Why You’re Drained And What To Do About It

A while back I couldn’t figure out why my iPhone battery drained so quickly. Then I discovered I had too many apps running at the same time all the time.

It got me thinking…

How many “apps” do I have constantly running in my life?

What’s especially draining?

How about you?

A few thoughts…

1) Take Stock.

Grab a pen and paper. Brain-dump all the obligations, responsibilities, projects, and the like of your day, week, and/or month. Don’t overthink, just dump it out.

What can go? Be handed off? Batched (such as moving all your errands or meetings to a single day)? Bumped down the list?

Sit down for ten minutes at night or early morning and write down three to five big goals or “must-dos” for the day. Then rate them in importance, not what’s urgent.

Structure your energy and time first around the important and the most taxing, and go from there.

You’re getting control of all the things running and draining your life.

2) Be Faithful.

Consider Jesus. Not even Jesus, the Messiah, healed everyone, met everyone’s needs and showed up everywhere people expected him to.

He simply sought to be faithful to do the will of His Father.

So just be faithful. Honor God with your limits. Answer only to Him.

You can’t be perfect. You can’t be anyone’s Messiah. You can’t say yes to everything.

So shut down those apps.

And open this one:

“Let everyone be devoted to fulfill the work God has given them to do with excellence, and their joy will be in doing what’s right and being themselves, and not in being affirmed by others” (Galatians 6:4; The Passion Translation).

3) Find solitude.

Jesus was busy with tremendous demands on his time, energy, and emotions. You even find him exhausted at times (for instance, his napping on a boat while in a storm).

But he didn’t neglect solitude with His Father.

There he prayed and most likely meditated on Scripture (the Psalms perhaps—he quotes the book of Psalms the most in the gospel letters).

Close your apps (figuratively and literally) and connect with God to charge your battery—spiritually, emotionally, and mentally.

Read a Psalm and a Proverb a day.

Billy Graham once said he read a Proverb for his relationship with people and a Psalm for his relationship with God. Pray through what you read—for yourself and others.

4) Find (inner) rest.

You probably have a few apps constantly running that are especially draining but you can’t do anything about.

You’re a single (working) mom, you’re in a busy season of work, you have a parent or child that needs special attention….

After taking stock (see #1), perhaps you can find creative ways, extra dollars, and blocks of time to get a babysitter, take a nap, watch Netflix, grab coffee with a friend, or what have you.

Either way, there’s a daily inner-rest God can give you the midst of busyness and fatigue. The Apostle Paul shows us how to claim it:

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

Joy, prayer, gratitude. Don’t just run those apps, let those apps run you.