Manage your Energy — not just your Time
We often talk about Time Management and this is a good thing but we also need to manage our energy.
I am writing this from a position of failure. Let’s look at today. I planned a working day — 9am to 5pm. For various reasons I wasn’t able to start work until just before 11am. I quickly re-worked my day, culling some things and seeking to ensure that the key things got done. This post, was one of them. Planned to be written at 1pm today. It’s now 9pm and I am writing it. I did not allocate sufficient time to complete the tasks I set myself. I managed my time poorly. But, I am also now tired and thinking is not proving easy — so this work will probably be low quality. I have managed my energy poorly.
The time we have is finite but so is the energy we have. But, whilst our time is a fixed resource (1 minute is always 1 minute), our energy levels change through the day. Overall we know that our energy levels will decrease over the course of the day and the potentially the week but there is more to it isn’t there. We are all different. I fall victim to the afternoon slump. Every day at around 3pm I begin to feel like I have been hit by a truck. By 3:45pm I have a second wind! I have a friend who years and years ago came alive at around 8pm and his best work was done between 8pm and 11pm (I doubt this is still true!). For me, there was little to no point in allocating complex work that required deep thought to between 3pm and 4pm. This is when I did my low level, needs no thought work.
The quality of our work, and the enjoyment we get from it will depend on our energy levels. So, I highly recommend when planning what we do when, we try to match our expected energy levels to the tasks we plan and be willing to adapt it on the fly if our estimates are wrong for whatever reason. It is often a waste of our time to continue with something if we don’t have the energy for it. The work will take longer and be of lower quality and may even need to more time later to fix it. If you don’t need to force it…then don’t. If you do need to then….
Lastly — a few energy hacks!
- Take breaks. Away from your desk. A task not at your desk. 5 minutes of banter with a willing colleague. All of these can give you a mental boost.
- Stay Hydrated. Often when I feel tired it is because I haven’t drunk enough water. That feeling of being mentally sluggish — that’s often dehydration.
- Go for a walk or do something similar. 10 minutes is all it takes to give you an energy boost
