Manage energy, not time.
People have a hard time managing their time, so the easiest way to be more productive is to learn to manage your energy and use all means to focus your energy on the most important tasks you want to accomplish.
When it comes to life-changing types of productivity, it's even more important to focus on your energy.
Think about ordinary people in today's
society, what words would you use to describe them? Exhausted.
Why do we all seem so tired, busy, stressed, empty, and the same? Because we don't properly control our energy. We don’t pay much attention to how we organize our lives, how we treat our bodies, and how we interact with others in order to be more energetic.
Don't understand what I mean? Hear me explain
Why Your Efficiency Can't Be Improved
You probably have some kind of distant goal for your life, you want to start a business, you want to be a writer, you want to be an artist, you want to switch careers,etc.
It's not that you don't have the skills to succeed, you have it; it's not that you don't have the drive to move forward, you have it; it's not that the goal you want to achieve is inherently difficult, no. It's just time consuming.
I use the word "time consuming" because it expresses what happens when you take time to do something. It consumes energy. The less energy you have, the harder it will be to achieve a big goal.
When you commute an hour to work, then work eight hours while also taking care of your family (if you have one), making time with friends, and running errands, it's not surprising that you're not very motivated. With so many things to do every day, how can you still have the passion to pursue the goal above it all?
If you want to properly manage your energy, then you need to understand this:
Not all tasks are created equal.
People burn out because they fall down on the altar of efficiency and want to get everything done. Instead, you should focus your energy on the most important things in your life, put everything else second, and be willing to give up some things halfway through.
How did I manage my energy when I started my blog?
I usually write in the morning, not because I want to develop a morning habit. Who wants to get up early? I write in the morning because I know how my energy works. My day job requires both deep work, creative thinking and mundane administrative tasks.
I know I have to focus on deep work for the first 3-5 hours of the day because my "engine" stops running after that. So I spend 1-2 hours writing in the morning, then focus 2-3 hours on work, and then go to lunch.
I usually don't eat greasy food at noon. I don't look down on people who do this, just because these foods make me feel lazy and useless in the afternoon.
The afternoons are spent dealing with chores and then either going home or going to the gym, which I work out about 3 times a week. During the few days I was working out, I skipped home and went straight to the gym because I knew going home would create negative inertia. I'm pretty tired almost every time I go to the gym, but I'm going to work out anyway and I'm refreshed when it's over.
This gives me energy to spend with my
family next, and the days off give me time to recover.
See what's going on here? Habits are not special in themselves, what matters is how you use them to direct your energy to a task or a goal.
Think about the things in your life where you spend unnecessary energy? How can you adjust to bring your life closer to the state you want? Let's take a look at some suggestions that might help.
Remove resistance in your life
Do you ever feel like you're very active, but actually don't do much?
This is irritating. You feel exhausted and don't know why. You feel this way because you let chores, annoyances, and other frivolous folly drain your energy.
Some of the countermeasures I took were:
• Set all your bills to pay automatically so you don't have to waste time paying them yourself
• I do chores in batches. I'd rather spend the whole day working on a whole batch than having to deal with a little chore every day.
• I learned to delegate more things.
• I have almost no interruptions for the first four hours of the day. No hanging out. No social media.
In your case, you want to think about what you've done, but you don't really need to, because there are so many. Once you realize that productivity is about the real results you create, not just staying active, you'll understand how much energy you're wasting and will learn to say "no" more.
The more you say no, the more energy you put into the task.
Pay attention to your diet
Changing my eating habits has had a huge impact on my efficiency.
Many people start the morning with a cup of coffee, cream, candy, or a carb-heavy snack like a donut. madness. Coffee itself is kosher, but eating a bunch of sugar can send your body's glucose levels surging.
Likewise, from a judgmental standpoint I can care less about your habits. What we're talking about here is usefulness.
There is a strong link between physical health and work productivity. You get that, but do we actually take it to heart or just talk about it?
I slept 8-10 hours a day and started intermittent fasting because I found my brain was clearer when I wasn't full. Now I eat between 1pm and 7pm and do yoga every day. I don't "diet" but eat a lot of protein and vegetables.
It's all about managing my energy. Of course, I want to look good and live longer, but honestly, I just do it to achieve my goals.
This is a great way to think about habits. You want to connect them to a higher purpose—a real desire that means a lot to you. A lot of people read productivity-enhancing articles and then become indifferent to the information they receive because there is no real reason for them to stick with it.
Take care of yourself so you can serve others while completing your own tasks.
Filter the surrounding information
Pay less attention to news and current affairs. After applying this seemingly simple trick, my energy skyrocketed. Some big things still affect me. It wasn't until I stopped following the media that I realized how negative the media was.
Sharing useless articles won't help you change the world, it's counterproductive. Stay away from that nonsense. This also applies to the people around you, negative people sucking your energy, sad and depressed people infecting you. Whether or not you can avoid it is up to you. I'm sure some of the people you care about are taking your life. Will you risk drowning trying to save them?
The world is full of nonsense. So I often immerse myself in an old novel, spending time with just a few like-minded people.
If you spend too much time in the virtual world, it drains your energy and erodes your soul. When looking at the way society works in terms of draining energy, opting out of it all makes sense.
You don't get more energy as you age. Not that you can't chase your dreams when you're old, but it's a lot harder then, so people have midlife crises. Not because they don't have time, but because they don't have the energy.
I'm 30 years old and I'm going to give it my all for the next thirty years because I only have so long. And time flies faster than I thought.
Let's start now.
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