Energy Calendar
Colour-code a week to redesign work around what creates energy
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 99%
The Energy Calendar turns a normal week into a visual audit of personal energy. At the end of each day, every calendar activity is marked green if it created energy, yellow if it was neutral, or red if it drained energy, based on how the person felt afterward. After one week, the colour pattern exposes the work, people, and routines that generate momentum as well as those that consume it. The aim is not to eliminate every obligation instantly. Instead, the user makes slow, practical changes: protect high-return green work, remove unnecessary red tasks, delegate where possible, or redesign the way a draining activity happens. Bloom’s example—moving phone calls from Zoom to walks—shows that an obligation can sometimes change category without being removed.
Origin
Bloom presented the Energy Calendar as his quick method for identifying and gradually redesigning energy-draining work.
Core principles
- 01Energy after an activity is useful design data
- 02A full calendar can conceal low-quality work
- 03High performers concentrate energy on a few high-return activities
- 04Small changes can convert draining obligations into neutral or creating ones
How to run it
- 1
Capture a normal week
Use your existing calendar to record the activities you actually perform for seven days.
Pro tip Choose a representative week rather than an unusual holiday or crisis period.
- 2
Colour-code daily
At each day’s end, mark activities green for energy creating, yellow for neutral, and red for energy draining.
Pro tip Rate how you felt after the activity, not whether the activity sounds prestigious or important.
Watch out Waiting until the end of the week makes the ratings less reliable.
- 3
Read the pattern
Review the completed week for clusters of green and red, paying attention to tasks, formats, times, and people.
Pro tip Look for the few green activities where your energy and potential returns both appear high.
- 4
Choose one red target
Select a recurring drain that is both meaningful and realistically changeable.
Pro tip Start with a frequent activity because a small improvement will compound across the week.
Watch out Trying to redesign the entire calendar at once can make the audit unactionable.
- 5
Remove or redesign
Delete, delegate, shorten, batch, or change the format of the selected red activity.
Pro tip Ask whether combining it with a green activity could transform the experience.
- 6
Re-audit the effect
Run the colour-coding process again and check whether the change produced more green or yellow and less red.
Watch out Keep changes that improve lived energy, not merely calendar aesthetics.
In the wild
Bloom found Zoom and phone calls intensely draining, while walking created energy. He shifted half of his calls onto walks. The calls still happened, but combining them with an energising activity changed much of that calendar time from red toward green or yellow.
→ He ended the week with more energy for meaningful work and greater presence with people.
Common mistakes
Rating status instead of energy
An activity is green because it leaves you energised, not because it is socially valued or commercially important.
Auditing without redesigning
The colours create awareness, but value comes from making a concrete change based on the pattern.
Removing every difficult task
Some necessary work is draining. Red means redesign or manage deliberately, not automatically abandon it.
Is it for you?
Best for
People with busy schedules who need evidence for redesigning how they spend their working time.
Not ideal for
People who cannot yet observe a representative week or whose immediate obligations are temporarily fixed.
From the transcript
“at the end of every day for a week color code your calendar according to whether the activity was energy creating Market green energy neutral…”
“at the end of a week if you do that for every single day you will have a very clear perspective on the tasks that…”
“I shifted half of my phone calls to just being on walks and all of a sudden at the end of a week I feel…”
From the episode
Episode 421: Sahil Bloom: How Boring and Basic Routines Can Build 5 Types of True Wealth
Sahil Bloom