Watch your thoughts for a while, and I’m betting your mind will rest on something ‘that needs doing’. Those ‘needs doing’ things can be anything and everything – here’s a few things that randomly but repeatedly pop into my head on a daily basis:

• Paint over the splash marks on the kitchen wall
• Organise my Dropbox and G-Drive
• Clean out my kitchen cupboards
• Find a window cleaner in my area
• Sort out my household and business paperwork and organise it
• Take the bowl of small change to the change machine at the super market
• Call the British Heart Foundation to come and collect the old toys and furniture in the garage

I’m sure there’s a few more things, but I’m sure you get the picture. Can you think of a similar list? All those little, annoying tasks that need doing but which you never seem to get round to sorting out but constantly bob along just under the surface of your thoughts?

Those, my friend, are energy leaks and we need to fix them.

How are they energy leaks? Well every undone task or thing that needs sorting out holds a piece of your energy. While it’s there at the edges of your thoughts, waving its hands around every so often, it is draining that little piece of your energy. Let’s not just limit this to practical things: relationships, things that have been left unsaid and financial worries can all be energy leaks too.

Think of the last time you decluttered or had a big clear out. I bet you felt lighter afterwards, right? Not addressing all these little energy leaks is like the reverse feeling. It can add to feeling ‘scatter brained’, unorganised and overwhelmed, all feelings you want to reduce if you’re after improved balance and wellbeing.

It wasn’t until a couple of months ago when I got an email from Nisha Moodley explaining what energy leaks are that I realised how many I had. 

Now I’m not a fan of making anyone’s to-do list bigger, but it is important we look at our energy leaks because they really can have a negative impact on us if they don’t get addressed.

Think of fixing your energy leaks as a form of self care.

The trick with addressing your energy leaks is doing so without adding even more overwhelm and stress into your life, and that might look different for each of us. Here’s how I’ve been tackling mine:

How to fix your energy leaks

Get them out of your head – write a big list of all those things you’d deem as an energy leak (yes this is scary but it’s the first step to getting them sorted!)

Rank them in order of most draining – decide which ones are the most urgent to be dealt with.

Look at the ones that are most urgent but which won’t take long to sort out – ironically you’ll probably find that most things on your list take less than an hour to sort out.

Identify if there could be a mindset block – many of these kinds of energy leaks have been left to grow because we have a subconscious or maybe conscious block in place that prevents us from dealing with them. It might be that keeping that energy leak in place is somehow validating you in some way or that by dealing with it you’d have to experience the icky uncomfortable feelings that come with getting it finally sorted.

Find the time to do them – after addressing mindset blocks this is the hardest part. However, starting with the tasks that are shorter to do will help give you that awesome feeling when you’ve sorted it and motivate you to do more. Maybe work on addressing one energy leak a week at the weekend – that’s what I’ve been doing. James and I also have a week off coming up and have decided that addressing some energy leaks like getting the garage sorted is well worth the time during that week. It can be easy to feel like you’ll never get on top of them, but remember that just reducing that list is going to go a long way to reducing those feelings of overwhelm and scatter brain.

Make them fun! – I’m most certainly planning a Netflixathon while I organise my paperwork as well as a fancy shop at Waitrose to restock my cabinets after I’ve cleaned them out. Making the process fun or building in a reward will make it all the easier to fix up those energy leaks.

Review them on a monthly basis – it’s just a fact of life that you’ll accumulate new energy leaks as you go about your life. What reduces their impact is picking up on them and fixing them as soon as possible, so why not make a review of your energy leaks part of your monthly reflections?

What energy leaks do you have in your life right now? Does it help to see addressing them as a form of self care?