I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the difference between time and energy, and why most productivity advice focuses almost entirely on the wrong one.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve fallen pretty deep down a rabbit hole with Claude Code and OpenClaw. You’ve probably heard me mention it in LifeNotes a few weeks back but if you’ve never heard of these tools, they’re essentially AI tools that let you build things – that’s a very simplistic summary but they help write code, create apps, automate workflows, iterate on ideas almost in real time. I’m not a developer in any serious sense, and I’d been putting off learning for a while (a decision I now regret 😅) but it’s been a bit of a revelation. And the interesting thing, for this newsletter at least isn’t the tools themselves – it’s what’s happened to my productivity as a result.
All the time I’ve spent messing around with these AI tools hasn’t been “planned” productive time. I’ve not been blocking it out in my calendar or ticking stuff off a list – I’ve just been building things, because I wanted to, because the feedback loop is so fast and satisfying. You try something, something happens, you adjust, something else happens, and before long you’ve created something that genuinely didn’t exist an hour ago.
That feeling of construction is almost addictive and what I’ve noticed is that this energy – this genuine enthusiasm for what I’m working on – has had a knock-on effect across everything else I’m doing. When you’re in a season where something has genuinely caught your interest, you don’t drag yourself to the desk, you’re there before you’ve really thought about it. And that enthusiasm tends to bleed into the rest of your work too. You’re sharper in meetings, more decisive on emails, more creative in conversations, because the underlying engine is running well.
And this is the thing I think we generally get wrong when we talk about productivity. We treat it as a time management problem and ask: how do I get more done in the hours I have? And that’s a reasonable question. But I think the more important question is: what state am I in when I show up to those hours?
Because the honest truth is that an hour of genuinely energised, engaged work produces more than three hours of grinding through something you’re not connected to. The output is better, the thinking is sharper, and you don’t end the day feeling like you’ve been run over. I suspect everyone reading this probably already knows this (I know I’ve mentioned it before so it’s as much a reminder to myself too!) – but it’s really only when you slip into one of these energising grooves, which I’ve done with the AI tools over the past few weeks, when you can really appreciate the sheer power that it can have.
Cal Newport has written about this in terms of deep work – the idea that cognitively demanding tasks require a particular quality of attention that you simply can’t sustain indefinitely. But I think there’s a layer beneath even that, which is about what generates that quality of attention in the first place. And increasingly, I think it’s genuine interest. The feeling that you’re building something, or learning something, or figuring something out.
The practical implications of this are a couple of things. First, it’s worth paying attention to what’s currently energising you – not just what’s on your to-do list – and being willing to lean into that, even if it feels a bit indulgent. The Claude Code rabbit hole wasn’t “on my roadmap” but the energy it’s generated has made me more productive across the board, which makes it a pretty good use of time in retrospect.
And second, it’s worth being honest about when your energy isn’t there, rather than trying to muscle through and then wondering why the output is mediocre. Sometimes the most productive move is to go for a walk, or read something interesting, or do whatever gets the engine running again – rather than sitting at your desk staring at a document, moving words around and calling it work.
Time is finite and fixed. Energy is actually something you can influence. And I think that’s where the real leverage is.
Have a great week.