How to manage your energy, not time.

One of my biggest weaknesses in life is time management and prioritising. I’m the guy who will have 20 ideas, and execute none of them. Or should I say used to.

Nowadays, I don’t entertain certain ideas and I’ve accepted I can’t and won’t always get back to emails the same day.

In one of my favourite LinkedIn discussions this year I put it to my connections If there were any cool hacks/tips on how to prioritise your workflow and time during the day so I didn’t end up working 70–80 hours week which could take 40.

There was some stellar advice, here are the best tips:

Ken Peters — “Everything about my life is tracked and kept in Notion If you are product geek, you’ll also really enjoy using it, which is half the battle.”

Lucian Radu — I’ve struggled with this also. Went deep into the subject and learned as much as I can about productivity, time management and procrastination.

Once I understood the problem, it’s just about pushing yourself so you can have better habits.

A few things that worked:

• setting goals (long term/monthly/weekly/ daily) and tracking the progress
• planning starts the night before (let your brain process it during the sleep)
• breaking stuff in Pomodores and having a minimum target (8P)
• eat the frog (hardest task first thing in the morning)
• meditation for increased focus (no hippie stuff)
• knowing your peak energy levels during the day
• having a structured day and just go!
• start things (50% of the people don’t even start)
• going to bed before 12 (people underestimate this and I’m a night owl)
• night mode glasses * Read “Can’t hurt me” for more Tools (they can help but don’t fall in the trap of over-planning)
• Notion,Things, Forest (or any Pomodoro tracker) — Headspace / Waking up
• Journal (but you need to know how to use it) That’s what I have so far.

Gavin Maloney — “But those thoughts are worthless if they never get harvested, crafted and sent on their jolly way out the proverbial door. My personal tips that I practice daily, which keep me efficient and productive…depending on your appetite to complete tasks?

Option 1: work on one of your ideas to the point where you have demonstrated at least a rough POC. Then stop on that one & pic up the next. Do not swirl & stress with all 20 projects in the air. Focus, apply thought & execute. Move on to the next.

Option 2: focus on one idea from start to finish. Once you’re happy, move onto the next one.

Last option (3): slice up your day into time segments and allocate those segments to your specific ideas. Once that segment ends, you need to stop focusing on that idea & begin the next slot/idea. Rinse and repeat. It’s all about focus and giving yourself quality productive time and avoiding that feeling of being overwhelmed and stressed = getting nothing done. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time”

Christian Vasile — “I’ll offer a different perspective. You can focus on ten projects at 10%, five projects at 20%, or one project at 100%. As overachievers, we tend to think we can do more than we’re capable of, and our society over-fetishises and applauds people like this. I choose to juggle fewer projects, but offer each one of them the focus it deserves. Otherwise you’re half-assing all of them.”

Nick Fine — “To do list, Good coffee, the rest of the motivation comes from visualising why you’re doing it. It also helps prioritise. That’s how I do it, but I’m far from well organised. I find managing too many tools is a distraction and pain in the neck. Google Keep for the To-Do list, or whatever you prefer.”

Sascha — “Tools will not help you but only distract from the core problem. Two strong recommendations that I found to be most helpful over the years (I have been muddling through next to any productivity hack, method, software, etc. out there for more than 20 years now): 1) Neil Fiore: The Now Habit 2) Benson/DeMaria: Personal Kanban (https://personalkanban.com)”

Ciprian Irimies “Prioritize as you see fit at any given moment — there’s no magic formula — with any tool you’ll create an environment that suits your needs alone… and nobody cares about your environment, they’ll just pollute it and mess up your plans. Do what you can in 40 hours and leave the rest for next week. The sky won’t fall!”

Chris Rourke — “I’ve fallen in and out of love with tons of productivity / ToDo type tools. But I stick best with workflowy https://workflowy.com/ simple but flexible, love the nesting of lists, lets you shape the tasks and other lists the way your brain actually works.”

Tom Chaffin — “I am feeling you on this 100%. I took the step to get Best Self Journal where I can write out my goals, priortize the tasks that need to be done to reach them and block out my time accordingly. While I haven’t been great at planning every day, I have seen the difference when I don’t block time out for the tasks. Even checking off the smallest tasks throughout the day creates wins. I have also tried to incorporate that idea into Trello, but getting the ideas out of my head needs paper and pen.”

Jens Wedin — “Use any Kanban tool to visualize, prioritize and communicate your work. A simple todo, doing done either on a wall or in a Trello or similar. My second tip is to block time in your calendar, I usually do this before lunch. This is my work time. In the afternoon I meet other people and take meetings. My third tip is to take time during the week for reflection. Block for example Friday morning or 15 min each afternoon.”

Carrie Hogan — “My daily to-do Trello (for work) is four columns:

1. Up next
2. In progress
3. (Middle of screen/central view) *Priorities*
4. Background awareness/ Not right now Priorities is the one I focus to/ alter the most during the day.

It has 2–4 critical items I have to do, to be at peace that I’ve ‘done the day’. On it, at the bottom, I will have one ‘EOD’ card with the admin for the last 30mins of the day- namely invites for meetings that I’ve said I’ll send people. I tell them I’ll send the invite by EOD, add it to this card, then stay focused on the tasks that need by best brain juice first! Happy to talk that over more another time. TL/DR is essentially: Know the 1–4 critical items you want to be done, to feel you’ve applied yourself effectively that day.

Danno — “An integrator would help I think. Sometimes the visionary can’t layout the workflow or prioritize. So hire someone to be your integrator and do it for you. Ideas should never be suppressed… they should flow freely to a brainstorming board and the integrator takes them and helps you define the next best thing. They’ll help you prioritize and facilitate the execution.”

Jasmine Sablan — “I recommend bullet journaling. I know everyone will recommend an app or some sort of software, but if you are anything like most people with an organization problem, then trying to get things organized using a computer won't work as well. Good old fashioned pen and paper makes that brain to attention to memory connection.”

Kent Godfrey — “Batching tasks together and breaking a big task down into the smallest step possible. All you need is a whiteboard/blackboard. Trello is also great for keeping track of tasks”

Do you have any tips? Would love to hear them ??