Jeremy C Kester

Every year there is a period of time that I feel like I am spending more time outside shoveling snow than doing anything else in my life. That is life in Chicago during the winter. Snow is everywhere and I am exhausted.

Recently I have been hearing about the idea of ego depletion. A way of describing what that means is that we only have enough energy for a finite amount of things that require a decision, or mental effort. I don’t know a whole lot, but I definitely feel that it stands to reason that it has merit. I’ve felt the effects.

I missed two days of writing so far this month. One for illness and the second felt very much like a result of the above theory. Weird. But it’s almost worse when I don’t write. When I let my lack of energy dictate that I won’t even open up the computer or a notebook to at least write a few words down.

I am hoping that as I research the idea above, there are some ideas on how to increase that pool of decision making energy, or how to better conserve it throughout the day. We’ll see. I’d love there to be an answer. Even if it takes work.