How to Be More Productive: Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time

Our physical body is the primary storehouse of

energy we have. We can increase physical energy in our body with:

Nutrition

Exercise

Sleep

It’s essential to feel good to do good. If you’re feeling negative, it’s hard to be effective. But if we work long hours and have to deliver on relentless demands from our job or business, we tend to slip into negative emotions multiple times a day.

Falling into such emotional states drains our energy and not only hampers our progress at work but also affects our relationships.

Three powerful rituals to defuse negative emotions.

Deep Breathing

Express appreciation

Change the story running in your mind

The mind is the source of everything you do. Positive thinking leads to positive outcomes like healthy relationships, successful career, good physical health, and negative thinking leads to negative results. So it’s important that you leverage the power of the mind to be more productive.

1) Say NO to Distractions: The first thing to do is to cut out all distractions while you work. Do just one thing at a time. Don’t check your email when you’re making an important presentation. Multitasking is the enemy of quality work.

2) Choose High-Return Activities: Pick the tasks that will give you the highest returns in the long-term. This may include learning a particular skill or building your network. People have a tendency to think for the short-term and you can use it to your advantage.

It’s important to work hard but without selling your soul. Don’t settle for a career that doesn’t fulfill you. Of course, not hundred percent of your work can be fulfilling since in any job or business, you have to do your chores. But a significant part of it can indeed be fulfilling and help you be more productive.

To draw energy from the human spirit, we need to know our priorities and integrate relevant activities in three categories:

• Doing the work you love and do best
• Giving time to important areas of life: work, family, health, serving others
• Living your values in daily life  

In your work, find the experiences when you felt the happiest, the most fulfilled, inspired, and effortlessly absorbed. Remember at least two such experiences and then find out what made the experiences stand out and what talents you used.

If creativity was the game-changer for you, then build a ritual where you do creative work every day. If leadership made you feel unstoppable, focus more on such activities on a daily basis.

Work is important, but it is equally important to give time to family, exercise every day to be fit, and give back to society once in a while to be of service.

Tony Schwartz, the CEO of The Energy Project, says that

“People tap into the energy of the human spirit when their everyday work and activities are consistent with what they value most and with what gives them a sense of meaning and purpose . If the work they’re doing really matters to them, they typically feel more positive energy, focus better, and demonstrate greater perseverance.”

To know your values, identify the times in your life when you were the happiest. Then identify the times when you were most proud. Identify when you were most fulfilled. Then deconstruct these experiences to find which factors made them remarkable. These factors will point to your core values.

But there’s a shortcut too. Ask yourself, “What are the qualities that I find most off-putting in others ? What you hate in others is what you love in yourself. So it is a great way to find what you Value. 🍻