For ages we have been focusing on time, “Manage your time”, “Manage on time”, We have been working for 12-16 hours a day; just to get perfectly exhausted and find out we don’t have enough time for family and loved ones. Result: guilty feeling and dissatisfaction which takes toll on us physically, mentally, and emotionally, further leading to declining levels of engagement, increasing levels of distraction, high turnover rates, and soaring medical costs. The way we are working isn’t working. In the article “Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time”, Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy propose a new perspective for managing self by managing energy that can be built and expanded rather than finite time. Managing energy will help to increase and regularly improve work capacity. With their proven rituals, anyone can increase the level of productivity. In other words, do more at less time. However, to succeed, renewal efforts need solid support and commitment from senior management, beginning with the key decision maker. In this blog I present a summary of important rituals put forth by the authors.
Time is finite. Energy, the capacity of doing work, can be systematically expanded and regularly renewed by establishing specific ritual. One of the best ways to do build up energy is regular exercise. To support this practice, organizations need a whole new approach to reward system, link capacity and performance.
Employees energy cannot be taken for granted. Along with developing employees’ skills, knowledge, and competence organizations should help in building and sustaining the capacity of employees, so that they can do more in less time. A research conducted at Wachovia showed that there is a significant relationship between energy renewal program and productivity. The productivity of the performance group boosted over time.
Managing Energy
First step to managing energy is to identify if you’re doing things such as skipping breakfast, failing to express appreciation to others, struggling to focus on one thing at a time, or spending too little time on activities that give you a sense of purpose. While most people aren’t surprised to learn these behaviors are counter productive, having them all listed in one place is often uncomfortable, sobering, and galvanizing.
The Body: Physical Energy. There are rituals for building and renewing physical energy. For example: strength training, going to bed at a designated time and sleeping longer, smaller meals and light snacks every three hours, brief but regular breaks at specific intervals throughout the workday, disengage from work and truly change channels for few minutes and recognize ultradian rhythms..
“Ultradian rhythms” refer to 90- to 120-minute cycles during which our bodies slowly move from a high-energy state into a physiological trough. Toward the end of each cycle, the body begins to crave a period of recovery. The signals include physical restlessness, yawning, hunger, and difficulty concentrating, but many of us ignore them and keep working. The consequence is that our energy reservoir—our remaining capacity—burns down as the day wears on.
The Emotions: Quality of Energy. Taking control of the emotion will allow improving the quality of energy regardless of external pressure you’re facing. To do this, be aware of how you feel at various points during the work day and the impact these emotions have on the effectiveness. Positive emotion equals better performance. Without intermittent recovery, we’re not physiologically capable of sustaining highly positive emotions for long periods.
The fight-or-flight mode, product of negative emotions, leads to irritable and impatient, or anxious and insecure behavior. It makes it impossible to think clearly, logically, and reflectively. To control negative emotion, identify triggers and “buy time”. Buying time can be done by deep abdominal breathing. The lighting of cigarette is actually the practice of deep abdominal breathing in a different form.
Expressing appreciation to others, stopping acting victim and blaming others also helps in generating positive energy. One way is to tell self the most hopeful stories possible. These questions will help cultivating positive emotions about any event:
“What would the other person in this conflict say and in what ways might that be true?”
“How will I most likely view this situation in six months?”
“Regardless of the outcome of this issue, how can I grow and learn from it?”
The Mind: Focus of Energy. Distractions are costly. A temporary shift in attention from one task to another—stopping to answer an e-mail or take a phone call, for instance—increases the amount of time necessary to finish the primary task by as much as 25%, a phenomenon known as “switching time.” It’s far more efficient to fully focus for 90 to 120 minutes, take a true break, and then fully focus on the next activity. These work periods are referred as “ultradian sprints.”
Rituals to improve the focus include reducing distractions; going into a (conference) room, away from phones and e-mail, whenever you have a task that requires concentration. Letting phone calls to go to voice mail, so that you can focus completely on the person in front. Check emails just twice a day.
The Human Spirit: Energy of Meaning and Purpose. People tap into the energy of the human spirit when their everyday work and activities are consistent with what they value most and with what give them a sense of meaning and purpose. If the work they’re doing really matters to them, they typically feel more positive energy, focus better, and demonstrate greater perseverance. Regrettably, the high demands and fast pace of corporate life don’t leave much time to pay attention to these issues, and many people don’t even recognize meaning and purpose as potential sources of energy.
Being attentive to own deeper needs dramatically influences effectiveness and satisfaction at work. Having the opportunity to ask self a series of questions about what really matter to self is both illuminating and energizing.
To access the energy of the human spirit, clarify priorities and establish accompanying rituals in three categories: doing what you do best and enjoy most at work; consciously allocating time and energy to the areas of lives—work, family, health, service to others—that deem most important; and living your core values in their daily behaviors. To uncover the values, ask “What are the qualities that you find most off-putting when you see them in others?” By describing what you can’t stand, you'll unintentionally divulge what you stand for.
Addressing these three categories will help to go a long way toward achieving a greater sense of alignment, satisfaction, and well-being in lives on and off the job. Those feelings are a source of positive energy in their own right and reinforce people’s desire to persist at rituals in other energy dimensions as well.
The application of this new way of working has manifested great results in productivity, level of stress and many other domains of organization (human) behavior. However, this new way of working takes hold only to the degree that organizations support their people in adopting new behaviors like providing breaks when necessary, adding gym facilities and the like. Organizational support entails shifts in policies, practices, and cultural messages.
For the article: https://hbr.org/2007/10/manage-your-energy-not-your-time
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