What if you could accomplish more by doing less? Imagine unlocking the secret to enhanced productivity without pushing yourself to the limit. In this episode, we explore the potential of managing energy, not time, to optimize productivity.
This episode is all about understanding your unique energy cycles and keeping an energy journal to work at your peak without sacrificing your well-being. We'll decode strategies to harness peak mental energy and pay attention to how the fuel we use impacts our energy throughout the day.
Ever wondered how intentional food and drink choices can enhance productivity? We'll Discover how to listen to your body's internal rhythms, prioritize rest, and make the most of your peak energy windows.
A calm entrepreneur doesn't just work hard; they also work smart. So, let's embark on this journey to better energy management together, and usher in a world of optimized productivity.
If you like what I am sharing here, then I have a special invitation for you. It's my new membership, called BE*INWARD. We're growing a unique community that’s redefining what it means to be a successful entrepreneur. Where we ask ourselves: What if we made well-being the goal? If you're tired of the constant hustle and feeling like you’re never fully present in any aspect of your life, then check out BE*INWARD - it might be exactly what you've been searching for. I invite y
Thanks for listening!
Please Rate, Review, & Follow this podcast so you never miss an episode.
This helps more listeners find us, and helps us grow!
Visit: https://www.corinneoflynn.com to find out what else is going on!
What if you could accomplish more by doing less? Imagine unlocking the secret to enhanced productivity without pushing yourself to the limit. In this episode, we explore the potential of managing energy, not time, to optimize productivity.
This episode is all about understanding your unique energy cycles and keeping an energy journal to work at your peak without sacrificing your well-being. We'll decode strategies to harness peak mental energy and pay attention to how the fuel we use impacts our energy throughout the day.
Ever wondered how intentional food and drink choices can enhance productivity? We'll Discover how to listen to your body's internal rhythms, prioritize rest, and make the most of your peak energy windows.
A calm entrepreneur doesn't just work hard; they also work smart. So, let's embark on this journey to better energy management together, and usher in a world of optimized productivity.
If you like what I am sharing here, then I have a special invitation for you. It's my new membership, called BE*INWARD. We're growing a unique community that’s redefining what it means to be a successful entrepreneur. Where we ask ourselves: What if we made well-being the goal? If you're tired of the constant hustle and feeling like you’re never fully present in any aspect of your life, then check out BE*INWARD - it might be exactly what you've been searching for. I invite y
Thanks for listening!
Please Rate, Review, & Follow this podcast so you never miss an episode.
This helps more listeners find us, and helps us grow!
Visit: https://www.corinneoflynn.com to find out what else is going on!
Hey there, my name is Corinne O'Flynn and you're listening to the Calm Entrepreneur podcast. I am a USA Today best-selling author, non-profit executive and organizing nerd with over 20 years experience running my own small businesses. I teach entrepreneurs, solarpreneurs and small business owners like you how to organize your business, find more time and deepen your alignment practice to experience more calm and confidence every single day. If you're looking for that intersection between practical business advice and spiritual goodness, then you're in the right place. So sit back, relax and let's dive into this week's episode of the Calm Entrepreneur podcast. Welcome, welcome to the Calm Entrepreneur podcast. I'm your host, corinne O'Flynn, and this is episode 32.
Speaker 1:I'm really excited to dive into today's topic because it's one of those things that I think we take for granted, that we don't think enough about, and that's how our energy is impacting the way we use our time and how that impacts our productivity. And I would like to talk to you about optimizing your productivity by managing your energy and not necessarily focusing on time. And now I know what you might be thinking like. I can't create more hours in the day or completely control my schedule. But while we can't always control time, we can exert more influence over our energy levels, and when we learn to harness our energy effectively, we can gain the power to achieve so much more during the limited time that we have. It's easy to think about productivity in terms of fitting more tasks and to-do items into the 24 hours that we have each day right. But what we really need to realize is that our time is fueled by our energy levels right? No matter how packed your schedule is, if your energy is depleted, you won't be able to power through with focus and motivation. So I wanted to talk about how to get the most out of your day by understanding and managing your personal energy cycles and planning accordingly, and it's possible to learn how to maximize the times when you have natural high energy and how to optimize the periods when your energy tends to dip. For me, managing your energy is crucial because when your energy is optimized, you get into a better flow state. You're able to hyper focus, power through tasks with motivation and make the most of the time that you do have. So how do you maximize your energy so that you can maximize your productivity?
Speaker 1:Before we go further, it's crucial to remember that I come to all of my productivity talks while standing on my very big soapbox, because I do not think that productivity is solely about getting more done or cramming as many tasks as possible into our day. From where I stand, productivity is not about doing more. It's about getting your work done sooner so that you can experience the freedom that being an entrepreneur is all about and, yes, some days will require us to power through a long to-do list. In general, being truly productive, though, is about working smarter and more efficiently. We want to streamline our efforts so that we can complete important work quickly and then focus on everything else that matters in our life. Right, this is our family, our friends, our fun, our passion projects, our hobbies, rest and our health, and my aim, and the aim of the calm entrepreneur business, is to help you work at your highest level during the hours that you choose to devote to your business, because, at the end of the day, success is not about finding work-life balance.
Speaker 1:I don't I? That's another soapbox I've got. I don't think it's a possible thing, especially for women, right? I don't think that work-life balance exists. I believe that we need to find that path toward truly integrating your life and your work, so that you can do what you love and live a life of freedom with energy and intention. So in this episode, I'm sharing energy management strategies to help you make the most of your work day while still prioritizing your overall well-being, because you are a whole person, living a whole life while running a whole business, and I believe that it's possible to do it all.
Speaker 1:I think it's possible for all of us to do it all, and I think that it looks different for each of us, and it should. We are not robots. We do not work the same way as each other, and I think that one of the things that drew me to doing all this work of the column entrepreneur is to try to help all of us identify the places where what we do is our own. It's not following what the pack is doing. Are there tactics and strategies and things that all of us have to do in order to run online businesses today? Yes, but that doesn't mean we have to do it all in the same way, in the same time, in the same fashion, with the same energy. We just don't. It's not possible, and I think that that is the path to burnout. I think it's the path to dissatisfaction and it's the path to losing the vision of what's possible because it's discouraging, because when you're trying to fit yourself into a hole that you're not like the square peg round hole cliche, when you're trying to fit yourself into a business model that does not work for you, because everybody else says this is how it's done, it's just a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 1:And ask me how I know I am here speaking to you after coming out of a years long burnout that the way that I got back to life was through the foundational, simple ABCs of time management and productivity, and energy and focus. So, okay, I didn't intend to go onto my soapbox, but there you have it. I want to talk to you about optimizing your productivity by managing your energy, and not just managing your time. And the first step to getting there is understanding your energy cycles. Gaining an in-depth understanding of your unique energy cycles is crucial for being able to optimize your productivity throughout your day, and this requires dedicated, focused time to tuning into natural ebbs and flows of your energy. And the simplest way that I recommend that you start this is by keeping an energy journal for at least one full week, and this really isn't one of those like every 30 minutes and you know it's this crazy tracking system. It really doesn't need to be complicated at all.
Speaker 1:Set reminders on your phone or on your calendar to check in with yourself and record your energy levels three to five times a day. Three times a day minimum morning, afternoon and evening and on a scale of one to 10, rate your energy level with 10 being extremely high energy and one being completely drained and exhausted. And next to your note on the number that you've assigned for that time period, add some information about what specific activities you're engaging in during each check-in and any other context clues that can impact your energy at that time, so that you can know, going backward right when you look back over your journal, you want to be able to understand exactly what was going on. So, for example, you know. Note if you just finished a strenuous workout or if you just had a stressful meeting or a call, if you just ate a filling lunch or if you're prepping for something exciting happening after you're done with your workday.
Speaker 1:In addition to the numerical rating, use descriptive words like laser, focused, easily distracted, motivated, foggy, amped up, mellow, sleepy, to capture your mental and your physical state, and you don't have to like make a list. That's a key that you lock into for the same phrases every single day. It's really just a matter of tracking patterns that you will find after you look back over time. So track any ebbs and flows that you notice throughout the day and pay attention to your energy, not just while you're working, but during downtime as well. Note differences between the weekends and the weekdays.
Speaker 1:After a week of diligent tracking, analyze your journal and see if you can spot any trends or patterns or surprises. Look at when your peak energy times are versus when you tend to drag or feel depleted. When do you feel sharpest and most focused? When do you struggle with brain fog or fatigue? For most people, peak energy seems to occur early in the day, after a good night's rest, and then it dips in the afternoon before perking back up and then declining again in the evening as bedtime nears. But your cycles may vary. I know that mine does.
Speaker 1:The first time that I did this, I was surprised to discover that the mornings were the absolute worst time for me. I am not an early riser on the best of days, but I was able to figure out that the first hour to the first hour and a half after waking up. So whatever time that is, we'll call that the morning for me, if I can give myself that first hour to 90 minutes of doing whatever like that's not work time, after that I can get into some good focus. So that gave me a real big hint about how to set up my morning routine, how much time I needed and how much I could take from my day. And that was really helpful to me because if I'm not careful, sometimes it feels like I could build a gigantic morning routine that lasts for hours and hours because of all the things that I wanted to in the ideal morning routine, but that's the opposite of productivity. But I was surprised to really be able to identify that I'm useless in the first hour after I wake up, no matter what time that is, no matter how well I slept or didn't the night before. So giving myself at least an hour from the moment my feet hit the floor in the morning until I sit down at my desk has really allowed me to build a steady morning routine so that I was able to ramp into my work day. And it's been really something because I was not expecting that when I started looking at my tracking.
Speaker 1:And so, while a week is a good starting point for tracking. Consider doing it for at least two to three weeks, if you can account for that Like, and this gives you more time to stretch over and watch for patterns. This also allows you to see for differences over the weekends instead of just a single weekend. You also might have some vacations or days off or super duper busy periods in there. So the goal is to gain insight. Right, we want to find out what your natural rhythms are so that you know how to plan your days around your ebbs and flows, and this is really a self awareness tool. Right, and self awareness is power. This helps you manage your time, which then helps you manage your tasks. And so the next thing once you've tracked your energy for a sufficient period of time and you'll be able to spot some natural peaks it's time to start leveraging those high energy windows to optimize your productivity. Right, we want to maximize high energy times.
Speaker 1:Be intentional about fiercely protecting your identified peak energy hours and using them to make progress on the goals and the tasks that are most meaningful and demanding. So, for example, if your energy journal revealed that your focus and motivation surged between like 10am and 1pm, start blocking off big chunks of this time and batching your tasks right. Choose the most challenging things or the most creative demands that have to happen in your goals and schedule them during those times. And guard your mental energy during these windows like it's your most precious non renewable resource, because in many ways, that is exactly what it is. Allow for no distractions. Allow for no unnecessary obligations to encroach on these blocks. Let your people know that you're going to be heads down working on your stuff. Turn off notifications, close your door, silence your phone. Whatever you must do to preserve this precious time. Channel your surging energy into tackling complex assignments. Right, you want deep strategic thinking. These are solving tricky problems.
Speaker 1:This is where brainstorming should be scheduled. This is mapping out detailed plans or finally making headway on your biggest goals. Don't let meetings, emails, people dropping in derail you. Right, this is your power time and label it on your calendar. This is like power hour or whatever it is that really resonates with you, and use it accordingly.
Speaker 1:Think of your high energy hours as the time when your brain is firing most powerfully. Right, your ability to hyper focus and enter a state of flow will be at its peak. This allows you to get into a groove, which you can then produce your highest quality work most efficiently. There's no need to over schedule yourself, right? Don't pack everything into these power hours. You're not going to need to, because you're going to have more of these power hours in your day and in your week, because now you understand where you're operating at peak performance, right. So don't over schedule, don't multitask, right? This is batching think batching. During these blocks, we have time blocking now, and now we have time or task batching. Focus intently on one priority at a time and watch your productivity skyrocket.
Speaker 1:This actually brings me back to a book that I talk about a lot on this podcast, and it's called the Practicing Mind by Thomas Sterner, and he talks about the value of single focus when it comes to really honing in flow for productivity and efficiency. It's a short read, it's a wonderful little story, but I really think it's valuable and that's the crux of what this is about. It's kind of like working to your strengths. When you identify that this is a power time, well then, put your power tasks there and focus, and if you block everything else out and all you have to do is this thing and your body is ready for the thing, like, think about how powerful that is. It's a wonderful, wonderful opportunity to really make the most efficient use of the time that you choose to dedicate to your work. You know this is the same way that athletes have their main training and competing times where they give 100%. You need to view your peak energy windows as your performance time right.
Speaker 1:Go into it knowing that your mind will feel clear, you will feel focused, you'll be primed for progress and channel this mental energy into whatever one or two big rocks need your best work right and the key there is the things that need your best work, because you'll be amazed at how much you can accomplish when you really do harness these power times. And the converse is also true, like during lower energy times, you can then catch up on busy work tasks like meetings and emails and admin and calls, and then you're not wasting your lightning bolts of peak mental energy on the low value work, which is not to say that those things don't need to be done, like, yeah, we all need to check in on our social media and do our email work and pay the bills and do all the things, but we don't need to do that during our peak lightning bolt brain time right. So protect the searches and invest them only into your most important goals and priorities to get massive leverage from your efforts and then structure your days to take full advantage of your power hours and your low time. The other thing that I want you to pay attention to while you're tracking is managing your diet for sustained energy, and this is I'm not gonna give you dieting tips and tricks. I want you to pay attention to what you're doing. The food and the drink that we put in our bodies have a huge impact on our energy levels throughout the day, so to optimize your productivity, we need to be more intentional. Many of us do about fueling ourselves in a way that provides steady, sustained energy. Right, so that includes eating frequent small meals, if that works for you, snacking on good stuff using whole foods all the good things, but the most important thing is to track it on your energy tracker to see if this heavy meal caused food coma, if this thing really energized you, if you prefer this kind of a snack over that kind of a snack, because paying attention to how the different foods make you feel and avoiding the ones that cause crashes, avoiding the ones that cause brain fog or make you feel sleepy Be strategic with everything that you put into your body, but also track it on your energy journal to see what happens for you.
Speaker 1:Like, I am not one of those people who is impacted by caffeine, for example. I think that's because I drink it like, I mainline it all the time. I'm like a professional tea drinker and I love caffeinated black tea. I can have tea all day long and it doesn't cause me to have jitters, it doesn't keep me up at night. It's just one of those things. I think it's just part of my makeup. I've been drinking tea since I was a kid, so for me, I don't even factor tea I would factor in a lack of tea in, like, maybe I'll have a headache from a caffeine withdrawal. So maybe there is something that I have to work on.
Speaker 1:But I'm not here to tell you what to do with your food and drink intake. I'm asking you to track how what it is that you are doing is impacting your energy. If it is like, how is it so? Because once we see things, then we can make changes for the things that aren't doing what we want to do. You know, if you're eating something super heavy for lunch and it makes you feel really lethargic for the next three hours. You know what happens if you switch that up, like what happens if you eat that meal at night. What happens if you skip that meal and do something much lighter in its place? What is that due to your focus? What is that due to your energy? Because once we start tracking, then we can start tweaking, and because we're tracking, we're now getting data that we can then act on. So, fueling your body the right way for you takes thoughtfulness, right, and when you eat in a way that optimizes your energy, you'll be amazed at how much more motivated and focused and productive you feel throughout your busy days, right. So don't underestimate the power of the fuel right, the food and drink that you're taking in, and its impact on your productivity and your energy levels, and the patterns that you get to see now that you start tracking.
Speaker 1:So, now that we've talked about managing your peak energy times, let's discuss how to effectively manage the energy dips that are going to occur. You know we all have them every single day. So when you notice that your energy levels take a nosedive, the first thing to do is to reflect on potential causes. Low energy could stem from not getting enough sleep, being overly stressed, it could be burnout, it could be boredom, inactivity, it could be dehydration, or it could be that you ate something that you shouldn't have eaten for lunch. So tune into your body for clues on what is zapping your fuel right, what is making you feel depleted. And while you can't avoid occasional energy dips altogether, you can minimize the frequency and intensity of them. You know, through shifting your habits right, like maybe you get more sleep, like that was one of the things that I noticed.
Speaker 1:For me, I need like eight to nine hours of sleep a night, and if I don't get like that much sleep, I'll be good for like three, four, maybe five days, but then I will have like a huge unproductive day, followed by like an 11 hour night, like I have to have sleep. And it's terrible because it makes me feel like I'm lazy. In some ways I am a recovering napper, like I have been trying to not nap during the day in favor of trying to ascertain how much sleep I actually need. And it's been interesting because I do need the rest that I need. And if I don't get the eight to nine hours at night, I'll have a dip in the afternoons and, luckily for me, like a 20, 25 minute nap will do it for me.
Speaker 1:But before my burnout happened, which was over the last several years, before that happened, I was like scheduling my entire day around my napping, because my napping was starting to take hours and it was like, why is this going on? I didn't really have any kind of awareness of it. I knew that. I was like, well, you know what this is, just how it is, I just need to sleep right now. But I wasn't paying attention to the fact that, like the longer naps that I had, the longer I stayed up in the second half of my day, the later I went to bed. I was still getting up with kids and doing stuff in the mornings, and so I was just cutting into all of my rest. So I mean, it sounds really simple when I explain it like that, but in the moment it wasn't something that was apparent to me. And so once I started really paying attention and started tracking all the things that I was doing, I was like, oh my gosh, like anybody observing me from the outside, like watching me, would be like it would take them like two days to say, hey, karen, like hold up, like what's going on here? But when you're in the thick of it and when you're just kind of trying to get by, you don't see it and it's not as apparent. So there really is something to be said about tracking this.
Speaker 1:So when you hit an afternoon slump right or exhaustion sets in, I want you to view it as a sign that you need to take a break and recharge pronto. It needs to happen right now, and I don't want you to ignore fatigue and I don't want you to force yourself to power through, because that really just prolongs the dip. It's just one of those self-fulfilling, you know downward spirals. Instead, force yourself to get away from your desk right, close your laptop, engage in something else for 10 to 15 minutes. That will revive you.
Speaker 1:For me, a lot of times, that's stepping outside into the fresh air. Sometimes it's doing jump and jacks. If it's raining outside and I need to get moving, you can go for a walk. You can do some stretching, do some deep breathing. You can meditate, listen to uplifting music, have a little dance party. In your office you can find protein snacks maybe it's your blood sugar that's needing a boost. Or you can nap. Or you can call a high energy friend to get you over the edge. But set your timer right. Do that for like 15 minutes max and then return to your work, feeling that energy boost renewed.
Speaker 1:Because, whenever possible, when you schedule tasks during your energy dips that require less intense focus right Like we talked about returning phone calls, doing emails, reviewing documents and you save your deep work for when your energy returns to normal, you're going to find that even in the low periods, you're making the best use of your time right. And the other side of that is don't wait for the dip right. Be vigilant about taking regular breaks to avoid reaching complete exhaustion. Those tools like website blockers or phone timers, apps that can remind you to take a break every hour or hour and a half. Or if you use the Palmodoro method that has a built in mini break, right, it's 25 minutes on, five minutes off, 25 on five minutes off, and the five minutes off doesn't really allow for much of a break. But you can get out of your chair and you can do some moving or get a drink of water.
Speaker 1:But the key here is, during the low periods, staying chained to your desk is really going to add to the drain. So pay attention to that when you're doing your tracking. So, by tuning into the fluctuations in your energy. You can mitigate the impact of the dips, right, we all have to accept that they're going to happen. But when you have a plan to recharge the moment you feel it happening, you know, and getting consistent about that and recognizing the drops early, you'll be proactive and you'll prevent them from sabotaging your productivity. Because, again, this is not about working, working, working, working, working. This is about getting the things that need to get done on a day done and then being done for the day right. So how do we get all the things we need to get done in a day without spending 15 hours at our desk, right? That's the goal. Don't fall into the trap of grinding. When you're exhausted At the end of each workday, right, consciously shift into relaxation mode.
Speaker 1:You can do relaxing activities that bring your stress levels down. You can set up a bedtime, which is something that I, like I so badly want a bedtime. I wish I had a bedtime, but I just don't, and this is because of my rest cycle. Like I need enough rest period full stop. So if I go to bed late, I sleep in, so my day starts later and you know one of those things, my kids are on the same kind of a thing. They come down to like oh, I just fixed my sleep cycle, wake me up at this hour, because it is a slippery slope, because you could start, you know, becoming nocturnal, which is not my natural state, but I definitely am not an early, early morning riser.
Speaker 1:So, getting on a regular soup schedule if you don't have a bedtime, winding down two or more hours before bed with a buffer period, right, and this is all those good things, like don't eat anything before in the hours before bed, no screens in the hours before bed, and you know it's all about the slow practice. It's about easing into that rest period, right, and prioritizing rest because proper recovery is what gives you energy is really what we need, right. We have to be intentional about the connection between all of these things, which I know that we all know it, but I don't know that we all live it. I think that, like, as parents, we can tell our children every single day you need to get rest so that you have energy for the day, but like we don't, it's like do as I say, not as I do we need to make sure that we pay more attention to how we're doing. Right, if mama goes south, we're all going with her.
Speaker 1:That was a book that I read a hundred years ago and it was about, you know, filling your own cup, putting your own mask on first, and I think it's just, it's evergreen advice that will never not be true, because we really do need to make sure that we understand that our energy is probably our most valuable asset, right, without our energy, like without energy, everything goes downhill Our health, our attention, our desire, our oomph, our attitude, like, and then, because all those things are fallen by the wayside, our productivity dips, and then we're not focusing on our goals, and then we get into like a slump and, you know, it just keeps on feeding itself, and then, oh, you know, we don't want that and we can be more proactive about this, and I think it's one of these things where we don't ever really want to focus on it until it becomes urgent and like we're feeling that we're at risk, our health is at risk, our focus is at risk, and it's one of those things that I think, you know, tiny little steps really do make a huge impact here, and you know, I just can't speak to that more, I can't recommend it more. Okay, so we covered a lot of ground on how to optimize your productivity by focusing on your energy throughout the day. We discussed the importance of tuning into your own rhythms and identifying when your energy levels peak versus when they naturally decline. We talked about maximizing those peak energy windows by protecting them for your most challenging and meaningful work. We covered how to fuel your body and how to pay attention to the fuel and what that's doing to your energy, and we went through strategies to minimize and recover from the inevitable energy dips when they do occur.
Speaker 1:The key here is that, by understanding your energy cycles and patterns, you can plan your days intentionally to do focused, quality work during times of peak energy, and you can then use the lower energy periods for tasks that require less concentration and less effort. Right, and it sounds really simple, but you may be surprised to find that your patterns aren't what you think they are. So I urge you to take some time to track it for at least a week and more if you can and this is literally like three times a day Set a timer and just make a note and keep a special journal just for this and see what you see With this energy management approach. I promise you that you will be focusing your power tasks during your power hours and this will allow you to get more high value work done in less time. Right, you will avoid wasting mental energy, grinding when you're running on empty and you will end each day with energy left over for other priorities, which is the whole reason that we choose to be entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1:Right, we want freedom. We want, we want to live the life that we choose. We don't want to just be chained to the desk at home, versus chained to the nine to five desk that somebody else owns. Like. The whole point here is freedom. So we want to be able to again productivity. We want to focus on productivity, which is getting our work done in shorter timeframes, not packing in more stuff. All right, I promise that if you track your energy, you're going to avoid wasting energy, grinding when you're running on empty, you're going to maximize the power times and you're going to thank me Like this is one of those things that it's it's it's so easy and it's so simple.
Speaker 1:It's completely uncomplicated, but the strides that you can make are really something else. So I hope that this helped you change the way you think about your energy in the day to day and perhaps piqued your interest in tracking your own rhythm so that you can optimize your own energy. I would love to hear from you again, like you can email me at any time, but I always love hearing from people who listen to my episodes and then tell me that it it it had an impact on you. So please do reach out and let me know what you're thinking. And until next time, thanks for listening. And remember part of being a calm entrepreneur is developing the systems, habits and know-how that lets you know that you are the one in the driver's seat for your business. You get to choose how you think and you get to choose how you work. So you got this, my friends. Thank you for listening.