It is the third Monday of January. Marketing agencies call today Blue Monday. They claim it is the most depressing day of the year due to a convergence of bad weather, post-holiday debt, and failed New Yearโ€™s resolutions.

Scientists call it pseudoscience. But anyone working a 9-to-5 can tell you there’s some truth to it.

So many of us are feeling sluggish today. Motivation has flatlined. The usual advice you see on LinkedIn is subjective self-care fluff like taking a walk or practicing gratitude. Those are fine strategies, but they lack precision. And we’re spreadsheet nerds. You cannot manage what you do not measure.

If your business revenue dropped 30% this morning, you wouldn’t just hope it got better. You would open a spreadsheet and look for the leak. You need to do the same for your mental energy.

The Subjectivity Trap

Burnout is dangerous because it creeps up on you. It is rarely one big event. It is usually a thousand small cuts that accumulate while you are too busy to notice.

When you rely on how you “feel,” you are an unreliable narrator. You might think you are tired because of the January weather. Data might show you are tired because you sat in 14 hours of Zoom meetings last week without a break.

The goal of the Blue Monday Audit is to turn “I feel overwhelmed” into “I am spending 40% of my energy on tasks that generate 0% return.”

The Metrics That Matter

You don’t need a complex dashboard. You need to track three specific variables starting right now. Set up a simple sheet with these columns:

  • The Task: What were you doing? (e.g., Weekly Team Sync).
  • The Duration: How long did it take?
  • The Energy Delta: This is the critical metric. Score it from -5 (Draining) to +5 (Energizing).

Most people are shocked by the results. You might find that “deep work” actually energizes you while “email triage” drains you twice as fast as you thought.

The Resentment Ratio

Once you have data for the week, calculate your Resentment Ratio. Great name, right? It’s just an accurate way to calculate the time you may be wasting with unhelpful moods.

Sum up the total hours spent on tasks with a negative Energy Delta. Divide that by your total working hours.

A spreadsheet showing the threshold for energy during a work week.

If your Resentment Ratio is over 60%, no amount of sleep will fix your burnout because the problem isn’t physical fatigue. The problem is friction. You are spending the majority of your waking hours fighting against your own workflow.

We like this because it’s trackable. Like a reading list spreadsheet you update anytime you finish a book, it gives you a visual you can track. And we can improve the metrics we measure.

The Strategy: Delete, Delegate, Defer

Data allows you to be ruthless. Look at the items on your audit with the lowest Energy Delta scores (-4 or -5). Apply the 3 D’s:

  1. Delete: If a recurring meeting consistently scores a -5 for the whole team, cancel it. It is costing you more in morale than it gains in information.
  2. Delegate: If you hate data entry but love analysis, find a tool or a team member who can swap tasks with you.
  3. Defer: January is often the worst time for “heavy lift” projects. If a project is draining you, push the deadline to February when your baseline energy returns.

Blue Monday is a reminder that willpower is a finite resource. Stop trying to power through the slump today. Audit your energy, identify the leaks, and plug them with data.