Energy Management Over Time Management: 4 Productivity Hacks That Actually Work

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 307. I made this episode with a lot of love for both me and for you, because I think we are all trying to do our best in this precious life of ours. And sometimes we get caught up in chasing time and we end up feeling like We are losing out on that race, that time is speeding ahead of us, and sometimes we lose our way. And over the years, I have learned and found that the best way to actually stay in that race and to be a happy camper while in that race is to really pay attention to energy and how we're using our energy. So this episode. is devoted to describing and sharing some energy-conserving tips that will directly influence and improve your ability to be productive. So with love, let's go listen to this episode together now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:15]:
Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body, and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast. I created this list of 4 productivity hacks for you because you may currently be in a situation where you're at the end of the day and you're wondering where all your time went, or you're wondering how come you feel so tired, or you're wondering If you could fill the day with more than you did. If any of those situations sounds like you, then this list of 4 productivity hacks is going to be perfect for you.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:36]:
The first thought that I have is a simple one. The tip is to really understand how your energy flows across the day. You want to ask yourself, What are the periods of time during the day that you feel at your best, that you feel at your most alert, that you are ready to go, you're ready to be seen, you're ready to think and create all of those moments in time. But then you also want to flag those moments during the day where you are typically feeling a little bit lower in energy, perhaps a little bit more low-key and you're not really in the creative creation mode. So you want to do perhaps a 3-day experiment of just tracking your alertness and your creativity across 3 days. And within each day, you want to see again, where are those peaks and valleys in terms of your focus, your attention, your ability to move things forward? And then what you do with that data with that precious information is you wanna plan the next 3 days. Over the next 3 days, you wanna slot difficult brain-involved activities in those moments where you typically are at an energetic peak. And then you wanna save things that don't require so much out of you for those valleys.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:13]:
And as I was drafting this episode, I was thinking to myself, we are all so different in terms of what we see as being energy involved or energy neutral stuff that really doesn't take much out of us. For instance, doing a load of laundry. For some, that could just be the world's worst assignment, and for others it's like pleasure or something that's a no-brainer. So really be honest and open with yourself. What do you like to do? What is easy for you to do? What do you wanna make more time for? And what are those things that you would like to save your energy with to make sure you have the right amount of energy to do? And then sort. Just do some physical planning with pen and paper. That's my favorite way to do things. Do it with pen and paper.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:05]:
Experiment. And then try it out and see, do your days flow better in this way? I'm assuming that they will, because when we put a little bit of forethought into our planning and our days, I think our days tend to give us back that time and energy that otherwise will flow away from us because we just don't know what we're doing next and we're spending time and energy. Figuring things out in that way, so get ahead of that whole scheduling piece. Know where your peaks and valleys are, and then go forth. The second productivity hack that I have for you is that you want to stop your energy leaks. Now, what are energy leaks? We are made of energy. We are using energy, expending energy throughout the day. We're also taking energy back in sometimes as well.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:08]:
And energy leaks include things like leaving things undone. So when you've invested your energy in starting something and then you leave it there, then what happens to your energy? Your energy is spent thinking about the undone loop, the unfinished business. We've all been there, so there's no judgment here. But I want to let you know that if you have a lot of things that you leave undone, that's a lot of energy that is flowing away from you. So you want to wrap things up. You want to go into the cycle of beginning, middle, end, making sure that you always finish what you start as best as you can so that you conserve your energy. So that's one energy leak. Another energy leak is when we delay decision-making.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:59]:
That could be as simple as leaving an email that's in your email inbox unresponded to. I just responded to an email that was a few days old, and I just felt such relief getting that off my mind, off my to-do list. Getting back to that person was, I think, a positive thing. I'm assuming a positive thing. And Guess what I did by replying? I stopped that energy leak there. So make your decisions, finish up those unfinished loops, and watch your energy feel replenished. And the third energy leak that I want to mention here is physical clutter. Physical clutter combines the first two that I mentioned.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:47]:
It's unfinished business and it's unfinished decision-making. Where does this item go? Do I donate it? Do I throw it in the trash? Do I keep it? And honor it and put it in its home. What do you do with this physical clutter? When you have clutter around you, it likely means that your energy is moving out of you. It is leaving you instead of staying within you, staying conserved, staying protected. And you want to protect your energy because your energy is what fuels everything. It fuels your decisions. It fuels Your hydration. It feels your everything.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:30]:
So let's conserve the energy. Let's be smarter about our energy use. And let's just use the metaphor of water, right? We all know that as best as we can, we're gonna conserve the water. You don't just let the water flood out untended to. It's the same with our energy. Perhaps even more important than watching the water is watching how we use our energy across the day. The 3rd productivity hack that I have for you is to allow yourself real breaks, because when you don't, you end up feeling like you're on the verge of some sort of burnout oftentimes, or you're feeling like you don't really know where your focus went because you just keep trying to be productive. So ironically, the productivity hack This number 3 tip is that you want to stop being productive sometimes.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:31]:
You need to give your body and brain and mind— your mind is just kind of the bigger brain that we're all in charge of— you want to give that entire beautiful magical system time to rest, time to refresh, time to consider. What you can consider when you're actively creating, when you're actively in productivity mode, we need time to have breaks. One side note about tip number 3 and needing breaks. I want you to take breaks without feeling guilty about taking breaks, because people who do that never end up feeling rested or refreshed because they're constantly feeling like they should be Working. So I am here to give you permission, if you can't give it to yourself, to treat yourself kindly, to treat yourself with reasonableness, if that's a word. And I hope it is, because we get to make up stuff, we get to rest, and we get to then restart again. It will all be okay. It's when we think that everything is so critical and so in crisis that our energy leaves us and we can't put it together and we wonder why.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:55]:
So I don't want that for you. And let's move on to tip number 4. Tip number 4 is you want to protect your energy, and that can be done in any number of ways. And the core ways that we all should know, and I think we all do know, is that you want to stay hydrated. You want to keep your body in movement throughout the day, again with rest, but you want to stay mobile and active. Get those steps in for sure. And then of course, we want to sleep well. We want to get maybe 7 or 8 hours a day regularly, consistently, and in a peaceful environment so that You don't have disrupted sleep so that you don't wake up feeling groggy.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:45]:
You feel refreshed. You feel like your body has time to detox and to prepare for the next day. We all need this time, remember. So hydrate, move your body, get regular, consistent sleep. Other ways that you might not think are methods of protecting your energy are having a wonderful wind-down routine at the end of the evening or just before the very end of the evening. I have found this to be really lovely lately. I don't think I've been historically very good at this particular habit of winding down, taking time at the end of the night to just bring my body to a state of calm. And then my head hits the pillow.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:37]:
Typically, I think I tend to work through the evening and I tend to like to be doing things and tidying and cleaning and all the things that we all need to do. But lately I've been giving myself a little more grace and a little more time to just feel like I can stretch, I can relax, I can set a candle. Dim the lights, things like that, and really prepare myself for a quiet, peaceful night of sleep. So maybe that is a habit that you might want to try out for yourself as well. Another way to protect your energy is to really learn how to say yes and how to say no. I've been working with a number of clients Lately, and I've noticed myself giving the advice of saying to the clients, know how to say a good no and learn that quickly. And it's probably because I've noticed that people get overwhelmed very quickly, very easily when they say yes too often, when they are trying to be productive, when they're trying to be helpful, when they're trying to advance in their careers. It's very understandable.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:57]:
That we would say yes, that we would be inclined to say yes and be agreeable and try to help and use our skills in this world. But I want to say that there is a limit to how many times you can do that without causing some sort of stress in your system, stress in your calendar, or stress in your brain, because we do have limits in this way, and we are supposed to have. limits in this way. We are not superheroes. We have superhero powers, but only when we conserve our energy. Notice all of the superheroes that we love to see on screen. They oftentimes spend their time in regular people clothes, in regular people jobs, because they're not superheroes all the time. Neither are we.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:50]:
We need to protect our time. Protect our energy so that we know when to spring into action, where to deploy our superhuman type skills and creativity, and how to enjoy the lives that we have the pleasure of leading. And I hope you use these 4 productivity hacks right away because our energy is so beautiful. It is so important. For our success. And of course, we all want to head straight for success and make time for it too. Thanks so much for being here today with me. I have a free download, as I typically do for you, to work through your energy issues and your energy leaks so that you can have more by the end of the day today, at least in the planning way that we do.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:44]:
inside these worksheets, you can go to maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/hacks. That's H-A-C-K-S for the free download. Again, it's maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/hacks. And I will be busy creating our next episode for us, and I'll see you next week. Thanks so much again.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:09]:
Bye.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:09]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success Podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:20]:
You can also visit our website, maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com, for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mention on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name Procrastination Coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the the episodes you've been listening to, and let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:46]:
I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. Talk to you soon.