Energy management, more than time management, is the key to high
productivity. Everything you do requires energy. Without the right energy, properly
focused and applied, you simply can’t be highly productive.
Think about your day. Do you get up feeling tired? Do you
put yourself on “cruise control” with a steady flow of caffeine? Is
your mental capacity diminished by mid-afternoon? Are you too tired to be active
with family or outside interests? When you get tired, your creativity drops, your
persistence abandons you, and you get edgy and less tolerant of people and challenges.
A drop in energy impacts every area of your life.
What affects your energy levels? You already know the answer—nutrition,
sleep, stress, physical fitness, attitude, emotions, and environment. How do you
improve these aspects of your life so you maximize your energy?
Here are five ways to improve your energy management:
- Nutrition. Eating four modest meals throughout the day is much better than
two big ones. Don’t forget to include protein with every meal.
- Stress. Your reaction to events causes you to feel stress. You know what works best for you to reduce stress. Set time aside to take care of yourself during
the week. If you don’t take time, soon you’ll have no choice due to
health issues.
- Physical fitness: Do I really need to go into this? Doing something is better
than doing nothing at all.
- Attitude. Your attitude colors your view of your past, present, and future.
Start to take control of what you mentally and emotionally feed yourself. Cut
out the negatives (like the news on TV) and start introducing positives (listen
to growth tapes).
- Recovery and rejuvenation. Stretch your abilities and then take time to recover and rejuvenate. Regular R&R is essential to becoming highly productive and
maintaining positive energy, attitude, creativity, enthusiasm, and spirit.
You can be as productive daily as you are on the day before your
vacation by managing your energy. Allow your body, mind, emotions and spirit to
recover and rejuvenate regularly. When you’re tired, you tend to slow down,
make mistakes, and lose creativity. You can achieve more with less effort by taking
time to recharge.
By attending to your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs
you can accomplish more with greater enthusiasm, creativity, and enjoyment. PE
