Every day at work — and in life — we face challenges, tasks, meetings, and more. Every single day, we have 24 hours to get everything done, including resting and eating. But, although the amount of time we have is fixed, there is something that varies from day to day… and that is your energy level. Some days you might seem to have lots of it and some others you can not find enough to get out of bed, and don’t worry, it’s pretty common.
Your energy is an invaluable resource that needs to be used wisely. Imagine the use of your energy as an investment. It is something you don’t want to waste or use poorly when you know you could get much more out of it.
So, when you have a very demanding job, personal responsibilities, perhaps some kids, or an unfinished master’s degree… How can you manage your energy effectively? How to juggle life and work without dying of exhaustion in the process?
Well… Here we have some tips for you, that will most certainly help you manage your energy rather than your time.
Get to know yourself
Yes, I know, Western philosophy has told you to know yourself since the times of Socrates, but let’s say that this is a bit more tangible getting to know yourself. To do this, you mostly need to observe, like a scientist observes and registers behaviors in an experiment. Start by making yourself aware of how you behave in front of a new project.
Do you tend to get very energized and want to be there all day, or maybe you get the adrenaline rush from the deadline and have the energy boost at the end? Whichever your reaction is, know it and work from there. If you get energetic at first, you should find strategies to maintain that energy, and so on.
Try to figure out what drains you and what recharges you. This will help you recharge throughout the day when needed, as well as designing your breaks in a way that gives you more energy to keep going. Determining your peak hours will be very helpful.
It’s okay if you are not a morning person or if you are your most productive at noon; the goal here is to find those highly energized moments of the day and make the most out of them. If you have a task that requires a lot of energy, try to do it during those highly energetic hours and the tasks that don’t need that much energy in your least energetic moments.
Set your boundaries and respect them
It’s very healthy to know when to stop, but you also need to set a lower boundary and know what the minimum, so when you are unmotivated and do have not much energy, you will know how far you need to push yourself to get to the minimum, that should be a point where pushing yourself to get there won’t end up burning you out. The goal here is to know that even on the low days you will move forward, and in the long run, you won’t feel like you stopped and have to restart.
The upper boundary is there to keep the rest of your life safe. To make sure that you won’t sacrifice your sleeping time in order to finish today, something that could be done tomorrow without any problem.
When you are setting this boundary, think about how much you can do without either burning out or affecting other areas of your life, work, and health. Wherever your boundaries are, you should respect them, so you won’t affect your work when feeling low or overwork yourself to the point you need a whole day or more to recover.
Think about sustainability
Take care of yourself as elite athletes do. They know that their body is their instrument and take care of it accordingly. And guess what… Your mind and body are also your work instruments because it is no good if you know how to pitch the project to the client if you are sick in bed and can’t go to do the presentation.
Take breaks, we are humans, and we need to alternate between rest and activity, it is our natural cycle. It is the reason why weekends are important and getting enough sleep too; you need them. Look at athletes, they don’t train every waking moment because their body needs to rest in order to keep performing at their highest.
Look at the project as a marathon or a race, you need to take it easy and distribute your energy accordingly. If you have a 100-meter race, you will run as fast as you can from the beginning, but if you are facing a marathon, you might think twice before you give all your energy in the first 10 minutes.
You may have a lot of energy when it comes to your work, but working extra hours most days, going from meeting to meeting, is that really a pace you could maintain for a long time? Think about it.
Your energy is a part of you that you need to take good care of. How? Well, mostly by taking care of yourself. Your mind, emotions, body, and even spirit have an impact on your energy. The starting point on most challenges like this one is self-awareness, so, if you want to give all you’ve got to your work, great, but do it wisely. We’ve tried these tips and found them useful, and we hope you do too. So, what are you waiting to give them a try?
