2 Steps to Managing Your Personal Energy
If you don’t manage your personal energy, you’ll burn out quicker than a wire sparkler!
Since we’re all different when it comes to what works for them, it starts with getting to know yourself and your own energy levels.
Our energy can ebb and flow during different times in our lives, different seasons of the year, and throughout the day.
Here’s 2 strategies I use to manage my personal energy:
1. USE AN ENERGY SCALE
In order to improve anything, we first need to know where we’re currently at.
This starts with assessing our energy using a simple energy scale.
Think about the habits, tasks, and routines you have and rank them on a 1-5 scale where 1 = energy depleting, and 5 = energy restoring.
Examples of level 1 (energy depleting) habits:
Multitasking
Giving an automatic yes to everything
Not asking for help/doing everything yourself
Cooking separate meals for everyone in your family
Staying up too late
Endless late night snacking
Mindless social media scrolling
Examples of level 5 (energy restoring) habits:
Focusing on 1 task at a time
Hiring a housekeeper or virtual assistant
Getting a monthly massage
Eating a healthy breakfast
Reading a book before bed
Taking a short walk after lunch
Scheduling a 1 min stretch break every hour during your work day
The goal is to see if you can ADD 1-2 more level 5 (energy restoring habits to your day/week) habits, while also eliminating or reducing 1 level 1 habit (energy depleting).
Have fun, make it a game!
2. Do a Personal Energy Audit
Notice when your personal energy is at its highest and lowest and as much as you can, plan your tasks and activities accordingly.
For example, you’d likely benefit from using your high energy times for creative thought, big picture planning, making decisions, and completing tasks that require more of your undivided focus and attention.
Use low energy times (often before coffee and after lunch) for tasks requiring less focus, attention, and energy.
These could be tasks like social media and email responding, creating simple forms or invoices, and simple routine tasks.
Be sure to plan in some time to recharge so you can put energy back into your body.
Relaxing times might include:
Eating
Napping or sleeping
Meditating
Stretching
Reading
Journaling
Foam rolling
Massage or acupuncture
Prior to planning my activities around my energy levels, I would save my big projects, like writing promotional emails for the mid afternoon because I knew they’d take more of my time. I focused instead on getting as many simple things done on my to-do list in the mornings, mistakenly believing I’d feel more productive.
However, what actually happened was the mid afternoon writing was next to impossible because by then I was tired and unmotivated.
Can you relate?
I’ve now flip-flopped my schedule and I complete my most important tasks mid morning and save the mid afternoon for my more mundane and mindless tasks.
It’s amazing what a difference that makes!
I’d love to hear from you…What activities are energy restoring for you? Energy depleting? How can you do more of what restores you and less of what’s depleting?
Want to grab your complementary clarifying call to chat through this and learn what you can implement for your unique energy needs?
