4 ways to spend energy wisely and not stop halfway
Miscellaneous / / January 27, 2022
Life is a marathon, not a 100m race.
Elizabeth Grace Saunders
Time management consultant, entrepreneur, author of Invest Time Like Money
Almost everyone is capable of taking on a new business with a twinkle. For example, making a great impression in the first few weeks at a new job. Or go to the gym enthusiastically all January. Spend the weekend enthusiastically planning your furniture rearrangement and home improvement, like a real expert from a TV show about repair and design.
But after the first bout of activity, inspiration often passes. After a few months or a year, it becomes more and more difficult to work hard, train or do repairs. Enthusiasm can be replaced by fatigue and burnout, or jumps from doing nothing to hyperactivity and back again.
In fact, the secret to success in work (and life in general) is not how energetically you take on the task. More important is how you continue. To keep the energy and drive you need to constantly move forward, you can try four interesting ways.
1. Set upper and lower activity bounds
The idea of setting goals is popular. Especially at the beginning of the year. However, not all people take the time to think through and write down the steps that are required to implement these plans. An even smaller number determine the daily minimum and maximum actions for each of the tasks.
In the book Effortless ("Without Effort") Greg McKeon advises you to set the minimum and maximum number of actions for each day needed to achieve the goal. For example, make at least five, but no more than 10 calls to customers daily to meet the sales target.
The method can be applied in different situations. Let's say you planned to write a book. Then it is worth setting certain limits: write at least 30 minutes a day, but no more than three hours, so as not to burn out. And if the goal is to get yourself in good physical shape, the plan might be to go to the gym at least three, but no more than five times a week. You will work out and find time to communicate with friends or family.
Such boundaries help not to go out of the way, but at the same time give room for maneuver. The meaning of the bottom is to take a break, but not to lose the rhythm and continue to move forward. The upper one is a conscious limitation so that your efforts in one area do not cross out all others. goals and interests.
2. Find a comfortable pace of work
To do this, remember how you behave when you receive a new project. Bite into it and work almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week? Or most of the time you don’t rush anywhere, but you put pressure on the gas just before the deadline? Or maybe you vacillate between these two extremes: one day you work from dawn to midnight, and the other you sleep half a day?
Depending on the option chosen, there are three strategies of action.
- Those who fall into the first category (let's call them "energetic") need to give themselves permission to rest. For real. The main task is to monitor whether you are overstepping the upper bar of activity and stop yourself in time. Otherwise, you yourself will not notice how close you are to burnout.
- Those who fell into the second group (conditionally: "slow"), it is important to monitor the lower limit of activity. You need to pull yourself together and perform a daily minimum of actions before slowing down or switching to something else.
- People from the third cohort (“unstable”) need to follow both boundaries. Do not exceed the top one, so that tomorrow you have the strength to qualitatively complete at least the bottom one.
As McKeon wisely writes in his book, "Don't do more than you can today so you can recover by tomorrow."
3. Make time for recovery
Rest and vigorous activity must be alternated. So people at night are sleeping, and without days off it is impossible to work productively on weekdays. Even high-class athletes sometimes take a break from training.
If you are always actively moving towards your goal, you need to carefully plan your vacation. I am just such a person, so I try to unload my free time. For example, twice a week I do not wake up at 5:15 to swim, but stay at home and read interesting articles, reflect on life or just sleep. And I also consciously set aside time on weekends and in the evenings to chat with nice people. During such periods, I do not look at the clock, but simply enjoy the conversations and go with the flow.
If you are in the "slow" category, make sure you complete the minimum number of planned steps before resting. In other words: you also need breaks, but only when you have moved forward in achieving your goal.
It is important for “unstable” workers to rest and recover on days when productivity is at its maximum. During such a period, you need to find time for a calm and full lunch, and also take small breaks every hour to warm up. And, of course, you can't stay up late. If you go to bed on time, tomorrow you can continue on your way to the goal without losing energy.
4. Plan your breaks
To stay stamina, you need to work at a steady, comfortable pace. There are days when you need to hold several business meetings in a row or perform one task after another without interruption. This is an inevitability. However, it is important to remember that such a strategy is not viable in the long run.
It is worth setting aside at least a few hours a day or week when you can breathe calmly. Even better: find more time for major tasks so that you can immerse yourself in work and not be twitchy because of the approaching deadline. For example, I don't consult on Wednesdays. This allows me to set aside time for other important things, such as writing an article.
Life is not a sprint, it's a marathon. To stay productive, healthy, and happy both in and out of your career, you need to maintain stamina. It will help not to fall exhausted in the middle of the road and bring all projects to the end.
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