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The secret to optimising your productivity.
Hint: it's not the Pomodoro technique.
Maxy Lotherington
April 10, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
When it comes to productivity, there are hundreds of frameworks, techniques, and other advice on how to optimise it. But the biggest change for me has come from this simple idea: planning based on your energy.
Today, we’ll go through the start-to-finish technique of energy-based planning. It’s really simple:
Map out your energy levels throughout the day.
Figure out which tasks energise you, and which ones drain you.
Use your new energy knowledge to plan your day.
Let’s get into it!
🗺️ Mapping out your energy levels.
First off, you need to figure out your personal energy levels. Basically, over the course of the day, when do you feel most energised and when do you feel most tired?
Most people’s energy levels peak around midday, dip dramatically, and then rebound as the evening progresses.
You can either do this from memory, but I recommend spending a week tracking your energy levels so that it’s more accurate. Just grab a notebook or a notetaking app and use a simple table:
Time | Energy |
|---|---|
9am | Low / Medium / High |
10am | Low / Medium / High |
etc… | Low / Medium / High |
You can turn this into a chart if you want to get really fancy, but what you’re really looking for are times when your energy consistently dips. (For me, it’s around 1-3pm.)
⚡️ Matching common tasks to energy.
The next step is to think about things you normally do and figure out how they affect your energy levels. For each type of task, I usually think about two things:
How much energy I need in order to actually do this task, and
If this tasks impacts my overall energy levels (eg. does completing it make me more energised or does it tire me out?)
This is a pretty simple exercise because it just takes about 15 minutes of thinking. Here’s an example of how some of mine looks:
Task | Energy needed | Energy impact |
|---|---|---|
Documentation | Low | no change |
Graphic design | High | + increases energy! |
Writing articles | Medium | + increases energy! |
Data analysis | High | – decreases energy |
Whiteboarding | High | + increases energy! |
🗓️ Now it’s time to put it into practice.
This is where it all comes together: now that you know how your energy levels change naturally throughout the day, and you know what energy you need to do common tasks, you can start to structure your day around your energy levels.
For example, I tend to batch all of my low-energy admin tasks right after lunch because that’s when I’m at my most tired. And in the mornings, I like to start with some high-energy tasks!
😱 But what about meetings! I can’t just move them around to suit my energy levels.
True, you can’t just suddenly rearrange everyone else’s calendar because you’ve figured out what works on best for you. But that’s where the energy impact comes in. You might plan to do a task that increases your energy post-meeting if it’s tiring, OR you might plan to do a task that requires little energy.
Understanding how your body works and how your tasks affect you gives you so much more control over your day. Make your energy work for you, not against you!
Is there anything else you’ve struggled with when planning out your day? Reply to this email and let me know!