10 Productivity & Energy Management Tips to Make the Most of Your Time
It’s way too easy to get stretched given our work and societal cultures around being busy.
In the professional world, busyness is synonymous with success. Yet, many proponents are starting to push back on this thinking. As Ariana Huffington said in a 2013 commencement speech at Smith College, “The way we’ve defined success is no longer sustainable.” Our societal definitions of success don’t fit anymore, nor does the dogged pursuit to achieve it.
Perhaps those who use their time and energy wisely are the true winners ones, the ones who end up being most successful in work and life. The truth likely lives somewhere in between. A lot of very successful people work hard. But does it always have to be that way? Likely not. And as Huffington said, it isn’t sustainable anyway. We run the risk of exhaustion and worse burn out.
So, it’s worth investing some of your precious hours to identify the practices that will work best for you to be most productive and manage your energy to have the most impact with your time. We offer 10 tips to do just that.
1. Start with priorities. We really can’t do it all. Know what’s important to you and where you want to be impacting your work and life. Consider where you can add the most value and what will really move the needle, activities that are in your flow zone and will be most enjoyable to you, and tasks that only you can really do. Get really clear on what you are going to say “yes” to and what you are going to say “no” to. As Greg McKeown says in “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less:”
“Constantly ask, ‘Am I investing in the right activities.’”
Read more on “How to Clarify Your Priorities” here.
2. Make choices. To build on the first point because it is so important, you must make choices and be ruthless about focus. Taking on too many projects at once can be a sure way to not completing projects or having them move at a snail’s pace. Charlie Gilkey, author of “Start Finishing: How to Go from Idea to Done,” shares that it is really best if you focus on no more than five projects at a time and complete those before moving on to another. Also think about setting quarterly goals to home in on the projects you’ll take on.
3. Focus your mind and energy. And finally, once you know your priorities and have made choices, each day focus your mind and where you are going to put your energy.
Start by getting things out of your head. If your mind is racing or you have a long list of to do’s running around in your head, get them down on paper, in a notes app, or another system of your choice to clear your mind and allow you to focus. Also, if there’s something you are fretting about, actively work to shift your focus and your energy—for example, take five deep breaths, stand up and jump to shake it off, or listen to your favorite uplifting song. If you’re anxious, ask how you can shift that energy around towards excitement—what does that anxiety actually say you are excited about right now?
Put your number one challenge or impact item on your to do list for the day. Start there. Every day. As Stephen Covey advises in the classic, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” “First things first.” Do invest your time against your biggest priority at the start of each day. (This is ideal and the best for most of us, but if you are a night owl, the evening plus hours may be best for you to tackle your biggest projects.) It will help you build momentum for the day, which will further fuel your motivation.
Give yourself only three big action items to focus on each day. What really needs to get done today? Actively ask yourself what you are going to say no to today so you can say yes to what’s most important. For other tips on finding focus, consider David Allen’s 6 Horizons of Focus approach.
Be your own cheerleader. Susan Pascal suggests telling yourself, “I want to do this; I have chosen to do this,” to keep you committed in the moment.
Don’t task shift, meaning stay focused on one project or topic area at a time. In an interview with Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx and first self-made female billionaire, she shared how she has changed her schedule to be focused on specific topics on each day of the week. With the business having grown so much over the years, she was finding it hard to have sufficient context and enough time to stay in the same thought process for long enough to make sound decisions. So, instead of allowing her team to schedule whatever meetings on whatever days, she has allocated days to specific topics—Monday’s are free and for catching up on anything; Tuesday’s are dedicated to Brand and Marketing; Wednesday’s to Leadership and Company Strategy, and so on.
Similarly, batch activities for efficiency. For example, don’t do email all throughout the day. Respond and send emails 1-2 times per day or certain days of the week instead. Also, communicate this norm so people aren’t surprised by the lag in response. You can apply this to other tasks, as well—batch blog post writing; batch team project reviews; or batch team one-on-one meetings.
Create rituals that help you focus your mind in the moment. For example, grabbing a cup of coffee and lighting a candle or playing jazz music means it’s thinking or writing time.
Create an optimal work environment. Our workspace matters, and that’s especially important when working at home. Invest the time to create a space that will be both functional and inspirational.
Turn off distractors: email, alerts, phones, chats, Slack, and so on.
4. Be flexible. Be willing to flex on where you put your attention in the moment. Even though we advocate focusing on your top priority, if your energy isn’t aligned with the task at hand, you’re going to waste time. Trying to do something you don’t want to do in the moment will likely take you much longer. You need to follow your energy. A watch out, however, for procrastinators—this can serve as a convenient excuse to delay getting critical work done. So be honest with yourself when assessing how you are feeling.
5. Know yourself. We are all wired a bit differently. Some of us are morning people; others are most productive at night. Some are energized and form ideas talking with people, while others need quiet time to themselves to think through solutions. You’ll want to customize the practices you put into place based on how you are wired. When are you and what makes you energized? When are you drained and what can zap your energy?
6. Manage your physical and mental energy. Christine Carter, UC Berkeley sociologist and author of “The Sweet Spot: How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work,” shares a fresh perspective on finding balance that goes beyond time management to include energy management. It’s an important perspective—how can we better use our mental and physical energy? For example, are we wasting mental energy fretting about things that just don’t matter? Could we use our mental energy in a more productive way? It’s interesting to consider where we can reduce that friction. A few tips to focus your mind and energy:
Take care of yourself like getting enough sleep, eating well and getting proper nutrition, exercising, and taking pauses and breaks, ideally outside.
Thinking work takes energy, so do this work when you are most energized. Often times, it’s best to do this at the start of the day when your mind is fresh. But if you are a night owl, your mind might just be getting going late at night.
Decision making also takes a lot of mental energy, so limit the number of decisions you have to make, especially in the morning. Create routines and habits like wearing a uniform, eating the same breakfast, and following the same morning schedule to leave your thinking for more important decisions.
Work with our natural rhythms. Our bodies naturally follow what are called “ultradian rhythms,” which tend to be 90- to 120-minute cycles. As recommended in this article, try working in 90-minute spurts with breaks to rejuvenate in between. If you can’t keep this up the entire day, at least start with a 90-minute session in the morning focused on your most important one to three projects for the day.
Share the load. On her podcast, Brené Brown speaks of a great practice, “the gap plan,” that she and her husband started between themselves when she was building her business and traveling, he also had a full-time job, and their children were younger. It worked for them, so they expanded it to their entire family. It honors the reality that we all can get depleted over time—within a day, a week, a month, and so on—so how do you support each other when you each may not be at 100 percent? Or in a particular moment in time, perhaps one person is at a higher percent and can take on more load while the other recuperates. If you are in a partnership, explore this concept and see if it can work for you. Even consider this practice at work; if you are part of a supportive leadership team and/or you have supportive, collaborative peers in the organization, can you support each other in this way?
Finally, at any time of the day, don’t let yourself get sucked into time-wasting, energy draining activities like email and social media.
7. Manage your time. Some of us may not like to be regimented but being deliberate with how you will manage and use your time is important. Here are a few ways to better manage your time:
Free up your time for important activities by blocking time on your calendar. Don’t let others control your time to the point of not being able to focus on your high impact tasks.
Establish boundaries for when and where you’ll work and communicate them to important stakeholders, including your family both to set expectations and also to hold you accountable.
Time box activities, especially time wasting or draining activities like email. It’s easy to put more time than one should against activities. Determine how much time an activity should take and/or how much time you are willing to invest.
Give yourself challenges. If you really want to make progress on a project and you have trouble getting yourself started, turn it into a challenge. For example, I have to write 500 words a day for 6 months to make progress on my book idea.
Calendar to do’s. It puts a focus on the most important tasks, helps with time boxing and ensures your work will get done during allotted working times, and makes priorities visible to both you and others who see your calendar.
Utilize the time you do have, even if it’s just 15-30 minutes. Don’t fall into a trap where you think you can’t get anything done in between meetings or in short time periods. Break projects down into smaller chunks so you have a sense of what you can get done in short bursts of time.
Become a master delegator. Stay focused on the activities only you can do, and delegate the rest. As Kevin Kruse writes in “15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management – The Productivity Habits of 7 Billionaires, 13 Olympic Athletes, 29 Straight-A Students, and 239 Entrepreneurs”:
“Delegate most tasks.”
Don’t forget to block time on your calendar for self-care. This works for both managing your time and your physical and mental energy.
8. Practice discipline. Building on the above point, it might not be fun, but discipline is often required to help keep us on task. To be sure, we all benefit from free time to let our minds wander, to play, and to rejuvenate. That’s often when our best ideas show up. Yet managing oneself when it’s time to focus is critical, too. Have methods and habits to help you turn work on and off. Cut yourself off if you need to. Work on getting comfortable with not getting everything done and how that feels to you. Finally, know where your time goes. Periodically, do a time review, analyzing where you spend your time in a week or month. Is your time aligned to your priorities? If not, course correct.
9. Set up your systems. Jenny Blake, author of “Pivot: The only move that matters is your next one,” shares that if she is stretched and working too many hours, she knows she has a systems problem. You may be the same. So, investigate what systems you can put in place to improve your productivity or better manage your energy and time. That might include hiring a Virtual Assistant, getting a project management tool like Asana, Trello, or Todoist, or utilizing a calendar tool like Calendly. It could be choosing to move all your files to the cloud so they are more accessible for all your teammates. It might be automating certain tasks. You could even think about using a service like Rescue Time, which offers tools to help you be more productive and focused. If you’re really wanting to make significant progress and make a step change, you may even find it helpful to join a community like Productive Flourishing by Charlie Gilkey.
10. Prototype small habit changes. We offer a lot of different tips here. Start by prototyping small habit changes to test what works best for you. You don’t need to take on a big change or execute all of these at once. Progress is made by taking small, incremental steps. Such steps create ripples and builds momentum. Pick three of the ideas above and test them out for a week or month. Adjust and add as appropriate to help you be even more effective and productive.
Close
Managing ourselves and our time has to be one of the biggest challenges we all face. How do we achieve the right effort to put against our professional and personal priorities? We hope these tips can help you achieve better work-life integration and experience more ease, while having even greater impact.
Let us know what works for you or if you have other tips and we’ll add to the list.
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