Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time

For years I was asking the wrong question.

How can I find more time? Can I optimize my calendar? Can I squeeze one more hour out of my day? As if the problem was time. It never was.

Time Is Fixed. Energy Is Not.

Time is constant. Everyone gets 24 hours — that never changes. But energy is manageable. Physical energy, mental energy, emotional energy — each can be charged, depleted, and renewed.

Three hours of low energy cannot be compared to one hour of deep focus. Knowing this, why do we keep looking at our calendars instead of our internal fuel gauge?

What Loehr and Schwartz Found

Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, in The Power of Full Engagement, stated it clearly: The key to high performance is not managing time, but managing energy. This was what they discovered when they brought the science of athletic training into the business world.

High performance is shaped not by the time you have, but by the energy you bring to that time.

Practical Application

I now start each day with one question: When will my energy be highest today? I assign that window to my most important work. Everything else follows.

Filling a calendar is easy. Filling yourself is another matter.

Manage your energy, not your time.