It's worth mapping out which egregores you're currently in relationship with. Imagine a bubble diagram – you're in the center, with overlapping bubbles representing different egregores in your life. The larger the bubble, the more impact it has on your energy economy.

Creating this diagram is easy. Start with your name and a bubble around it in the middle of the page. Then draw other circles around you representing entities you're in a relationship with. These might be your workplace or your family, social media or news networks that have a place in your life. Think of the ones that consistently find a way into your life. Some of these are net positive for you and some are net negative.

Unless you're the poster child for the egregore (rare), understanding the economics of these exchanges is crucial. (Being a poster child for an egregore is when you get special treatment from that egregore - hang in there and I will release a blogpost about this shortly. Basically this works just like when an influencer makes a brand deal with a company - they didn't pay for the product but they give a great review of the company so that others will enter a relationship with that egregore. The same thing happens naturally with some of the more powerful egregores out there.) Most egregores wouldn't exist if they didn't have net positive energy exchanges with the people attached – meaning most people are like casino gamblers, while the house always wins.

Energy Economics: The Three Strategies

Once you recognize your energy patterns, you have three main strategies:

1. [Start here] Reduce your energy spending habits– Minimize leaks and wasteful energy expenditures. This is the holes in your pockets - it doesn’t matter how rich you are if you have holes in your pockets.

2. [Then this] Increase your energy income – Improve the quality of what you put into your body and mind. These are your daily routines where most of the work happens.

3. [Pop off here] Invest your energy wisely – Direct energy toward things that generate returns. These are your investments that will eventually become assets.

This last strategy is particularly exciting. We can use our energy to make decisions that will pay off later – investing in healthy habits that work for us down the line.

Think of it like starting a company, or multiple companies: A physical exercise habit might take significant energy and persistence to establish, but eventually, it pays dividends, perhaps even becoming a great "company" that works for you rather than you working for it.

Strategic Cash-Outs vs. Poor Investments

Sometimes there are moments to "cash out" energy – a burst of deep work, a creative sprint, or a meditation retreat where you give it your all. Warren Buffet is known for saying that he likes to make “one time-investments”. That’s what we’re talking about here.

The key is being mindful of what you're cashing out for. Ideally, we want to direct these bursts toward things that really matter, that will stand as assets. We don't want to cash out massive amounts of energy on egregores we're in unhealthy relationships with.

Learning how to use chatGPT or Claude, finishing a book, starting a project, or going on a meditation retreat might be worth the energy investment. But using available energy to maintain social status or unhealthy relationship dynamic would be a tragic misallocation.

When you are cashing out energy - please keep in mind that you are living above your means - and that at the end of that cash out to be kind to yourself and let yourself recover and come back to your baseline.


The Energy Debt Trap

Think of the popular TV shows that follow people who are in severe debt, often young, inexperienced, and impulsive people. These people have taken loan after loan with high interest and can't wrap their heads around how much money they are leaking each month. They are living above their means - expending energy they don't have, financed by loans. Most people are actually in quite similar situations with their energy - energy poor with mounting debt as a result.

On the other hand, people with good financial habits often talk about the importance of having an emergency buffer in case something happens. If you are already in debt and your car breaks down or something else unexpected happens, it will be hard for you to maintain a steady grip. That makes one quite vulnerable.

The same thing goes with people who are energy poor. Once something happens that would require some extra energy to handle, they don't have it - it sweeps them off and it will take even more energy to get back on track. Habits that work for you will ensure that you have an emergency buffer of energy readily available for when the car breaks down - and that might even be turned into an opportunity to learn instead of an opportunity to panic.

The Root Cause Principle

Remember: When using energy to change habits, don't go straight for the habits themselves. It's wiser to use your energy to change the root cause.

Just like picking up that sock isn't about tidiness – it's a diagnostic for your energy systems – the habits we want to change are often symptoms, not causes. How to invest your energy into actual change? See my blogpost where I more in depth:

Invest wisely at the root, and the rest follows naturally.

Your Energy Audit

I invite you to try the sock test this week. Pay attention to those small moments when something needs doing, and notice your response. Are you flowing, or are you leaking?

If you're leaking, which of the four fundamentals needs attention? Which egregores might you be in unhealthy relationships with?

Map out your energy economy. Draw your bubble diagram. Be honest about where your energy is going.

Because energy, not time, is the true currency of change.

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Below, I'll dive deeper into energy investing strategies and how to create positive compounding returns in your energy portfolio.

The Surprising Energy ROI of Letting Go

Some of the highest-return energy investments involve letting go rather than adding:

• Releasing unhelpful beliefs

• Dropping unnecessary commitments

• Focus on the type of learning that “make you feel lighter”

• Ending energy-negative relationships

• Unlearning destructive habits (this includes mental habits like being mean to yourself)

These acts of release often cost less than building something new, while freeing up substantial energy that was previously trapped.

I've found that a single act of genuine letting go can instantly increase available energy more than months of building new practices. It's like discovering you've been driving with the parking brake on – simply releasing it creates an immediate efficiency gain.

This is why I say energy management is less about "how to climb" and more about "how to stop falling." Remove what's weighing you down, and rising becomes natural.

The Ultimate Energy Investment

If there's one energy investment that outperforms all others in my experience, it's developing the capacity to observe without reaction.

This is the core of meditation practices like Vipassana. It's also the foundation of cognitive flexibility, emotional intelligence, and creative problem-solving.

When you can observe sensations, emotions, and thoughts without immediately reacting to them, you gain access to an entirely different level of energy management.

This capacity lets you:

• See energy leaks as they happen

• Notice when you're borrowing versus generating energy

• Identify root causes rather than symptoms

• Experience challenges without unnecessary energy expenditure

This meta-awareness is the compound interest of energy investing – it improves the return on every other investment you make.

For me, having spent many hours in meditation, my default state is like I have an app installed that sends me an immediate notification if a transaction happens in the background. I can then immediately take action. I have full insight into my energy economics and leave nothing to chance. Meanwhile, others wake up and can't order food because useless subscription services are running in the background.

I'm not walking around thinking about energy economics every day, but it helps me make decisions and become healthier. Here's the beautiful paradox: Energy economics is itself a framework, a map of sorts - and like any map, if you fall in love with it, you'll end up stumbling around with the map in your face, confusing it for reality.

The ultimate goal with any good framework is to graduate from it and eventually let go of the map. It's like learning about calories - the point isn't to count calories for the rest of your life, but to translate that into light meta-knowledge that helps you make healthy, integrated decisions. The aim is to live a healthy life, not a calorie-counting life or an energy-economics-obsessed life. The framework serves you until you transcend it.

Your Next Energy Investment Board Meeting

As you consider where to direct your energy next, here are three questions to guide you:

1. Where are you currently borrowing energy rather than generating it? Let's start patching the holes first.

2. What small, consistent energy investment could generate the highest returns for your current situation?

3. What could you release that would immediately free up energy?

Start with just one change – remember the minimum effective dose. A small, sustainable shift will compound over time in ways that dramatic overhauls rarely do.

In our next discussion about energy economics, we'll explore how to navigate energy-intensive transitions and transformations. Until then, may your investments be wise and your returns abundant.

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What energy investments have yielded the highest returns in your life? I'd love to hear about your experiences with energy economics in the comments.

P.S. If you are addicted to it, it's probably taking more energy than you're receiving from it.

P.P.S. Know someone who seems to be running on empty? Share this post with them - sometimes the best energy investment we can make is helping others.

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