10 Ways To Get More Energy at Work

When you hit that rut or feel the afternoon slowdown

Don’t you hate it when you have a lot to do at work, but you feel drained when you get back to your desk — say after lunch or after a long meeting where you had to force yourself to stay awake and pay attention?

Here are ten things I do to help me get the energy and motivation I need to push through the afternoon slump:

1. Afternoon tea

Although I’ve experimented with coffee, I find tea to be better because, depending on the tea, it has less caffeine, and I find the aroma and scent of tea help to perk my awareness. As a side benefit, I find I’m not up late at night because of having too much caffeine in my system.

2. Break up work with an exercise session at lunch

One of the best tricks to boost energy levels is to work out during lunch. You come back to work pumped and ready to go and exercise is never a bad thing either. It is also the secret for when you have a bad day: a good workout will always turn around a bad day at work.

3. Work on things you are passionate about

I know sometimes you don’t always have the choice of what to work on. Deadlines are around the corner and bosses loom around your shoulder so sometimes you have to push through. But if you do have the choice of what to work on, work on something you’re excited to work on. It doesn’t have to be something you’re passionate about — it can be a new skill you’re trying to develop or a new technology you’re experimenting with. It’s about focusing on the right aspect of work.

4. Focus on what you learn rather than the work or outcomes

This is related to focusing on what you are passionate about as sometimes you can’t find any passion in your work task (think copying data from one document to another or formatting a document without providing any input).

On one project I worked on, I had to transfer information from multiple spreadsheets into an application — and let me tell you it was mind-numbing work. But even on that project, I looked up a keyboard shortcut for the application we were working with and improved the efficiency of my team by at least 50%. I learned a valuable lesson: don’t take things at face value, if you’re doing something repetitively, see if there’s a shortcut. Rather than focus on the work or the outcomes, I focused on learning.

5. Work with enthusiastic people

I remember some of the best projects I worked on weren’t always with the best clients. The work wasn’t innovative or trendy or cool. What made the work energizing was everyone around me: smart, ambitious, enthusiastic, positive and upbeat.

If you’re feeling that slump, are there people you can surround yourself with (either in-person or virtually) that can help boost your mood and energy?

6. Find ways to marry what you do at work with what you’re interested in outside of work

While working at Deloitte, I noticed there was a monthly newsletter being sent out which had some funny but fairly generic content. I realized there was an opportunity for me to help with the content — but what kind of content did I want to generate?

I then thought about what I liked outside of work and that was Tim Ferriss’ podcast where he interviewed the most successful individuals around the world (entrepreneurs, athletes, celebrities, scientists, etc.) and tried to break down what systems, tools and beliefs they had or developed to become the best. I decided to do the same, but with management consultants in the firm — I highlighted their skills and the cool projects they were working on, and I gave them a chance to shine.

7. Come up with ideas

I know it may not be the same for you, but I get energized at the start of a new idea or project. I get the same feeling whenever I purchase a blank journal or notebook: I get excited about the possibilities of what the journal or notebook will be filled with.

If you’re feeling that afternoon slump, why not take 10 minutes out of your day to write some ideas. And a plug for James Altucher’s new site notepd.com -> it’s a site created from James Altucher’s daily practice of coming up with 10 ideas every day.

8. Have coffees or meetings with people that give you energy

This is a combination of #1, #5 and #7 — but the trick is to find people that give you energy rather than take it away (you want to avoid the energy vampires as much as possible).

A lot of the time, I like to strategically schedule coffees or meetings with energizers so I can catch myself before I get into the slump and ride the energy to the end of the day.

9. Change work environments

A neat little trick I learned in university was the triangle study strategy. Essentially it was to study at one place — say the library — and then when you feel like you need a break, you use the break to walk to another study area — say the common area at your residence and then study for a while there — and then again, when you feel you need a break, use the break to walk to yet another area. The walk is a nice way to get away from your textbooks and notes and the change in work environment helps to keep you fresh.

You can do the same with work if you have a big enough workplace and it’s feasible to do so. If you work from a laptop and you have flexibility in where you work, you can work from one coffee shop, then go to the library for deep work, and then to another coffee shop for meetings.

10. Schedule something you can’t miss at the end of the day

One great trick to keep you productive and focused at work: schedule something you can’t miss at the end of the work day. For me, this used to be group fitness sessions where if I missed it, I would be out money — for you, this could be a dinner date with your spouse, a commitment to get your kids out to sports, or an appointment with the doctor.

I guarantee if you have something you can’t miss at the end of the day, you’re going to try to do everything you can to get whatever you need to get done before the commitment. Because you don’t want to work at home after.