10 Easy Tips to Increase Your Personal Energy Management to Become More Productive
There’s time management and then there’s energy management. Managing our time is like playing checkers while managing our energy is like playing chess — it’s more advanced. I don’t know about you, but I learned how to play checkers first, mastered it, and then I learned about chess.
Below I’ll outline 10 super easy, practical steps you can take to better manage your personal energy. It’s important because once we’ve optimized how we spend our time, we need to arrive at them with the optimum amount of energy.
1. Journal and track your energy levels.
If you aren’t already keeping a journal, you really need to get at it! I don’t care if it’s old-fashioned pen and paper, or digital in the cloud. The act of writing down your energy levels throughout the day will bring awareness to what’s going on. Your brain can’t help but connect the dots and recognize patterns. Over time, you might realize you’re low energy after drinking soda or high energy after doing something nice for other people.
2. Minimize news consumption.
Does not listening to the news lead to ignorance? Maybe, but you’ll be happier for it and your personal energy won’t be wasted on something that you weren’t going to take action on anyways. That’s right, I’m calling you out (and myself). Putin’s war crimes on Ukraine are disgusting, but am I flying over there to fight in that war anytime soon? No. So I’ll read enough to be knowledgeable about the world I live in, but I’m also not going to waste my energy constantly reading the news.
3. Schedule time for deep work.
Deep work is when you achieve a state of flow while working on something. I’ve heard it happens when you do something you think you’re good at but is challenging enough to keep your brain firing. Deep work is important to personal energy because this is when your sense of purpose gets re-energized.
4. Conversely, schedule time for deep play.
It’s exactly what it sounds like, “work hard, play hard.” Make sure there is time to rest the brain and allow your body to replenish its energy level. For me and most people, that’s at night after dinner and some time on the couch. Maybe it’s watching an engaging show or reading some digital magazines. My brain is can rest while still being exposed to interesting content.
5. Go max energy once per day.
As part of your morning or evening routine, when you’re thinking about the day ahead of yourself, identify one thing that you’ll go max energy on. That could mean that in one important meeting that you’ll apply maximum focus and performance. Or maybe it’s that workout later that you want to push your boundary. Or best yet, it’s focusing on your partner’s needs and really listening to them, being in the moment.
6. Intermittent rest and recovery.
I play tennis and between points, there’s a sweet 15–30 seconds of recovery before play resumes. As studies have shown, what you do during that rest period matters greatly over the length of the tennis match, by balancing energy exertion with recovery. And like in the rest of our life, this applies. Follow a big important meeting with something chill.
7. Appreciate someone right now.
Take out your phone (or if you’re on your phone, finish reading this sentence) and text someone close to you why you appreciate them. This small act of gratitude will feed your spirit of compassion.
8. Plan for an extra 30 min of sleep tonight.
And see what happens. When I was younger, I could get away with 6+ hours of sleep. But then I started to realize I couldn’t remember much from work, from one meeting to the next. So I increased that to a “must-have” 7 hours of sleep. That keeps me at a minimum level of effectiveness, but some days I increase that to 7.5 or even 8 hours, as I listen to my body and what it’s telling me.
9. Are you being challenged?
If the answer is no, then you need to circle back to your goals and your purpose. This means it’s time to change things up and get uncomfortable. Your human experience demands to be challenged and if you aren’t, then it’ll find other outlets to release that energy, and it may not be productive. Make sure you feel challenged.
10. Laugh hard once per day.
I was saddened when I heard it’s actually a phenomenon that as adults, we fall off a “humor cliff.” Don’t let that happen to you, reach out to your funny friends and get some jokes going. Have some fun with your partner or get your kid, if you have one, to laugh like there’s no tomorrow. Laughing eases our body and allows for the natural flow of positive energy.
Wrapping it up…
That’s my list of 10 easy ways to incorporate concrete steps to take to maximize your personal energy! It’s based on the research I did about personal energy frameworks and then coming up with my own framework — physical and mental, compassion, and then, challenge and ego. On any given day, I’m lucky if I can hit 5 of them. I think when I hit all 10 of them on the same day, I’ll again level up from chess to Magic the Gathering or World of Warcraft?!
References:
- Optimize Your Day For Maximum Productivity With Personal Energy Management by Prakhar Verma
- Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday: Book Summary, Key Lessons and Best Quotes
- The Subtle Mindset Shift That Could Radically Change the Way You See the World by Arthur C. Brooks
- Managing Energy and Effort for Optimal Performance — Learnings from Professional Athletes by Dan Sims
- The Power of Full Engagement: The Four Energy Management Principles That Drive Performance
