Introversion and Energy

A bit of a more personal Friday post from me on introversion and managing energy in a busy week.

I originally posted this on LinkedIn – ’m not sure LinkedIn was necessarily the place for this – the running jokes about everyone being permanently excited and energised by their last or next event seem grounded in truth and feel like an extrovert’s world.

First, though, an explanation. I guess introversion can be read as different things. For me, it’s about energy. It’s not that I don’t enjoy work-related social activity, it’s that the energy expense is really high. My understanding (and I might be wrong) is that some gain energy from meeting people, from networking, conferences and so on. For me, it’s not that I don’t find them valuable, it’s that they are a massive energy drain. Sitting in my own in a quiet corner in my own world is the opposite – it’s recharge time. Some of my colleagues thought it was really funny when I described how I really do enjoy just sitting and thinking!

Why am I writing about this today? Well, it’s just that next week is a particularly busy one in terms of energy-expensive activities, and so is the next one. So it needs careful planning. On Monday morning I’m taking part in an in-person round table, then I’m heading to a conference for two days where I’m speaking on both days, and on Thursday I’m with our senior team for a couple of different AI sessions. And in amongst that I’m doing quarterly reviews with my team. All things I enjoy but are massive energy drains, so they need very careful planning.

I’ll share my approach, and I realise there’s a degree of privilege in my position that allows me to do this.

🔹 I’m making sure other colleagues who can take a lot of the heavy lifting on the social side are coming to the conference.
🔹 I’m going up the night before the conference. Technically I could probably make it in time by travelling in the morning, but I need relaxed decompression time before if I’m to be of much use.
🔹 I’m not going to the conference dinner. I know these are important, but other colleagues can go, and I know that if I did it, the energy needed for social interaction would wipe me out for the next day, when I’m also presenting.
🔹 For Thursday, I’m delegating as much as I can to colleagues.
🔹 I’ve avoided accepting any other meetings that aren’t time sensitive over the next couple of weeks.

Why have I shared this? Well, it’s partly that I still think there is a preconception that being introverted means you sit quietly in the corner, hate speaking to people and at events, etc. And because I’m not like that, I think people often say I can’t possibly be introverted. I’m guessing the same is true for others. What they don’t realise is that I’m essentially masking, and it’s a massive energy drain. So I’m sharing largely as peer support. If you feel like this too, it’s not just you! And even this far into my career, I’m still looking for new tips – so if you have them, please do share.