Manage your energy, more than your time

Why it’s important to manage your energy

Every human being has the same 24 hours everyday on Earth. Then why is it that we often see such vast gulfs in long term success between two people with quite similar skills, intelligence, and even motivation. Some people just seem to be able to keep performing at a consistently high level for long periods of time, while completely avoiding burning out. We see this most clearly in sports, where there are many examples of athletes performing at an elite level, well into their late 30’s and even early 40’s, while most of their peer group retire before even hitting 30. There is mounting evidence to suggest that the key to doing this is to consciously manage your energy levels on a daily basis.

There has been a lot of talk about time management over the past few decades, so much so that an entire multi billion dollar industry has been built on top of it’s principles. But very little attention has been given to energy management and I would argue that it’s definitely the more important of the two. We’ve all had those days where we’ve come back home at 6 PM completely tired out and ready to just sink into bed. We have the whole evening to work on our hobbies and passions but no energy to do it with. But with a simple shift in attitude and routines, you’ll be able to find the energy to reclaim that lost time and move closer towards your goals.

What causes energy depletion

Before we dive into energy management techniques, let’s first look at all the things which cause us to lose energy in the first place.

• Most of us cram our days with a variety of tasks, both personal and professional in nature. We see ourselves as the product of hard work, taking pride in the hours that we spend working. It’s common sense that performing tasks drains you of energy, but few of us consciously organise our working styles to minimise energy depletion. Working in a disorganised and haphazard manner is the most common way in which most of us lose energy.
• What’s not usually recognised is that even those tasks that you are not performing, but are constantly thinking about, also causes energy drain. Maybe it’s that call you’re supposed to make, or that errand you’re supposed to run. Just having the thought of these tasks playing in your head can impact your energy levels.
• Another very common source of energy depletion is having to deal with negative situations and people. Imagine you’re driving to work and another car bumps against yours. We immediately feel anger towards the other driver, and end up getting into an argument. But after you get to work, you realise how much that incident had drained you of energy. It’s very tough to have a productive day after an incident like that.
• Modern society is a very distracted society. Being bored is almost a taboo these days. Even if you’re bored for a few seconds, the tendency is to reach for your smartphone and surf the web or see what’s trending on social media. We rarely realise it but such behaviour causes our minds to become greatly fragmented and leads to significant energy depletion.

How can we keep our energy from becoming depleted

While these are the most common sources of energy depletion, there are countless others we can think of, such as working a job we hate, being around friends who put us down, dealing with financial problems etc. Just becoming aware of the ways in which we lose energy is the first step towards proper energy management. It shows us what we need to do to replenish our energy levels and work consistently towards our goals.

Getting Adequate Rest — Maintaining a proper work-rest balance is an extremely important aspect of energy management. We try to cram in as much work as possible during the time available to us, with the result that the efficiency of our work drastically reduces and we become susceptible to burn out. The way to avoid this is to take adequate rest for every timescale of work. Take a 5 minute break after every 25 minutes of work ( Pomodoro technique). Take a day or two off once a week. Take multiple vacations in a year. And so on. Maintaining a consistent work-rest ratio can have a huge impact on your overall energy levels. There will definitely be times when you will have to break this rule, especially when you’re working on a deadline, but ensure you take enough time off after the work is delivered to allow for adequate recovery.

Getting Enough Sleep — As a society, we are chronically sleep deprived. We all have friends who go on about how they’re working really hard and are sleeping just 2–3 hours a day, but sacrificing sleep is the single most harmful thing we can do to our long term health and productivity. On the other hand, getting good sleep regularly can become the foundation for your future success. While there’s a lot to be said about this topic, there are a few simple things you can start doing immediately to build a great sleep habit.

• Create a wind-down routine at night which sees you hit the bed at around the same time every night.
• Stay away from any screens for at least one hour before bedtime, as they increase cortisol production in your body, preventing you from getting sleep.
• Use this alone time to reflect on your day, and plan out your tasks for tomorrow. I’ve found that writing a journal during this time really helps in bringing a lot more perspective about one’s life
• Try to sleep in a completely dark, noise free room.

Meditation — Building a regular meditation habit is like getting a backup battery for your energy levels. Meditating even for 20–30 minutes a day can add 3–4 hours of productivity to your day. Personally, I cannot understate the impact that meditation has had on my life. Apart from giving you more energy, it trains your mind to focus and avoid distractions. It also makes you a calmer and less reactive person, allowing you to weed out negative situations and people from your life. While it’s not easy getting starting on this, apps like Headspace can really help. Once you’ve built this habit though, it’s the easiest and most effective way to recharge yourself, and you’ll find yourself returning to it at multiple points during the day.

Exercise — While it might seem paradoxical that exercise can give you more energy, that’s exactly what happens. Apart from the obvious health benefits, exercise can dramatically boost your focus and energy levels. You don’t need to be spending two hours pumping iron at the gym everyday to get the benefits of exercise. Just maintaining a consistent routine such as running a few kms a day, or half an hour of yoga is enough. What’s important is figuring out an exercise plan that works for you and sticking to it religiously.

Diet — When we exert mental energy, our brains burn through glucose. Any food item which contains calories will provide your brain the glucose it needs to function. But sugary foods will give you a temporary glucose spike, giving you energy for the short term, but will crash later that brings your energy levels down in the long term. What’s ideal would be to keep a steady glucose level in your body, which gives your brain a consistent reserve to exert energy for the long term. Food items such as nuts, fresh fruits and vegetables, lean cuts of meat etc are perfect for this.

Change the way you work — Developing a systematic approach to work is a great way to minimise energy loss during the day. There are numerous systems and frameworks which have been developed over the years to do just this. I combined bits and pieces of Bullet Journaling and the Getting Things Done framework to develop my own system of work. There is no one system which will work for everyone. You really have to put in the effort to experiment with different systems, and find or develop one which suits you best. Having said that, there are some patterns that are common to most such systems.

• Learn to work in chunks — Before you dive right into a large task, break it down into smaller tasks and plan out when you’re gonna do each piece. In this way, you make the task more manageable and you also get great visibility into the progress you’re making. When I first started writing, I would sit down and just start typing. It would take me about 3 days to finish a post and I would be left feeling exhausted. Nowadays, I start out by first outlining what I want to write, breaking a topic down into subtopics. This has cut my writing time down to 3–4 hours (still quite slow).
• Learn to work deep — This is probably one of the most important things you can do for yourself in an age defined by people’s propensity for distraction. Our most creative and inspired, highest quality work happens when we are able to shut out all distractions and just sit on one task for a few hours and finish it to perfection. I found it incredibly difficult to do when I first started but it gets much easier with time. Meditation, again, helps a lot in this. And what I’ve found while working deep is that you end up feeling refreshed and rejuvenated at the end of it rather than drained. On the other hand, a day spent multitasking, or looking at my phone and email every few minutes, leaves me extremely scatter brained and tired. Tip — Switch off your phone or turn off all notifications while working deep. For an in depth study of the subject, do read Deep Work by Cal Newport.
• Learn to batch tasks — Our willpower does not remain the same throughout the day. We have parts of the day during which we are at our peak, and other parts when we are at our trough. Learning to recognise this natural rhythm will allow us to schedule tasks appropriately. For most morning people, the peak is in the morning, followed by a recovery phase in the afternoon, and then a trough in evening. For night owls, this will generally be in the reverse order. Try batching or scheduling your analytical tasks for the peak, the more administrative tasks, such as responding to emails, for the trough, and the more creative tasks like brainstorming for the recovery phase. This will ensure that you are moving in sync with your natural flow rather than against it.

While it’s easy to say all this, I know that developing these habits is not an easy task at all. But it can be done. Just start with one thing at a time and build on top of it. Once you see the impact of these behaviours on your productivity, and your overall happiness and sense of wellbeing, I doubt you’ll want to go back to the old way of being constantly stressed out and tired.

Do you have any tips and suggestions of your own for maintaining and restoring energy? Don’t forget to let me know in the comments.