simple framework to protect your energy

Hello, and welcome! Happy thanksgiving to those who celebrate. Today Lindsey is going to break down how to protect your most valuable resource—your energy.

By the end of this essay you’ll

This one’s super important & timely. As always, screenshot your fave bits and share them on LinkedIn (tag @generalistworld). We’ll help amplify you to 10,000’s squiggly professionals.

Stay curious,

Milly.

"I need a mental health day"

"I'm so burned out"

"I just can't anymore"

We whisper these confessions, thinking they're personal failures. They're not. They're symptoms of a system designed to extract your energy and sell it to the highest bidder.

Last Tuesday, 1PM. During our Unboxed one-liner workshop, Shae, a senior full-stack engineer, listed her impressive accomplishments: implementing Python APIs, creating microservices, developing event-driven architectures. Her résumé reads like a technical masterpiece. Yet something feels off — her energy wanes as she tries to fit herself into conventional tech roles.

Through our work together, something shifts.

"I'm not just a tech person," she says, standing straighter. "I build systems that keep things running smoothly, and I love making complex tech easy for people to understand. A big part of my work is helping teams feel confident with the tools they're using — so they’re not just keeping up but really thriving."

The room crackles. This is the moment someone stops apologizing for being different and starts recognizing it as their superpower.

David Graeber, anthropologist and author of Bullshit Jobs, asks a question that exposes everything wrong with our current system: "What does it say about our society that it seems to generate an extremely limited demand for talented poet-musicians but an apparently infinite demand for specialists in corporate law?"

The answer is sobering: "If 1 percent of the population controls most of the disposable wealth, what we call 'the market' reflects what they think is useful or important, not anybody else."

In 2023, workplace burnout cost American businesses $4.2 billion in productivity losses. But the true cost? Dreams unrealized, creativity stifled, and lives half-lived because we’re too exhausted to imagine something better.

Graeber adds: "We could easily become societies of leisure and institute a 20-hour workweek. Maybe even a fifteen-hour week. Instead, we find ourselves, as a society, condemned to spending most of our time at work, performing tasks that we feel make no difference in the world whatsoever."

Dr. Tara Swart, neuroscientist and former psychiatric doctor at Oxford, reveals a game-changing insight: aligning with our natural rhythms can boost cognitive function and creativity by up to 31%.

Let that sink in — a third more brainpower, simply by working with — instead of against — our natural patterns. Yet, we treat our energy like an infinite resource, pushing through “productivity peaks” that are really just masked exhaustion.

According to the American Psychological Association, 79% of employees experienced work-related stress in 2023. Among those pursuing what they think they "should," that number jumps to 91%.

The more we follow the prescribed path, the more depleted we become. Maybe the problem isn’t your capacity. Maybe it’s the system demanding you override your natural rhythm in service of someone else’s agenda.

What if the problem isn’t you — but how you’re being asked to work?

Think of your energy like an ecosystem.

Rupal Patel’s Personal Energy Map transforms vague feelings into actionable data. It’s not just another productivity tool — it’s a way to reclaim your time and energy from a system designed to deplete you.

This isn’t about squeezing productivity from every minute. As Tricia Hersey of The Nap Ministry reminds us, “Rest is not a privilege. Rest is not earned. Rest is resistance.”

When Hersey speaks of rest as resistance, she exposes a deeper truth. Rest isn’t just about recovery — it’s about reclaiming our humanity from systems designed to exhaust us.

Capitalism and white supremacy reduce us to our productivity, equating our worth with output. Rest dismantles that lie, asserting our right to exist beyond economic measures. It’s a reminder that we are more than what we produce. By resting, we reject the falsehood that exhaustion is a badge of honor.

Remember Shae? Weeks after our Unboxed workshop, she’s not just implementing systems — she’s reshaping how her organization thinks about technology adoption. Her one-liner became her compass, guiding decisions about projects and time.

She’s energized. By aligning her work with her strengths—making complex systems accessible and building team confidence—she’s multiplying her impact while preserving her energy.

This isn’t about slogging through another 40-hour week. It’s about finding work that lights you up so naturally that time becomes irrelevant.

Alright, enough theory. Lets make it real for you.

Here’s how to start:

The old way diminishes us:

But you’re not a resource to be depleted. You’re a force of nature meant to create, grow, and thrive. Stop letting systems of extraction shape how you show up. Start moving in rhythm with your true nature.

Because the world doesn’t need more burned-out specialists. It needs fully alive humans bringing their whole selves to solve problems that matter.

It needs you—in full expression.

Your move.

Join us at Unboxed to create your personal energy map & protect your priorities as we head into 2025. Learn more at www.generalist.world/unboxed.

P.S Practical voices to follow

If you’re looking to reclaim your energy, design your work around your strengths, and challenge limiting systems, here are some experts worth following: