Red-Yellow-Green Calendar Energy Audit
Color-code completed meetings to reveal which work sustains or drains you
- Difficulty
- Starter
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 99%
The Red-Yellow-Green Calendar Energy Audit uses completed meetings as a lightweight record of role fit. After each meeting, recolor the calendar event based on its effect: green if the work created energy and made you want to continue, yellow if it felt neutral, and red if it produced boredom, stress, or depletion. Repeat the exercise for several weeks, then inspect the distribution and cluster events by the type of work, people, product stage, or responsibility involved. The colors are not a performance score; they are evidence about the conditions under which you do your best work. Use the pattern to adjust the current role where possible and to ask sharper questions about the daily reality of a prospective job.
Origin
After realizing her Shopify platform role might not suit her, Skarstad recolored her past calendar meetings red, yellow, or green. Seeing almost all red and yellow helped her conclude that the work did not match the zero-to-one product work that gave her energy.
Core principles
- 01Repeated energy patterns reveal role fit better than one difficult day
- 02Green work creates excitement and a desire to continue
- 03Yellow work leaves energy near baseline
- 04Red work produces boredom, stress, or sustained depletion
- 05The next role should contain more of the work that consistently turns green
How to run it
- 1
Define the colors
Set simple criteria before auditing: green means energized and eager to continue, yellow means baseline, and red means bored, stressed, or depleted. Keep the test about your response to the work rather than whether the meeting achieved its objective.
Pro tip Write the definitions beside the calendar so you apply them consistently.
Watch out Do not label a meeting red merely because it contained necessary disagreement.
- 2
Color completed meetings
Review meetings immediately after they happen or retrospectively at the end of the day. Change each event's color according to the energy it left behind.
Pro tip Add a short note naming the activity, such as customer discovery, platform planning, coaching, or execution review.
- 3
Read the multiweek pattern
Look across several representative weeks and count the red, yellow, and green events. Identify repeated work types and conditions behind each color instead of blaming individual meetings.
Pro tip Separate temporary organizational stress from work that is structurally part of the role.
Watch out One difficult week is too little evidence for a major career decision.
- 4
Optimize the role fit
Increase green work in the current role where possible, or use the evidence to choose a better-fitting next role. Ask prospective employers what the actual process, customer, product stage, and daily responsibilities will be.
Pro tip Translate colors into concrete selection criteria rather than searching for a prestigious company in the abstract.
Watch out A strong company can still offer a role whose daily work is wrong for you.
In the wild
Skarstad reviewed several weeks of meetings at Shopify and found the calendar was almost entirely red and yellow. The company was strong, but platform work at its scale did not give her the energy she found in early-stage, zero-to-one product challenges.
→ She separated company quality from personal role fit and moved toward work better matched to her strengths.
Common mistakes
Judging the company instead of the work
A respected company can be an excellent employer while a specific role still mismatches the work that energizes you.
Using colors as performance grades
A red meeting may be important and well run; the audit measures personal energy, not organizational value.
Is it for you?
Best for
Knowledge workers deciding whether their role, product area, or next career move fits the work they actually enjoy.
Not ideal for
Someone reacting to a single temporary crunch, conflict, or unusually bad week without a representative calendar sample.
From the episode
Nickey Skarstad (Airbnb, Etsy, Shopify, Duolingo) on translating vision into goals, operationalizing product quality, second-order decisions, brainstorming, influence, and much more