Overworked: How to Manage Your Energy and Forget About Time Management
The Most Important Lesson I Learned to Optimize my Productivity
The first time I came across this idea was watching a video by Tony Schwarts on 99u. He spoke about the fact that we always have more time than energy. And it was this basic idea that stuck with me.
In his HBR article “Manage your energy, not your time,” he goes more in-depth into the different categories of energy that are being used and must be restored, but that part of his story never really connected with me.
The way I see it, we have one storage of energy, and it does not matter if I use this energy at work, in the gym, or during a party; my energy will always deplete before I run out of time during that day or week.
Before fully internalizing this concept, I felt guilty whenever I was unproductive.
If I were not working 100 hours a week, I was being ‘lazy’ because I read about so many other people that would efficiently work that amount of hours: Marissa Mayer, Bill Gates, Howard Schultz, Elon Musk… and people in my network whom I spoke would also brag about the number of hours they worked as a McKinsey consultant or business owner.
Luckily, fewer people wear their unhealthy amount of work hours as a badge of honor.
I have come to believe that it is not only more healthy not to work more than 40 hours, but I can also be a lot more effective. The reason is that I do not make as many mistakes as when I am tired, and I spend less time on complex tasks because I can give them my full attention (= energy).
To do this, I walk myself through these three steps:
STEP 1: Which activities use my energy? Which activities restore my energy?
The first step I went through was learning which activities would use my finite amount of energy and which ones would replenish it. I did this by keeping track of what I did during the week and, at the same time, being mindful of my energy and how I felt after each activity.
This snapshot was taken on September 24, 2017. I had a contract for 40 hours with The Little Gym, of which I spent all hours at the location. As you can see, I only worked part of the 40 hours this week.
Most days, I would start early with my work (TLG extra), putting me over the regular 40 hours, but because I prioritized my studies this week, the total time I spent for TLG was 37.75 hours.
I attended the Rotterdam School of Business for two years, and during those two years, I had classes from 18:00/19:00–21:00/22:00 two or three times per week.
On the other days, I would study at home after work. This week I spent 23 hours on my studies. Mind you, my average hours spent on my studies per week was probably around 15 hours.
I did this a couple of times during the year and learned the following:
Giving a speech, talking with a coworker, talking with a friend, reading a book, answering my work emails, exercising at home, attending a party, and going for a long walk all use my energy.
Sleeping and watching Netflix restores my energy. So does any other reasonably passive activity, such as watching my son play on the rug in front of the couch.
I also learned that It helps to see this as all-or-nothing: using or restoring energy.
What about exercising at home? Does that not also give energy?
Exercising itself uses energy on that day that I cannot use for anything else.
It benefits my health, which probably translates to being fitter. This you could see as enlarging my energy tank. But I still see exercising as something that uses my energy.
And talking with a friend?
If it is the right friend and the proper conversation, the activity can be fun and uplifting!
If I was feeling depressed and therefore unmotived to undertake an activity, this friend might help me gain some perspective on the matter, which would then unburden me of this feeling of being overwhelmed, and I might start this task I have been procrastinating.
But the way I see it, I will still have to spend energy talking to that friend, which is the energy I cannot use later that day.
Step 1, for me, is a never-ending process.
I keep learning which activities use my energy and which ones restore my energy; recently: watching social media uses energy, and watching youtube videos of my favorite subscriptions gives me energy.
STEP 2: Do you have one or many sources of energy?
I like things simple, and one way of keeping this simple is treating all activities the same when it comes to using energy.
All activities use the same energy, whether it relates to work, friends, hobbies, or fun. But as Tony Schwartz from the energy project differentiates between different energy sources, such as physical and emotional, you might benefit from doing the same.
The differentiation suggests that if your emotional energy is depleted, it might not be wise to have a serious conversation with somebody. However, perhaps there might still be some physical energy left that you could use to go for a run.
I have experienced that I can become just as tired after a fun day in the city center: shopping, walking around and eating out. As I can from a day at work.
And I also experienced that if I spend my whole weekend with social activities, I start my Monday just as exhausted as when I worked the entire weekend.
This brought me to the conclusion that all activities make use of the same energy reserves that I have.
This might be different for you; I would be curious to learn how your experiences might differ from mine in the comments.
STEP 3: What are the different amounts of energy each activity uses?
Not all tasks are created equal. I use much more energy during a 20-minute confrontational 1 on 1 with a coworker than a 20-minute relaxing call with my brother.
I see this step as something to remember instead of a list one can make. The energy you use in a specific activity can depend on factors such as your experience with the task or the level of commitment.
Giving a speech for the first time uses more energy than your 100th speech, and giving a 5-minute introduction to your new co-workers will take less energy than a 5-minute impromptu speech about boundaries given with a lot of passion.
I did learn a couple of basic guidelines for myself:
- New stuff uses more energy than the old stuff
- The more something is out of my comfort zone, the more energy I will use
- The more I do something/get good at it, the lesser the energy usage will be
- The more distractions there are, the more energy it will use
STEP 4: Decide accordingly on how to spend your energy
Keeping this in mind, I have often given myself the freedom not to undertake a particular activity because it would cost too much that day.
When, for example, I had a challenging conversation with a co-worker that used a lot of energy that day, I would not deplete whatever resource I still had by trying to empty my email inbox.
I have also stopped working in the evenings and on weekends, reserving that for urgent and essential tasks that need to be executed at that moment.
I.E. a particular Sunday evening, the government announced that schools and daycares would be closed due to the rising Covid infections, which demanded a crisis intervention of myself and my fellow leaders for the coming week.
Knowing I used quite a lot of energy on that Sunday, I took it more easily (energy-wise, as I still had to work the same amount of hours) the following Monday.
Other sources that explore this idea and that I recommend are:
BOOK: The weekend effect by Katrina Onstad
BOOK: Rest by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
HBR article: Manage your energy, not your time by Tony Schwartz
