The Energy Investment Portfolio
Keep a long wishlist but only invest energy in three to five things
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 80%
The Energy Investment Portfolio is Abdaal's method for conserving energy against overexertion. You maintain a long bucket list of everything you'd like to do, in a Kanban board or any format, but you actively invest energy in only three to five of them at any time. The insight is that focused progress in a small number of things is far more effective than a millimetre of progress across a thousand. Keeping the long list visible relieves the anxiety of starting everything, because you know it's captured and can be promoted later. It converts an infinite, guilt-inducing wishlist into a small, deliberately chosen set of active investments, which you rotate as items complete.
Origin
Extracted from Feel Good Productivity's conserve section, where Abdaal contrasts his lockdown over-commitment with a focused portfolio approach.
Core principles
- 01Focused progress in a few areas beats scattered progress in many
- 02You can want to do many things without investing in all of them now
- 03A parked wishlist relieves the pressure to start everything
- 04Doing too much at once is a form of overexertion burnout
How to run it
- 1
Build the long bucket list
Capture every pursuit you'd like to do someday in one place, such as a Kanban board. This is your holding pen, not your commitment list.
- 2
Pick three to five active investments
Choose only three to five things you'll actually invest energy in right now. Everything else stays parked.
Watch out Trying to make progress on everything at once yields a thousand one-millimetre gains and no real advancement.
- 3
Concentrate energy
Direct your focus and energy into the short active list, making meaningful progress on a few things rather than dabbling in many.
- 4
Review and rotate
As active items complete or lose relevance, promote something from the bucket list into the active slots. The portfolio stays small even as the wishlist grows.
In the wild
In lockdown, Abdaal decided he had so much time he'd take guitar, singing, piano and art lessons and learn some Japanese on the side. It was simply too much, and he made negligible progress everywhere. The Energy Investment Portfolio is his correction: keep all those ambitions on a long bucket list, but actively invest in only three to five at a time. Concentrating energy on a few pursuits produces real progress, whereas spreading it thin produces the illusion of activity with no advancement.
→ Scattered dabbling was replaced by focused, meaningful progress in a chosen few areas.
Common mistakes
Investing in everything at once
Loading up on many simultaneous pursuits spreads energy so thin that nothing meaningfully advances, and it drives overexertion burnout.
Is it for you?
Best for
Curious, ambitious people who want to learn or build many things simultaneously.
Not ideal for
Someone who already has a single clear focus and no tendency to over-commit.
From the transcript
“I have a very short list of the three to five things I'm actually putting I'm actually investing energy into right now”
“making focused progress in a few small some small number of things is way more effective than trying to make a thousand one mod of…”
From the episode
How To Stop Procrastinating For Good - Ali Abdaal - #719
Ali Abdaal