What is Energy management?
Energy Management is the art of managing energy and doing the tasks on your terms, where you work, how you work, when you work, and in what circumstances you work. Energy management helps in time mismanagement.
This might sound fascinating but let’s be honest, it’s not possible to have all the boxes checked in a work environment. Our goal is to maximize the efforts to have control over our energy and to have control over our energy we need to have awareness of it. Awareness takes months of practice. So here are the prerequisites for Energy Management.
Pre-requisites for Energy Management
1) Focus:
You should be in the process of equipping yourself to have an unwavering focus on a particular task or activity. The best way to achieve unwavering focus is by the old classic way “Meditation”. Look at meditation as an exercise where you learn to focus on your breath for the longest time. Start with 5 minutes of meditation daily for 2 months. Just 5 minutes, nothing less, nothing more. Another perk of meditation, it raises your energy level gradually.
If you are someone who wants to see quick results try “Vipassana Meditation”
2) Healthy Diet
Once in a Restaurant, a group of athletes were placing an order for boiled vegetables and the waiter casually said, “Looks like you all are on a diet”, to which one of the women replied,” We are not on a diet, we eat according to our Goals.”
So, what’s your Goal? Do you want to have a productive life and achieve more?
Set a Goal and start eating according to your goals.
3) Workout
Find a hobby to enhance your physical body. Swimming, dancing, jogging, yoga, etc. Shake yourself up before life chose to shake you up.
4) Sleep pattern
How many hours of sleep do you need? Sleep according to the demand of your body.
Channeling your Energy
Since the basics are sorted up, it’s time to learn the art of channeling your energy.
1)Discover your energy level throughout the day
Are you a morning bird or a night owl?
Do you like to take a power nap in the afternoon? Or is the food which you eat makes you drowsy?
Do you like to do creative tasks in the mornings or at late night?
What distracts you? Cell phone? The annoying sound of a fan? Annoying colleague? Human beings? People who are energy vampires?
Your thoughts are draining your energy? Unrealistic scary situations you are imagining?
Try to understand yourself and plan your work accordingly.
If you like to do a writing task in the mornings, schedule it accordingly.
2)Emotional Quotient
Different emotions impact energy in different ways. Anger will make you feel more agitated, increase your heartbeat level, and consumes more energy. In short, avoid negative emotions. The more control you have over emotions you can improve your quality of energy.
Try to be in the present. To be in the present is simple, just observe your breath. Don’t get carried away by marketing going on about “Being in Present” and making it more complex.
Tools
Helpful books:
Master your emotions – Thibaut
Emotional Intelligence – Daniel Goleman
Utilize this Emotion tracker PDF template to gain more awareness of your emotions
3)Organising your desk
The book “Atomic Habits” mentions the significance of organizing things in a beautiful way. You should have access to the things which you wanna do easily.
Example: You want to cultivate a habit of reading a book. Make sure the book is on the table or anywhere else, which is easily accessible to you.
Organize your work area accordingly so that you can switch from one task to another effortlessly.
4)Use focus techniques
Techniques like the Pomodoro technique will help you to get focused attention on a particular task.
5) Set boundaries
Be comfortable in saying “NO”. Say NO to tasks that are not in priority.
Say NO to nonproductive negative conversations.
If you are someone who gets tired after a smoke break, say NO to it. Smoke some other time. If eating pizza makes you tired, don’t go for it.
6) Discover energy source
Be conscious about what makes you feel good.
A walk, favorite music, meaningful conversation, meditation. What is it? Ask yourself.
7) Automate repetitive task
8) Use voice assistant to set reminders, tasks
You don’t have to remember everything, use the technology wisely.
9) Delegate tasks
Be comfortable in delegating tasks to your peers. You don’t have to micro-manage.
Declaration:
Place your hand on your heart and say “I manage my energy efficiently”
Place your index finger on your forehead and say “I am a confident and powerful leader.”
“This is a hot topic, so we are curious to see what you have to say. Share your thoughts about energy management in the comments below.”
