Chapter 22

Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time

A summary of the full-length HBR article by Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy, highlighting key ideas.

THE IDEA IN BRIEF

Is your job demanding more from you than ever before? Do you feel as if you’re working additional hours but rarely getting ahead? Is your mobile device leashing you to your job 24/7? Do you feel exhausted, disengaged, sick?

Spending longer days at the office and putting in extra hours at home doesn’t work because your time is a limited resource. But your personal energy is renewable. By fostering deceptively simple rituals that will help you regularly replenish your energy, you can strengthen your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual resilience. These rituals include taking brief breaks at specific intervals, expressing appreciation to others, reducing interruptions, and spending more time on the activities you do best and enjoy most.

THE IDEA IN PRACTICE

Try these practices to renew the four dimensions of your personal energy:

Physical Energy

• Enhance your sleep by setting an earlier bedtime and reducing alcohol use.
• Reduce stress by engaging in cardiovascular activity at least three times a week and strength training at least once a week.
• Eat small meals and light snacks every three hours.
• Learn to notice signs of imminent flagging energy, including restlessness, yawning, hunger, and difficulty concentrating.
• Take brief but regular breaks away from your desk at 90- to 120-minute intervals throughout the day.

Emotional Energy

• Defuse negative emotions—irritability, impatience, anxiety, insecurity—through deep abdominal breathing.
• Fuel positive emotions in yourself and others by regularly expressing appreciation to people in detailed, specific terms through notes, e-mails, calls, or conversations.
• Look at upsetting situations through new lenses. Adopt a reverse lens to ask, “What would the other person in this conflict say, and how might he be right?” Use a long lens to ask, “How will I likely view this situation in six months?” Employ a wide lens to ask, “How can I grow and learn from this situation?”

Mental Energy

• Reduce interruptions by performing high-concentration tasks away from phones and e-mail.
• Respond to voice mails and e-mails at designated times during the day.
• Select the most important challenge for the next day the night before. Then make that challenge your first priority when you arrive at work in the morning.

Spiritual Energy

• Identify your “sweet spot” activities—those that give you feelings of effectiveness, effortless absorption, and fulfillment. Find ways to do more of these. One executive who hated doing sales reports delegated them to someone who loved that activity.
• Allocate time and energy to what you consider most important. For example, spend the last 20 minutes of your evening commute relaxing, so you can connect with your family once you’re home.
• Live your core values. For instance, if being considerate is important to you but you’re perpetually late for meetings, practice intentionally showing up five minutes early for meetings.

Are You Headed for an Energy Crisis?

Take the following quiz to identify which areas of your life could benefit from energy-renewing rituals.

Please check the statements below that are true for you:

Body

• I don’t regularly get at least seven to eight hours of sleep, and I often wake up feeling tired.
• I frequently skip breakfast, or I settle for something that isn’t nutritious.
• I don’t work out enough (meaning cardiovascular training at least three times a week and strength training at least once a week).
• I don’t take regular breaks during the day to renew and recharge, or I often eat lunch at my desk, if I eat it at all.

Emotions

• I frequently find myself feeling irritable, impatient, or anxious at work, especially when work is demanding.
• I don’t have enough time with my family and loved ones, and when I’m with them, I’m not always really with them.
• I have too little time for the activities that I most deeply enjoy.
• I don’t stop frequently enough to express my appreciation to others or to savor my accomplishments and blessings.

Mind

• I have difficulty focusing on one thing at a time, and I am easily distracted during the day, especially by e-mail.
• I spend much of my day reacting to immediate crises and demands rather than focusing on activities with longer-term value and high leverage.
• I don’t take enough time for reflection, strategizing, and creative thinking.
• I often work in the evenings or on weekends, and I almost never take an e-mail–free vacation.

Spirit

• I don’t spend enough time at work doing what I do best and enjoy most.
• There are significant gaps between what I say is most important to me and how I actually allocate my time and energy.
• My decisions at work are more often influenced by external demands than by a strong, clear sense of my own purpose.
• I don’t invest enough time and energy in making a positive difference to others or to the world.

How Is Your Overall Energy?

Use a separate notebook to write your thoughts.

Total number of statements checked: ____

Guide to energy scores

0–3: Excellent energy management skills

4–6: Reasonable energy management skills

7–10: Significant energy management deficits

11–16: A full-fledged energy management crisis

What Do You Need to Work On?

Number of checks in each category:

Body ____

Mind ____

Emotions ____

Spirit ____

Guide to category scores

0: Excellent energy management skills

1: Strong energy management skills

2: Significant deficits

3: Poor energy management skills

4: A full-fledged energy crisis

____________

Tony Schwartz ([email protected]) is the president and CEO of The Energy Project in New York City, and a coauthor of The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal (Free Press, 2003).

Catherine McCarthy ([email protected]) is a senior vice president at The Energy Project.