What Energy Depleting Habits are Getting the Best of You?
Energy matching, or scheduling your most complex tasks when your energy levels are highest, is one way to manage your time and best use your energy during the day. However, you can go one step further by increasing and managing your energy to help you do the things you want to do every day.
Leadership experts Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy of The Energy Project confirm that despite time’s finitude, “energy can be systematically expanded and regularly renewed by establishing specific rituals.” Take stock of your physical, emotional and mental energy and let go of habits and practices that are draining. Then, build new habits in each category.
Physical Energy
Inadequate nutrition, exercise, sleep and rest negatively impact not only your energy levels, but also your ability to be focused and to regulate your emotions.
Build these habits around increasing your physical energy:
Schedule intermittent breaks during the workday
Develop a regular exercise routine. Exercise not only reduces stress, it also gives you more energy throughout the day.
Find relaxation techniques like stretching and deep breathing to help you improve your sleep quality.
Emotional Energy
Negative emotions can drain us and impact our ability to get things done. So, how do you more positive emotions? While there’s no silver bullet and ups and downs of life are inevitable, these habits can support your emotional energy:
“Buying time” through deep abdominal breathing induces relaxation and recovery
Express appreciation and gratitude to others.
Reframe your thinking. Schwartz and McCarthy explained “People can cultivate positive emotions by learning to change the stories they tell themselves about the events in their lives.”
Mental Energy
Protect your mental energy, refuse to multitask, and eliminate distractions. Create “strict boundaries to guard against the onslaught of constant distractions, pointless meetings, and communications overload.”
Build habits around focusing your attention:
Set better boundaries, say no, and consider picking up Nedra Glover Tawwab’s Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself.
Create separate spaces for work if you are in a remote or hybrid environment
Embrace protected time blocks or employ intentional inflexibility. Schedule certain tasks to be completed during a specific time and only complete those tasks during their scheduled blocks of time.
Additionally, James Clear’s book and website Atomic Habits offers ways to build and actually stick with good habits.