2013Leave a Comment
Written by Cameron
“Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.” ~Lao Tsu
“Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.” ~Peter Drucker
Some of us are just naturally energetic and hyper-focused all day long, but for many of us (me included) there are times in the day where we are a little “out of it”. I’ve heard it said before that we have a limited number of good decisions in the day so we need to manage them wisely, and while I’m not sure that’s the case, I think that what the line was getting at is that we simply aren’t at our best every single moment of the day. The energy product 5 Hour Energy identified it as that “2:30 feeling”. As with many things, this is not a problem in and of itself, IF we identify it and do something about it. We can manage ourselves just like our staff:
First: What time of day are you at your best and worst? For me, I am at my best throughout the morning, and my worst right after lunch and getting better as it gets closer to heading home.
Second: Are there tasks that energize you? Everyone has those tasks they enjoy that either give a jolt of satisfaction at a job well done, or inspire you to reach to the next level (for me it is customer meetings and performance statistics).
Third: Beware the landmines! And there are some tasks that we just dread doing, make sure to identify those as well.
Once we have identified the timeframes and activities that affect our energy level we can take steps with the flexible tasks we have in our day to minimize both the impact of our downtime and the total amount of it:
Leverage the lulls – This is where I place routine tasks that do not require a huge amount of thought. Under no circumstances do I place a landmine in the middle of a lull, it saps energy and productivity and can seemingly last forever.
Attack the lulls – Right after the routine task, I make every attempt to do one of my energizing tasks to pull me out of the lull as quickly as possible. After an energizing task is an appropriate place to put a landmine.
Leverage the best parts of your day – Mix in some landmines in the middle of some energetic tasks to knock them out while maintaining momentum.
Attack the best parts of your day – This is where you should do all of your strategic thinking and big decision making if at all possible. Ride this wave as far as you can by being careful not to put a landmine at the end which will kill the momentum. I recommend starting your day with a landmine or peppering them in the middle, but never near the end.
Plan your day for effective action. Maximize your energetic times by doing your most important work during these time and extending the momentum as much as possible. Minimize your lulls by doing routine tasks during this time and use your energetic tasks to pull yourself out as quickly as possible.
