Aside from managing your time, there’s no more important skill to have in order to be productive than managing your energy. But in order to do that effectively, you have to understand your energy well.
A lot of people think of energy like we think of gas in a car; you can be low on energy, or have enough. But that’s too simplistic, and it doesn’t help you effectively manage your energy so that you can get the most of it.
Not only can you have an energy surplus or deficit, but there are also different kinds of energy. And knowing when you have one kind of energy vs. another kind is extremely helpful in making sure that you’re efficient in tackling your tasks for the day.
It takes a different kind of energy to do focused analytical work than it does to do brainstorming and broader thinking. It takes a different kind of energy to call someone and have a conversation than it does to sort through your emails. You may not have a name for the different types of energy you have, but they’re there.
You can feel them at work when you consciously attempt to begin a task. You’ll immediately know whether you have enough of that type of energy at the moment. If you do, there will be momentum and feeling of clarity and control. If you don’t, there will be resistance, sluggishness, and perhaps a kind of fogginess.
So be conscious of not only how much time you have available, but also the kind of energy you have available. Be energy-conscious both as you lay out your tasks for the day, and also as you pick which tasks to tackle next. Use your energy to your advantage, and match it to the tasks at hand.
