The change snuck up on me in the quietest of ways. Not with a dramatic collapse or a dire medical wake-up call, but in the small, ordinary spaces between things. One late autumn afternoon, I was standing in my kitchen, hand on the kettle, trying to remember if I’d already boiled the water. The truth was, it wasn’t the tea I’d forgotten. It was what I was supposed to do next. A phone call? An email? Fold the laundry? My mind, once swift and sure-footed, now felt like a woodland path after heavy rain—soft, uneven, easy to lose your footing on.
I’m 65. I still walk every day, still love my garden, still get pulled into long conversations about books and birds and whatever the neighbors are growing in their raised beds. But somewhere around my sixty-fourth birthday, a quiet shift happened: I needed more time between tasks. Not just a cup of tea, but a true breather. Not just a quick sit-down, but a deliberate pause. A reset.
It wasn’t laziness. It wasn’t “slowing down” in that patronizing way people sometimes say to older folks. It was something else: the steady, invisible thinning of my attention. The way my day had become chopped into tiny, sharp pieces—emails, messages, errands, interruptions—until my energy felt like a shattered pane of glass scattered across the floor.
“Why am I so tired?”: Meeting Energy Fragmentation for the First Time
The first time I heard the phrase “energy fragmentation,” I was sitting at my dining table, staring at my half-finished to-do list. I had done almost nothing on it and yet I felt wrung out, as if I’d been hauling firewood all morning. The list itself was innocent enough: call the bank, schedule a doctor’s appointment, buy birdseed, reply to my granddaughter’s text, look up a recipe. But in between each of those tiny tasks there lived a thousand distractions—pings from my phone, stray thoughts, half-remembered worries.
Energy fragmentation, as I later learned, isn’t just being tired. It’s what happens when your day is broken into so many small chunks that you never get the depth of focus your brain and body crave. You move from thing to thing to thing, like a dragonfly skimming the surface of a pond, never settling long enough to rest.
At 25, maybe you can get away with that. At 45, you start to feel it. At 65, it can feel like someone has turned down the dimmer switch on your whole life. You’re still “on,” still upright and functioning, but there’s a faint, persistent depletion underneath everything you do.
The Forest, Not the Factory: A New Way to Think About Aging Energy
For a long time, I thought about my energy the way our culture suggests we should—as if I were a small factory. Input coffee, output productivity. Clean fuel in, efficient work out. When that didn’t hold up anymore, I blamed myself: not disciplined enough, not organized enough, not positive enough.
Then one day, walking in the woods near my home, the metaphor shifted. I realized my energy wasn’t a factory at all. It was more like the forest I was standing in.
A forest isn’t constantly in high gear. It has rhythms. The hush of early morning. The mid-day buzz of insects. The late-afternoon stillness when the sun threads gold between trunks. It has seasons too: the green, explosive urgency of spring; the steady fullness of summer; the honest, letting-go of autumn; the deep, necessary rest of winter.
My energy at 65 belongs to this forest world, not the clock-in, clock-out world. It asks for time to recover between tasks the way the forest asks for rain between heatwaves. If I ignore that, the undergrowth withers. If I respect it, something wild and beautiful grows back: clarity, calm, and a surprising kind of steadiness I never had when I was younger and racing.
Small Cracks, Big Leaks
Energy fragmentation usually doesn’t announce itself loudly. It arrives as small cracks:
- You sit down to pay bills and remember you also need to check a message. You do neither well.
- You start making lunch but check the news in between chopping vegetables and forget about the pan on the stove.
- You try to call your friend, but your phone lights up with a notification first, and suddenly you’re lost in an article you don’t care about.
None of these moments are dramatic. But the leaks are constant. Your nervous system, already more sensitive with age, keeps shifting gears—start, stop, switch, respond, pivot. Like a car jerking through city traffic, you burn more fuel per mile than you realize.
“I Need More Time Between Things”: The Science Under the Story
What I felt in my bones at 65, researchers see in brain scans and stress markers. As we age, the brain finds rapid task-switching more demanding. The neural “cost” of interruption grows higher. That doesn’t mean we become less capable—it means it costs us more. Every switch, every ping, every “quick check” takes a toll.
At the same time, our recovery mechanisms change. We don’t bounce back as fast from a mental sprint. The stress hormones clear more slowly. Sleep may be lighter. The line between “a little busy” and “completely wiped out” thins like ice in late March.
None of this is failure. It’s design. Biology nudging us toward deeper focus, slower pacing, and more intentional choices. In a culture that worships speed and constant availability, that can feel like swimming against the current. But in nature, slowing is wisdom. Trees don’t apologize for winter.
A Simple Lens: Depth vs. Scatter
One question began to change my days: “Is this giving me depth, or just scatter?”
Depth feels like reading a book for forty-five minutes without checking your phone. Like talking to a friend without planning your grocery list in your head. Like weeding one bed in the garden, fully absorbed by the feel of soil under your nails.
Scatter feels like skimming headlines, hopping between three half-finished chores, or opening ten browser tabs and truly reading none of them. At 65, scatter is exhausting. Depth is strangely restorative—sometimes more nourishing than a nap.
Designing Days with Fewer Fractures
Once I understood that my issue wasn’t “low energy” but “fragmented energy,” I stopped asking, “How can I do more?” and started asking, “How can I protect the spaces between things?”
I didn’t overhaul my life with a planner color-coded within an inch of its existence. Instead, I made small, humane adjustments that respected the person I am now, not the person I was twenty years ago.
Here’s how some of those changes look in practice:
| Before | After | What Changed |
|---|---|---|
| Answering emails, texts, and calls as they arrived | Checking messages in two or three set windows each day | Fewer interruptions, deeper focus on current task |
| Jumping from housework to computer to errands | Grouping similar tasks into “blocks” (house, desk, outside) | Less gear-shifting, more predictable rhythms |
| Squeezing important work between distractions | Setting one “protected hour” most days for a single priority | Depth over scatter, a sense of accomplishment |
| Pushing through fatigue to “get it done” | Scheduling short, conscious recovery between tasks | Quicker recovery, less end-of-day collapse |
| Saying yes to every request, then feeling drained | Pausing before commitments and checking my energy budget | More aligned yeses, kinder noes, more steady energy |
None of these changes made me “more productive” in the way the world likes to measure it. But they made me more present, more rested, and much less brittle by late afternoon. I stopped feeling like a glass about to spill over and more like a river that knows its own banks.
The Art of the In-Between
The spaces between tasks became the quiet heroes of my day. Five minutes sitting on the back steps, watching sparrows investigate the feeder. Three slow breaths between finishing the dishes and opening the laptop. A gentle stretch when I move from reading to cooking.
These aren’t luxuries. They are transitions—tiny bridges that let my nervous system leave one landscape and arrive in another without shock. Without them, everything blurs; with them, each part of the day has a clearer outline, more color.
Listening to the Body’s Weather
There are days I wake up feeling like a bright, crisp morning—clear, awake, ready to move. On those days, I can do more in longer stretches. Other days feel like overcast skies: heavy, dull, slower. I used to fight the cloudy days, pushing myself to perform as if my inner weather didn’t matter.
Now I treat my energy the way I treat the sky when planning a walk. If the weather looks changeable, I bring a jacket. If my body tells me, “Today, we’re on the gentle setting,” I adjust my expectations. Not as an act of surrender, but as an act of respect.
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At 65, there’s a quiet power in that respect. I no longer pretend I’m a machine that operates the same way every day. I’m more like a landscape: some days wind-swept and bright, some days soft and inward. Fragmentation tries to ignore this, to turn every day into the same chopped-up schedule. Recovery invites me to match my rhythm to my real capacity.
Boundaries as Conservation
One of the most radical things I did was also the simplest: I started letting people know I needed more recovery between things.
“I’d love to talk,” I tell a friend, “but can we make it tomorrow afternoon instead of right after my doctor’s appointment? I know I’ll need some down time.”
“I can help with that,” I say to a family member, “but only if we can do it in the morning. My brain is softer in the evenings.”
These aren’t excuses; they’re conservation efforts, like setting aside part of a forest to remain untouched. Boundaries aren’t walls; they’re pathways that keep what matters alive.
Reclaiming Wholeness in a Fractured World
Energy fragmentation isn’t a personal flaw; it’s a cultural epidemic, made sharper by age but not limited to it. The constant hum of devices, the expectation of instant replies, the worship of multitasking—they all ask us to live in fragments, to scatter ourselves thinly over the surface of our own lives.
At 65, I’ve started doing something quietly rebellious: I live more slowly and more wholly, on purpose. I give myself generous transitions. I defend my focus. I choose depth, even when the world is going wide and fast.
I still forget what I walked into a room for sometimes. I still have days when my attention feels like loose gravel. But I don’t blame myself as much now. I look instead at the shape of my day, at how many times I’ve asked my mind to jump, pivot, and restart. Then I ask a different question: “What do I need to feel whole again, even for an hour?”
Often, the answer is simple: one thing at a time. A little more quiet between the noise. A walk without my phone. A conversation where I don’t also stir a pot or glance at a screen. A willingness to honor the forest of my own nervous system—its edges, its clearings, its need for fallow time.
Being 65 hasn’t made me less capable; it’s made me more discerning. My energy is no longer something I spend carelessly. It’s something I tend. I prune back distractions. I water rest. I plant pockets of stillness between tasks and watch as, slowly, focus returns like birds to a feeder that’s finally been refilled.
Energy fragmentation matters because our lives are made in the spaces between events, not just the events themselves. Those spaces shape how deeply we feel, how clearly we think, and how gently we move through our days. At 65, I’ve decided that those spaces are sacred. And I guard them—not perfectly, but earnestly—one small, intentional pause at a time.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly is energy fragmentation?
Energy fragmentation is the gradual draining effect that comes from constantly switching tasks, responding to interruptions, and breaking your day into many small, disconnected activities. It’s not just feeling busy; it’s feeling scattered and depleted, even when no single task seems particularly hard.
Is needing more recovery between tasks normal as we age?
Yes. As we age, rapid task-switching becomes more taxing for the brain, and our bodies often recover more slowly from mental and emotional exertion. Needing more recovery time is a natural part of aging, not a sign of personal failure.
How can I tell if my energy is fragmented rather than just “low”?
Signs of fragmentation include feeling exhausted after a day of many small tasks, difficulty focusing deeply on anything, constantly feeling “behind,” and noticing that interruptions leave you unusually drained. Low energy can be present too, but fragmentation often shows up as mental scatter and a sense of never really settling into anything.
What are some simple ways to reduce energy fragmentation?
Try checking messages in set windows instead of constantly. Group similar tasks together (all phone calls, all errands, all computer work). Create small recovery pauses between activities—stretching, a short walk, a few deep breaths. Protect at least one block of time most days for single-task focus on something that matters to you.
How do I explain my need for more recovery to others without feeling guilty?
Be honest and specific. You might say, “I’m finding I do better when I have a little space between appointments,” or “I can be more present if I don’t stack things back-to-back.” Framing it as a way to show up more fully—with more attention and care—helps others understand that this is about quality, not avoidance.
