To get the most out of your week, Focus On Mastering Your Energy, Not Productivity
While the world may pull you in many directions and introduce distractions, how can you cut through the noise to stay focused
Contributed by Anna Choi
PHOTO: GETTY
on taking action on what truly matters for you? Forget time management. It's about managing your energy — not your time. How do you master your energy? Here's a simple exercise to get started: 1. First, get clear on the current reality of your energy patterns. Download a free app like Toggl where you can track activities offline from one activity to the next. At the end of each activity, your job is simply to record whatever activity you were doing. Be neutral and notice if you are judging yourself. Another free app is RescueTime. Once set up, RescueTime will track all the places you visit online in the course of your day. It can take one or two days to get used to tracking each activity. Initially, you may find it too hard to enter each activity as you do it. Just try experimenting and see if you can get into a rhythm where, at the end of each activity, you click stop activity and start again — this forces you to then determine what you’ll now be focusing on. If you can persevere through the learning curve that comes with activity tracking, it’s worth the insight gained. If you have any resistance to tracking using the apps, you can always journal your main activities throughout the day or use a Microsoft Excel sheet to track every thirty minutes with a timer. While manual tracking tends to not be as accurate to reality, any method will do as long as it fulfills the
purpose of the exercise to track your activities for a set number of days.
Many of my clients expressed how, in just a few days of tracking their activities, they are more present and able to stay focused in their business and in life. See if you can do it for seven days in a row. I think you'll be surprised even after two to three days of tracking what you’ll discover.
2. Next, reflect on your energy patterns.
What activities drained you? Which activities energized you? Put a minus sign by activities that were draining and a plus sign by activities that gave you more energy. Notice if there are any other patterns for your sleep, eating or exercise habits. Sleep is often an area clients struggle with. They can’t sleep deeply, get enough sleep or be consistent with bedtime. Here are some bedtime exercises I recommend by author and mind-body training expert Ilchi Lee that help quiet an overworked brain: Rollbacks: Sitting down, pull your knees into your chest and roll backward and back up. Focus on massaging your spinal cord. Make sure you have a carpet or mat to cushion your back and be gentle on your neck. Do 10-20 repetitions to warm up
| The Bellwether |
Powered by FlippingBook