The Energy Battery

How to charge your batteries and manage your most valuable work resource

When we think of maximizing our effectiveness at work, we often consider time as our primary constraint. Hence the common phrases:

“There’s only so many hours in the day”

“I’ll try to find time for that”

“Time is our most valuable resource”

It’s true that we have a certain number of work hours in each day to get stuff done. But there is a critical hidden resource many of us fail to account for - energy. Energy literally means the capacity for work.

Think of your energy as a battery. When you wake from sleep your battery is full (assuming good sleep and good coffee). As the day progresses, your battery sheds its energy, until it’s finally near empty. It’s then time to recharge it with the ritual that we call sleep.

An awareness of our energy levels can have a profound impact on our effectiveness, happiness and fulfillment in work and life.

Here’s some tactics to help us increase awareness and optimize our energy battery:

The Energy Audit. Look at your calendar and identify the energy quotient of each activity. Label each as energy charging or energy draining. Maximize energy charging activities and limit energy draining activities to the extent you can. You may also consider rearchitecting certain activities to improve their energy quotient or minimize their impact. For example, you may add new structure to a meeting that has become stale, or delegate energy draining activities to the extent possible, or only check email at certain designated times throughout the day. Note: I don’t do email first thing in the morning, it’s an energy drainer.

Work / Energy Matching. Do your most important work when your battery is at its highest charge. For me this is mid-morning. Creative work, important meetings or high leverage decisions get scheduled for the morning to the extent possible. This DOES NOT mean “mailing it in” during the afternoon, it simply means having an awareness of when I am at my best and planning my work around that.

Energy Renewal. While time is a finite resource, energy is not. You can renew your energy regularly throughout the day. Take breaks, take a walk, work out, have a healthy snack, do a gratitude or breathing exercise, schedule an energizing activity with your teammates. These activities can recharge your mind, body and spirit and give you a boost of energy and effectiveness.

Invest In Your Team. Your team needs energy as much as you do. Encourage them to practice healthy energy optimization using the same tactics listed above. Communicate the imperative of energy optimization and show them you are taking it seriously, leading by example. You might even get them together to discuss ideas for increasing energy levels throughout the day. With my teams, we implemented “No Meeting Thursdays” and “Summer Fridays” to help recharge our batteries.

Energy management is why Jeff Bezos schedules his most important decisions for the morning, when his energy, cognitive ability and spirit is at its peak.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to recharge my battery with a walk.