Learn How You Work With Energy Management

The high importance of Energy Management as your source of power in everyday life.

Energy Management is the new time management. Time management is great. But energy management is a godsend.

In a run up to my career pivot guide, I touch upon energy management and how you can make things work in your favor. No matter what your background, experience or path you walk, this is an essential practice to improve various aspects of one’s life.

1. Energy Management: What and How?

When we are constantly in the midst of life and work responsibilities, we can often feel that we are running out of time. Which is normal to feel and that’s completely fine. Expected even, if you will. But based on my previous post, it’s not so much about one’s time. But more particularly the type of energies that we have to play around with, and how we can optimise it for our benefit.

Let’s break it down.

There are many particular ways to work with your energy. To simplify the process, we can think about our working energies as positive and negative energies.

As we are all individual beings, then we may feel different energies and overall have varying experiences in working with our energies.

To do our best work means to be in a healthy state of mind. The feeling of being inspired, energised, bright and simply feeling like your best self, can be acknowledged as your positive energy.

Feeling anything related to being disoriented, a bit low, lazy, scared, procrastinating or simply not your best self is associated with levels of negative energy.

I believe the most obvious reason for optimal energy management is such that we can deal with the negative energy in order to instill ourselves with that state of joy, calm, and drive to carry with many things in life.

On a heavily scheduled day with various goals you hope to achieve, the practice of giving back the energy towards yourself is critical to living optimally daily.

Here are some simple ways to bring back the energy towards yourself:

• Morning Tasks: Do things to make you feel good first. For example clearing my inbox gives me a sense of clarity and I know I’m up to date and ready to conquer new challenges throughout the day.
• Morning Routine: This is your booster to own the day. MAKE IT YOURS. All of us will have our own versions of what makes our mornings our own. For insance, I like to wake up, squeeze in a pilaes work out, clean my room and make matcha tea. What’s yours?
• In a way it’s like creating a process for yourself. And even if you don’t have a system, go with your intuition! Write that down and note it for next time.
• Whatever makes you feel great, is the key.

How about you?

Here are some prompts to get you going:

• Are you excited for the early morning rise or are you more excited after 10AM?
• What is your most favourite part of the day? Why does it make you feel that way?
• When did you most feel proud of yourself throughout the day? Why?
• What were the most difficult things in the day? How did you overcome it?

But of course we are all human at the end of the day and sometimes we can feel off balance with our routines. In such a case where this should happen, I recommend really to allow yourself to take a break. Take a break by going offline, not engaging with any work or responsibilities whatsoever, and do something fun! Give yourself the permission to let go of it all and just be.

This is also a way to give back to yourself as it is a form of recharging. The idea is to make yourself feel good and turn it around on a bad day 😊

2. Chunking Tasks

You may have heard of this. Welcome.

But we all have our definitions of what chunking tasks means.

My experience from chunking tasks stemmed from my self-learning in the UI and UX Principles in web & mobile development.

One of the main principles of UI is reducing the overall cognitive load on short-term memory.

‘Chunking’ introduced by George Miller states that the working memory can handle seven-plus-or-minus two “chunks” of information while we’re processing information. Hence why phone numbers are simplified into smaller pieces.

Applying this principle to our working lives can positively add to our working energy.

While we may tend to bite off more than we can chew, bringing down the number of tasks by chunking them into categories or groups makes it easier to manage. Example I strictly categorise my tasks in 3 ways:

• Admin
• Creativity (all the tasks that involve a little creative edge)
• Challenges (the more complex tasks, that require higher mental capacity)

At the same time, I make it fun by tackling them during times of the day that suit me best. This leads to my next point:

3. Learning how you learn/work

Our biggest and greatest tool is our mindset.

I believe we have the capacity to master any challenge. But first, we must master ourselves.

What does this mean?

It simply means learning about your mind.

Your behaviors, how you learn, how you respond to things, learning what makes you thrive. In other words, learning about yourself and what best works for you. Learn about your brain and how it works by observing the way you do things. Self-reflection is a key tool in this journey. In fact, studies show that reflection are on the of key factors to learning and development.

An example can be seen in our morning routines.

For example for me: I tend to be more creative and feel challenged during the day, hence I like to work on the more complex tasks at hand.

Later during the day, I am aware I am a victim of the 3–4PM sugar low. So I make it a non-negotiable to go for a walk, do some quick stretches and tend to the more menial tasks at the end of the day. Let’s be real. I leave the less mentally taxing tasks for the end of the day, as I know my brain needs a break 🤣 #noshame

If you find yourself more creative and tend to thrive later in the day, then it might be best to get the easier, repetitive tasks out of the way. This can be a way to build your energy and feel good as the day continues. Almost like building your energy up 🧗

4. The Use of Productivity Tools

There’s a difference with simply using a Productivity tool and being Productive with your tools.

Let’s explore this.

Now this one is a debatable one. Fortunately, in this flourishing digital age of information, we will never fall short of any productivity tools. Unfortunately, for us, we also can’t have it all and that is okay. There are wayyyy too many tools out there and it is best to

My advice with using productivity tools, is to find one that resonates with you the most. Because if you find one that aligns with your values, and the way you like to do things, then more than likely, you will be most productive with it.

It doesn’t matter which tool is most popular, most valued, or is most extravagant. That’s far from the point. The point is, if they work for you or not.

Example:

• Trello or Notion? 😏
• Google drive or One drive?
• Digital planner or paper planner?
• Digital notes or bullet journal?

Perhaps we may have our differences in taste, but if that works for you, then I highly encourage you to use the one that allows you to do your work seamlessly.

Whatever it is, choose the option that makes you most happiest and gives you joy. Apply the Marie Kondo mentality to it.If you were shown a productivity tool at work that doesn’t work for you, feel free to make your own! Set your own standards and make it work for you.

Overall, there is no point in being productive if you are not making it work for you. Take all these steps are a push in the right direction for you, to enhance your productivity and lifestyle, by mastering your energy.

Thank you for reading!

You can find more optimal living tips over at my Instagram. In due time, I will be offering career coaching mentoring sessions soon. Live optimally and stay connected 💖