Often before I know it, I can find my energy has been sapped before 9am.
I’m more aware of it now than I’ve ever been, because as I manage more staff, am involved in more complex projects, mentor more people etc. I realise that my focused ‘down time’ is so precious, that I have to fight to keep it free from distraction and other people’s ‘urgents.’
I’ve had to train myself to spot when a slice of my energy pie has been stolen without permission, I use the word ‘stolen’ (might seem a bit harsh) because I realise the value of my energy at different times of the day.
'I like to refer to my Energy as an Energy Pie'
You see if if I were to value my ‘energy pie’ in monetary terms, the most valuable slices for me would be in the morning. Usually between 5am-11am.
I can think clearly, I’m moving at a wild pace, and I really hate it when something or someone comes along and steals the highest value slices of my energy pie… Might sound extreme, but because I understand that this focused time can be worth tens of thousands of pounds…I hate being interrupted and I rarely schedule calls/answer calls/ do meetings in the morning.
The second most valuable time would be between 10am-2pm, and my least valuable time would be from 2pm-9pm.
Therefore my phone-calls/gym sessions/ email responses will normally be during the cheapest energy slices of the day, as often they don’t require massive thought or energy.
We do this buy creating more self awareness of what we put our energy into, and who we allow to take it away.
I’m sure we all know of someone who contacts us when they need something… Now most of the time I don’t mind, I know life is hard and sometimes you have one or two people in your world who are just so great at knowing a lot of things about stuff you need info on, so they become the obvious ‘go to’ when we need something.
I’ve realised I’ve now become that person to quite a few people, that is massively humbling, but I’m aware that my entire energy pie can easily be sapped before 9am if I’m not careful..
A simple innocent message from someone asking ‘Do you know of anyone that can help me with XYZ?’ can lead to a full blown 20-60 minutes discussion. (Slice of my energy pie GONE!)
Then the best energy sappers are the ones that then send a further messages saying , ‘Did I do something wrong?’ This is because they didn’t get an immediate response, or a response within the timeline they wanted.
I always respond ‘no of course you didn’t do anything wrong!’, But actually another part of me would love to say,
‘Your urgent is not my urgent, my day was already planned out, I will come back to you as soon as I can as I have my ‘urgents’ to deal with first.’ (But I’m not sure my comment would be appreciated as it might come across quite rude.) So I find it best to just not respond until the allotted time you’ve created to respond.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR ENERGY PIE
‘Put up Barriers of Protection to stop distraction..’
- Understand when your highest priced Energy Slices are. Do not schedule anything during that time, no coffee meets, no answering phone calls, no trips to the gym. Use this time to do high value tasks only.
- Guard your golden slices like a crazy person.Tell your team your unavailable, use air-plane mode. Put an out of office on. If you genuinely believe that your golden slices of energy can equate to a lot of money then do not allow anyone to steal this time!
- Do not schedule, coffee meets/doctors appointments/ phone-calls during this time. See it as gold- dust which is what it truly is.
- Don’t be afraid to not respond to people until later that day or sometimes in a few days time if your busy.
- Set a timer on your phone to ensure you give the task you need the focus it deserves. There was a study that was done that says for every interruption to focus it takes 22 minutes to refocus
