Know when you won't get much done

Plan your schedule with your energy levels in mind

In theory, any minute is the same as any other. But one of the biggest challenges with time management is that our energy is not the same at all moments. In general, people start the day with vim and vigor, but lose momentum as time goes on. Then there are ebbs and flows during the day. After I’ve given a speech, I generally can’t do anything too taxing right after. Maybe I’ll be able to in a few hours, but right afterwards is a bad time to schedule anything intense.

We can try to pretend things will be different, but a more realistic plan is to simply acknowledge when you won’t get much work done. That way you can relax and put less pressure on yourself, and build in adequate time to do what you need or want to do.

Maybe not at night

So, for instance, if you want to write a novel, and you have a job and a family, you might tell yourself that you’ll work on it after the kids go to bed. That might work for some people, but for many people, night after night you’ll just feel too spent — and so, ultimately, this will be a recipe for unfulfilled dreams. Perhaps it would be better to get in the habit of getting up 45 minutes earlier a few mornings a week and using that time to write. If you acknowledge that you won’t get much done at night, you could decide to just go to sleep a little earlier.

Or perhaps you keep thinking that you’ll build a habit of going to the gym after work. But most nights at 5 p.m. you feel exhausted. You either want to go home or go out with friends. When you acknowledge that, you might decide to take one longer lunch break during the week to work out (just one!) and then do a serious exercise session on both Saturday and Sunday. You might take short 10 minute walks during breaks on the other days to get a little more movement in. It might not be “perfect” but it’s still more than most people!

You can also use your sense of when you’ll have limited energy to plan out your days. If you know you have a lot of momentum in the morning, then it’s a bad idea to plan a status meeting for a project that’s going well at 10 a.m. You will wind up giving up high value time just to see that yep, everyone is still doing their jobs. It would be better to move that meeting to a low-energy time when you won’t be getting anything else done.

Using unorthodox times

Now I do believe that sometimes using unorthodox times can be a wise way to fit more into a busy life. You can, in fact, work out from 8-8:30 p.m. and still fall asleep at 10:30 p.m. You can have a networking breakfast instead of a networking happy hour. You could work a few hours on the weekend in order to work shorter days during the week if that makes sense for your family. I also believe that energy is renewable in a way that time is not. Sometimes, after a tough meeting, all you really need is a 20 minute brisk walk to clear your head and you’ll be fine.

But if you know there are times that just don’t work well for you, then stop pretending that you’ll do something big. Instead, acknowledge your limits and work around them. You’ll probably be able to get more done than if you don’t accept reality.