No matter how well you schedule your time, if you don’t have the personal energy to fulfill your commitments things may not get done. You will still attend meetings and outings, but you may not be fully present.
Instead, your brain will be a little foggy, and your body will slouch. When you combine managing your personal energy along with managing your time you will become happier, fully present in conversations, work activities, and be more actively effective.
Time Management?
Time Management is about planning how much time you have in a day for business meetings, family & kid activities(if you have any), outings with friends if you’re into that sort of thing, meal planning and downtime to spend recouping from your day.
What if what happened in one of those activities planned for the day completely depleted your energy? And you must carry on with the rest of the activities, but mentally you are dragging, have difficulty focusing, and can’t operate at the top of your game.
Personal Energy Management?
Personal Energy Management is about being aware of how much mental and physical energy you have throughout your day to do your planned activities.
The problem with using just time management is that it ignores the emotional side of things.
Though we’ve been taught to leave emotions at the door, but emotions sneak up on you when you least expect.
Emotions Take up Personal Energy and Hence Time:
You need to consider how your life and career experiences will affect your personal energy. When you take a break from work or a step back from your emotions, you rest your body and mind. Will your activities affect your personal energy?
What Happens When You Combine Personal Energy and Time Management?
When you use personal energy and time management, you find more time to do more. You spend less time dealing with emotions because you’ve built in space to respond to life. You become more effective, efficient and accomplished.
You discover that time doesn’t matter as much because your personal energy begins to dictate how you’ll spend your time.
Energy management ensures adequate measurement of time. Energy management works by ensuring that you take time between each sprint (your most important work), to rebuild your energy levels.
How to Conserve Your Energy and Simplify Your activities
The tips below will help save your energy, make your activities easier and enjoyable, increase your independence.
Plan and Pace Yourself
- Spread heavy and light tasks across the day and week.
- Some activities take more energy. Think about the activities that are the hardest for you. Plan only one heavy activity a day.
- Write down the tasks you need to complete. Do the most important ones first. Cross out any tasks that you don’t really need to do.
- Schedule rest breaks each day. This will help keep up your energy.
- Stop to rest before you get too tired. Know your limits and know the signs of fatigue (extreme tiredness).
- Don’t start something that you can’t stop if you get tired.
- Don’t rush. Work at a slow, even pace.
Organize your workspace
- Work under good lighting with plenty of clean air.
- Make sure the room is at a comfortable temperature.
- Keep often-used items within easy reach.
- Make sure your work surface is at a good height.
Save energy
- Ask for help when you need it.
- Sit as much as you can while working.
- Avoid heavy or excess arm movements. Don’t hold or carry objects for long periods of time.
- Instead of lifting and carrying, slide objects on a counter or transport them on a cart.
- Every so often, change positions or switch from sitting to standing. This helps keep you from getting stiff and over-tired.
- Think of shortcuts. Example: instead of cutting vegetables for dinner, buy pre-cut vegetables.
- Learn how to manage your stress.