Wisdom from Taylor Swift today: ‘You should think of your energy as if it’s expensive, as if it’s a luxury item. Not everyone can afford it.’

Many of us will know the ‘jar and stones’ metaphor or the ‘rocks, pebbles and sand’ analogy illustrating the importance of prioritising our most important goals. As a reminder, the jar represents our energy, the rocks our most important goals and  less important items the pebbles and sand. If we fill the jar with sand first, there won’t be enough room for our most significant goals.

There are so many ways to apply this wisdom at work:

• Starting the hard project at the top of the day before checking our inbox.
• Prioritising work that strategically moves the business’ needle
• Developing team members in the short term so we can prioritise our rocks in the long term
• Intentionally choosing which meetings are worthy of our energy
• Not worrying what others think

As Swift said: ‘What you spend your energy on, that’s the day.’ And I would add: the week, the month, the year and your life.