Managing Your Energy: 5 Ways to Improve Your Time Management

We manage time. We manage money. We manage people. Do you also manage your energy?

How you manage your energy might be the most important decision you can make each day. Prioritizing your activities based on your level of energy can have a profound impact on how productive you are on any given day. It is easy to forget that not all tasks or times of day are created equal. We often hear people comment they are morning people or night owls — there is truth to this, and what you choose to do in those windows of time can make all the difference in what you accomplish. 

Daniel Pink’s book When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing speaks to the value of understanding when you are at your most productive. Knowing this allows you to use your time most wisely for what you want to complete. Here are some ideas not only from the book but from my own experience.

Review

Each day, review your activities for the next day to understand what are your most demanding, highest energy required tasks. Knowing what you will have happening the next day or even in the coming days will allow you to organize yourself and work around when you will have the most energy for the tasks necessary.

Plan

Plan your activities based on your energy levels — track how your energy levels are for a period of time. Define them as high, medium, and low. Then as you schedule tasks for your day — match high, medium, and low importance tasks to the energy levels by time of day.

If morning is your high-energy time, and you know you remain high energy from 7 am to 10 am — block that time to complete your most important activities. Once again, planning becomes a critical aspect of productivity and success. Even if unexpected items come up, you can work those around the energy you have and the tasks on your plate. 

Tell Others

Let others know how you are working. This can ensure that they do not place demands on your time when you are in your most productive work mode. They can also know that if they do have something that will require your best, freshest thinking that they schedule that time in advance and discuss with you, so you know the importance of their request. This may seem unusual at the time, but it may become an excellent way for your entire team or staff to work as a group. If everyone is aware of when each other’s peak times are, so much more might be possible.

It can be difficult to manage to specific energy levels in the day-today work of a retail store. However, you may find there is value to it, especially when you discuss with other store leaders. Some that are naturally early risers may have the energy levels for heavy lifting (literally and figuratively) in the morning. Others may be better suited for the rigors of late day activities and keeping the team fully engaged as the closing hours are in play. This could also become a useful hiring and scheduling practice with your entire team when planning projects and customer-facing work. 

Be True to Yourself

Don’t feel you must be a morning person. If you have a surge of energy late in the day — good for you! Match that to your activities list and plan accordingly for getting what you need to accomplish based on that knowledge. If an action plan is due back to your District Manager on Wednesday morning, don’t plan to wrap it up that morning. Schedule yourself time on Monday or Tuesday afternoon to complete the action plan during your peak energy period. Not only will you feel like you’re ahead, but you will also ensure that you are at your peak energy period when you write it. That will lead to a better plan and, ultimately, a better outcome in the long run.

Understand Patterns

Understand how your energy patterns work with your sleep patterns. We all know in retail that our schedules can vary from day to day and week to week. This can be especially true during our peak selling seasons. Take time to understand how your fluctuating work schedule may impact your energy. District Managers and above may have a more regular schedule, but the demands of the job can change based on the season or specific events. Over time, work to recognize what triggers your energy levels in different ways and apply to your task scheduling accordingly. 

Talk to your team about energy levels. This could have a big impact on how you schedule things like conference calls, when you expect email follow up, or those action plans I mentioned above. You could even begin to schedule certain activities, and topics for meetings or store visits around when energy levels best match what you want to accomplish. It will not always work out exactly right, but think about how much more efficient and effective you could be if you took the timing into consideration when scheduling those events.

How will you put your energy to work for you?

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Photo by Roland Larsson on Unsplash