Organizing your energy: How to make the most of the workday

Creating a more organized ___________ (fill in the blank – house/schedule/career path/workout plan/self-care approach) always seems to be on trend, as there is a universal desire to constantly be improving and striving to be better versions of our current selves. Where do you start?  It can be overwhelming to make over your entire life.

Here are the top five, research-supported recommendations for how best to organize your energy, and their imposters.

1. Sleep: Focus on Quality

Sleep is one of the three building blocks of health — sleep, diet, and exercise. The focus of most sleep discussions tends to be on the number of hours on the mattress. But focusing on the quantity of sleep may miss the point. Research tells us that sleep that truly powers us is about quantity AND quality. How does one track quality? There are plenty of apps/devices that help you track your sleep. They can check how often you are waking up and how much deep sleep you get each night. If you would like to improve your quality of sleep, consider meeting with a sleep specialist or a sleep makeover. And, as parents know, one of the largest impediment to quality sleep is KIDS! if you have children, you know that they can impact your quantity and quality of sleep. Observe their sleep to see if they may have quality sleep issues. Are they sleeping with their mouths closed? Do they snore? Check out these common symptoms of pediatric sleep apnea and then do everything you can to get them settled into quality sleep so you can receive the same.

2. Exercise: Focus on Being an Athlete

Lose weight now! How many of us have set goals in the New Year, joined the throngs  signing up for gym memberships in January, only to have lost our motivation by February? New Year’s resolutions tend to fail for many reasons, as motivation is short lived. Exercise, another critical building block of health, is good for us, so to make it past that February hurdle, shift your focus from the goal (e.g., losing weight) to your identity (e.g., an athlete). By focusing on your identity as an athlete versus the outcomes of gaining/losing X amount of weight, you shift your focus from goals to habits. What are the habits  of an athlete? They should be two minutes or less, such as lacing up your running shoes and filling up your water bottle, or like Twyla Tharp, hailing a taxi cab to the gym. Motivation is short lived, but habits stick. Focus on building the habits of an athlete. Implementation intentions can help you build these into your daily life. Fill out the following statement “During the next week, I will exercise on [DAY] at [TIME OF DAY] @/in [PLACE].”

3. Planning: Schedule Your To-Do’s (7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Habit 3…)

Organizing for action can often start with a blank piece of paper so you can jot down all of your to-do’s. This is an excellent first step, as it helps to clarify all of the important tasks that will get you to your desired results. However, don’t stop there. Go one step further and input all of your tasks into your calendar. By scheduling your tasks, it ensures that you are dedicating time to your priorities and not overly crowding your schedule. It also forces you to consider what tasks should be eliminated or outsourced (see #4).

4. Productivity: Outsource

When scheduling your to-do list you may realize that you have more tasks than time. A common imposter approach is to research multi-tasking hacks. “People can’t multitask very well, and when people say they can, they’re deluding themselves,” said neuroscientist Earl Miller. And he said, “The brain is very good at deluding itself.” Instead, focus on how to outsource tasks through hiring help (virtual assistants, house cleaners, childcare, PP slide wizards, interns). One of the most frequent pieces of advice we offer clients when coaching executives is to hire a house cleaner. Rare is the person who is energized by cleaning their bathroom with their precious free time.

Virtual Assistants are a wonderful resource, especially when you have a project that exceeds your capacity. For example, we recently moved across the country. I hired a Virtual Assistant to help with all of the research (moving companies, schools, healthcare providers, neighborhoods). Schedule regular childcare. If you and your partner have kids and busy lives, having a regularly scheduled sitter eliminates one scheduling conversation. If you know that you have a sitter every Wednesday night you can plan double dates, activities with one child, or solo activities, knowing that Wednesday is a night when you have extra help

Hiring doesn’t mean it has to have a high cost. I work with entrepreneurs frequently and they are constantly sharing local resources to help them with areas of their business where they need professional help. They work through their SBA to find free legal counsel for entrepreneurs and attend free webinars from accountants focused on helping entrepreneurs set up the financial aspects of their business. Look for experts who can help you outsource or expedite different areas of your life so you can spend your time and energy where you can have the greatest impact.

5. Order: Focus on Systems

The Kon-Mari effect was taken to a new level with the launch of the Netflix  show following Kondo’s best-seller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Why? She has gone beyond the one-time declutter to creating a system for constantly evaluating what should earn a spot in your physical world. Decluttering is a step in building a system to order your space. Without a system, clutter will reappear as you haul that last trash bag to the curb.

Know yourself and what you want to accomplish; then design a system that works for you to create order in your home or workspace. Are you tapping into your creativity and benefiting from having disparate objects within arm’s reach to help you spark that next great idea? Do you get distracted by piles of paper and need a clean workspace to do your best work? Create the system that works best for you.