I don’t always work extra hours, but when I do I stay energized. Just kidding, I always work extra hours.
I’m just going to start this list of specific tips with a caveat that I’m not telling people who hate their job to work extra hours. If you in any way despise your work or feel that work/life balance is so deeply important to you I highly respect that and am not trying to mess with your feng shui.
Who I’m talking to is the people that are super stoked to get more done, that are driven to create things people love and actually want to work — but their personal energy levels get in the way, and so they look for more ways to get powered up.
1.Music. The trick is finding something high energy without words – so that you can concentrate but go into a trance with the beat and the energy of the music. My favorites for this kind of pump up music are Justice, Infected Mushroom, El Ten Eleven, Tycho ands Tipper.
2. Limiting caffeine on other parts of the day, and conserving a coffee splurge or whatever for the times when I have the most meaningful and important work. Caffeine is like stealing energy from other parts of your day and concentrating it in one time block – so you can’t steal energy all day, at that point it just becomes redundant and ineffective.
3. Regular exercise as a way to get out of my head and release all of those life giving chemicals are brains were meant to have. If you need a boost of mental energy — try taking a half hour to do some intervals, this won’t drain you quite as much as running for a half hour straight but will wake up the brain and get your blood flowing.
4. Systematizing and delegating repetitive and tasks that require little expertise. If you spend all of your time bean counting, doing tiny detail work that’s easy and can be done by others — you might find yourself drained when it comes to the stuff that really requires a steady hand and an energized mind. Sometimes this can be something that’s fun for you, but other people in your organization can do just as well and have more time based on the need for you in more critical areas. If you’re working extra hours constantly, you may want to consider it might be time to delegate some more of your repetitive tasks.
5. Most important of all — continually move yourself more towards the type of work you actually want to do long-term. Many people think that relaxing into a particular career and seeing where it brings them will give them the proper ‘work/life balance’ and allow them to have more energy but doing work that’s in front of you just because it was given you is draining. Grabbing the bull by the horns and aggressively finding work you love and are passionate about has a much more long term energizing effect. This is a more general thing, but if you get it the extra hours might not hurt so much and actually be exciting to you.
This kind of attitude also usually allows more long term freedom on a day to day basis as well because you’ve proven you get things done and are effective so people trust you with more important tasks and higher status. Alright — now bring the work/life balance responses below ! :)
