Have you considered if YOU are engaged? Some solutions to managing time for the 21st-century professional can be found in the new paradigm called ENERGY MANAGEMENT.
Time management is how we run our minutes and hours in an effective manner in order to get needed things done day-to-day. Traditional time management focused on goals, priorities, urgent/important, etc. These are still relevant and commonly taught, however, they are often misunderstood by many and are a discipline many struggle daily to apply. How can it be different? In a fast-paced world of technology and more options than we can handle, how is it possible to juggle meetings, e-mails, social media, messages, calls, projects, and tasks that all need to be done?
Many things compete for our time and energy (I.e. economic stress, world situations, COVID adaptations, etc.). When you or your team are lacking in workplace focus or energy is it often because you are disengaged. You may be distracted, burned out, overstimulated, tired, stressed, overwhelmed, etc. Regardless of the cause of energy depletion, when energy is off, productivity decreases, and issues of time management show up (procrastination, interruptions, negative attitudes, miss set priorities, lack of goals, indecision, etc.)
We live in a time when we are tipping into Industry 4.0, a new era. When we are coming out of a time of self-reliance, self-mastery, and individuation and into a time of even greater speed, human understanding, and massive interconnection. We have to take charge of our own futures, personal development, priorities, needs, and wants. When people become unengaged, distracted (distracted by the world, health, stress, families, etc.) their productivity and ability to manage time is compromised. Energy management will help them to balance and perform and scale with the changing demands of today.
The better we manage our energy personally, the better we can be effective ourselves as well as be leaders, examples, and teachers. This will improve how much is done, how well it is done, and ultimately impact those around us. When we manage our energy we have greater success in all parts of our lives. To do this we need to understand our mental, physical, spiritual and emotional energy and how it impacts our ability to perform and get things done.
“The Power of Full Engagement” by Dr. Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, presents these four basic principles of energy management. Here is a great assessment to assess your engagement in the four key areas.
Energy Management Assessment
Energy, not time, is the fundamental currency of high performance.
- Full engagement requires us to draw on four separate but related sources of energy: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.
- Because energy capacity diminishes both with overuse and underuse, we must balance energy expenditure with intermittent energy renewal. “Recovery” scores in this report describe this balance.
- To build capacity, we must push beyond our normal limits. We can benefit by targeting specific “muscles” for improvement, training in the systematic way that high-performance athletes do.
- Positive energy rituals – highly specific routines for managing energy – are the key to full engagement and sustained high performance. For instance, consistently taking time to exercise in the middle of the day is an example of a positive energy ritual.
Your energy matters more than ever before. Dig into where your energy levels are. How to increase them. How to sustain them!
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