Hello sweetest potatoes! So welcome back.
Chopped off my hair.
According to conventional wisdom, time management is the foundation of
productivity. You manage your time by setting goals for when you want to finish a specific
task and planning your day so thoroughly that you even schedule time to go to the bathroom.
So this is how I used to approach productivity: I spent most of my twenties trying to manage my time
and my ever ever-growing to-do list. I had to check all the boxes and cross off all
the to-do's for me to feel like I had any semblance of a good, productive day, and when
I didn't accomplish all the things that I wanted to at the set times I wanted to,
I honestly felt like the world's biggest failure. More recently I started taking a closer look
at what consumes my attention, as well as my energy levels. So these days if in a day I
do the three most important things I need to do along with at least one act of self-care ,
I am more than happy. "If you're trying to be more productive, don't analyze how you spend your time,
pay attention to what consumes your attention." Or energy. Here's what's on the agenda today:
The difference between managing time and managing energy,
what is an energy audit and why is it important,
and how to energy audit so that you can become your best and most productive self.
If you guys have been following me for a
while you know I've had my fair share of burnout and resetting...
It's a lot of burning and resetting, I know! This is a prime example of where managing my time has led me.
"It's not how many hours you put in that determines how productive you are, it's how much
energy or focus attention you're able to invest during the hours you work."
Time management versus energy management.
Managing your time gives you set time to do set things which can be constricting
and inflexible. If you don't do the things within the set times you feel like the world's biggest failure
Energy, on the other hand, gives you the element of choice and is flexible.
Time is a finite thing. There is a limited number of hours daily which is something that we can't control
Energy on the other hand is something that can systematically increase and regularly
renew which is something that we can control. Time management makes you stop distractions
cold turkey, (like endlessly scrolling through instagram, you just completely cut that out of
your life) while energy management teaches you to be mindful about the timing of these distractions.
Time management is what you're doing energy management is when are you going to do it.
So,why is all of this important?
"It's important to maximize your energy because
you perform best when you're doing things that energize you."
If we're able to spend most of our time doing work that energizes us
and we know when to do specific types of work throughout the day
depending on our energy levels, magic will happen, and we will reach the highly coveted state of flow.
Ah I'm having too much fun...
And as always, the best use of our time is
to focus on things we can control, which is something like our energy,
versus things that we can't control, which is something like time.
Energy audits helps us identify activities that give us energy and drains our energy, it helps us
understand our fluctuating energy levels which is totally normal as well as the seasonality of life
It helps us choose what to focus on and when to do it, so that we can replenish our energy
and take better care of ourselves to be our best and ♫ most productive selves ♫
Yay!
I can't with myself sometimes...
Within the energy audit, the first and most important thing is to identify which activities
give you energy and which activities drain your energy. So with this we're going to go with a
trusty graph that you can DIY yourself at home. I'll share with you guys a quick
vlog of how I track my energy levels throughout the day. In the beginning it might be kind of weird
asking yourself like "How do I feel right now? Do I feel up in energy? Do I feel down in energy?"
but I think with time the more you practice as with anything it'll get easier and easier.
Morning friends
My energy level currently it's above average it's actually pretty high
feeling pretty good feeling pretty energized
okay
Since I woke up a little later I didn't have time to read today but as you guys just saw brushing my teeth
and washing my face- such small tasks, such small things, but I feel so awake! I'm so alive!
This is what I'm having for breakfast. I don't always have time to make breakfast like this
along with a very beautiful green juice, but I do try to eat at least a little bit something, because
I know if I don't eat my blood sugar drops and my blood sugar drops, I turn into a little hangry girl
and the work day starts! Here is calling into team meeting, quick lunch, and my energy graph audit for
the specific day. So as you guys saw my day started off relatively high after washing my face I got a
little bit of a peek and because I usually do qigong for 30 minutes to an hour every afternoon
I think it maintains my energy until it naturally dies down. As my one act of self-care tonight,
I journaled, and just for reference this is what my day looked like previously
so every day could look pretty different from day to day.
So that was how to graph out your energy levels throughout the day.
if that's a bit too abstract for you guys there's one more prompt that you can try. This is James
Clear's habit scorecard. What you do is from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep
write down every single thing that you do no matter how small it is
and at the end of the day go through your list and give every single activity either a plus, a minus,
or a neutral. This whole process is a very personal thing. For some people, waking up and turning off
the alarm can be a very neutral thing, but for me that would be like a giant plus because I snooze
for hours. I can snooze for hours. So again, it's just everything is very personal and I'm going
to read something from James Clear's newsletter when he talked about the habit scoreboard because
I think this is really important. "As you create your habit scoreboard, there is no
need to change anything at first. The goal is to simply notice what is actually going on.
Observe your thoughts and actions without judgment or internal criticism. Don't blame yourself for
your faults. Don't praise yourself for your success. The process of behavior change always starts with
awareness. Strategies like pointing and calling and the habit scorecard are focused on getting
you to recognize your habits and acknowledge the cues that triggers them, which makes it easier
to discover which habits you should change and respond in a way that benefits you."
The second part is understanding energy levels fluctuate and there are seasonalities in our life.
Seasonality in our life means that our habits may shift and change
depending on the ebbs and flows and the peaks and valleys of your life.
As a baseline, I feel like we all believe our energy levels is fixed at like a
"This is how I should feel every single day every single moment of the day," so whenever we dip below
we're like "Ooh my god, why do I feel this way? Why am I not happy? Why am I not motivated? Why am I not..."
(silly noises)
"Why am I not productive?" In reality our energy levels actually fluctuate throughout the day,
throughout the week, throughout the month, and throughout the year. Maybe you moved, maybe you
started a project, or a new job that is either less or more demanding than it was. Maybe it's the time
of the month, maybe you just woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Different seasons demand different outputs
as well as input, so it's just something to keep front of mind when we're talking about managing our energy.
The third thing is a choice. Locus of control having the choice to do things
when you want to do them or knowing when is the right time to do certain things at a certain time
"The choices that are most powerful in generating motivation are decisions that do two things:
they convince us we're in control and they endow our actions with larger meaning." When we realize we
have choices, a part of our brain lights up called the striatum and it's responsible for motivation
or lack of motivation when we're faced with a task. Studies have also shown that when individuals
believe they are in control they tend to work harder, push themselves more, are more confident,
and overcome setbacks faster. Believing you have control over the events of your life as opposed to
external factors that are beyond your control (also known as locus of control) is very, very important.
Within the element of choice as it pertains to energy management, there's also prioritizing
and knowing what's most important to you because it's something that you have to choose as well
but you need to first know what those things are before you can choose to do those things.
Remember the 80/20 rule where 80 of your output is produced by 20 of your input? Here's a quick refresher.
There are 24 hours in a day. If you sleep or have 'me time' for about eight hours, you're left with 16 hours
20 percent of 16 is about three hours so: what will you prioritize during these three hours?
Now that we've identified what gives us energy and what drains our energy and we understand that
there's seasonalities in our life and that it's totally fine for us to feel like this
sometimes, and that the element of choice is very important, we've reached the fourth thing which is
to replenish, and we're going to be talking about the self-care tool kit. With your graph,
you've identified your peaks as well as your valleys. Now's the time to pinpoint
when you have a dip, why you have a dip, and how to maintain the peaks for a little longer, and
how to minimize your valleys. Say you're someone who easily gets a food coma after lunch or even
dinner and you know that these moments when you do feel heavier and tired you're more susceptible
to scrolling endlessly on your phone or instagram or watching shows on netflix- This could be a good
time to opt to go outside for a walk or to do some sort of self-care activity that could help you
make sure that the dip doesn't stay as long as it does. I generally get another dip after dinner
this is around maybe eight or nine and it happens mostly just because it's been a long day I've been
up for so many hours and I think it's like time to go to bed, so when I meditate during this time
or I journal or when I read again it brings my energy level back up. Energy in this sense (I should
have clarified earlier in the video) it's not like caffeine energy where you're like "Yes, I'm awake!"
it's more so being able to be present and when you're present and grounded you're able to focus
better on the things that you're supposed to be doing and your attention is less divided because
you're just present and focused. All that to say, it's helpful to have a repertoire or a toolkit
of self-care habits you know you can fall back on. If you know exercising journaling and/or meditating
give you energy, you can either opt to do at least one of these things every morning to give you that
first initial bump or throughout the day whenever you are experiencing a dip. maybe you can swap in
one of these things or just choose one of these things to do. It's better to choose and commit to
doing one thing and doing that one thing well as opposed to doing a bunch of things half-heartedly
and I think that's the trap that I fell into personally where I felt like I had to do all
of these things- meditate, journal, qigong, exercise, doing all of these things every single day, but my
heart wasn't really there, so I wasn't really retaining the information that I was reading,
I wasn't really fully getting the benefits of meditation, because my mind was half and half out...
One thing, do it well, and if you can do more amazing. If not, at least you did one thing.
In summary: First, pinpoint the dips. Second, reflect on why it's there and look for patterns for where and
how your energy is drained. Third, see if there's a way you can take better care of yourself during
those dips because this is our body's way of telling us to either slow down, to feed it, to take
a break, or to reconsider if it's important and imperative to do this very, very draining task.
All right so here's James Clear's "Cycle of Improvement", in this video we dove deep into the awareness
stage and dabbled in deliberate practice. Take the next week to monitor your energy levels and how it
fluctuates throughout the day just by observing it. Next week's video hopefully coming out on Friday,
I want to try to be a little bit more consistent with videos I'm sorry I haven't been as consistent
We'll talk about how we can turn these findings into actionable items. We'll also be talking about
the four dimension or buckets of energy, as well as how to establish specific rituals
and habits to renew and replenish our mind, body, and soul. One very important thing to remember:
things take time and that's okay. For as much as we want ourselves to change overnight, it's probably
not going to happen. It might take a week, or even weeks for you to understand your habits and their
patterns and that's totally fine. The real payoff is you'll understand yourself better, and I feel
like awareness, self-awareness, knowing who we are, knowing what gives us energy and what drains our energy.
Just knowing ourselves is so underrated, and it's so important, and it will do so much for
us and help us work smarter, not harder, so that we can be our best selves and kinder to ourselves and
cherish ourselves more because self love! We about that! We all about that!
I want to give a huge shout out to audible for sponsoring today's video.
If you guys have been following my journey for a while you know I've been inhaling books via audible, so this should be no surprise.
I want to give you guys three audiobook recommendations as it pertains to today's video.
So the first is "Smarter, Better, Faster" I actually have a physical copy of this book.
It's from one of my favorite authors, Charles Duhigg, he also wrote "The Power of Habit"
I love the way he writes, I love how much research and study are in his books
but how easily digestible he makes the data and the scientific parts and
the stats because sometimes some authors it can be very dense and dry and dull, but not Charles Duhigg.
I am a fan. Another book of course is "Atomic Habits". I have it back here. As you guys know, all about
habits. This is where I create my system versus goals video this is the book that I reference
the most I feel like these days whenever I talk about productivity and building habits.
It really teaches you how tiny changes can lead to remarkable results over time so I highly,
highly recommend that book. The last book I want to recommend is "Essentialism", also one book that has
drastically changed and shifted the way I view the world. This book is also read by the author, so I
just feel like when a book is read by a narrator, even though the narrator may have a better voice
or it may sound better or it's a little bit more professional, I feel like when authors read their
own books it gives it more soul because they're the ones who wrote it so they know the stories in it,
they know how to say certain parts in the way that they want to say it, so I think it's fantastic.
So with all of that, if you guys are interested in checking out any of these books you can visit
audible.com/rowena or text "rowena" to 500-500 If you guys aren't familiar with audible, they are the
leading provider of spoken word entertainment and audiobooks ranging from bestsellers to celebrity
memoirs and self-development. Beyond books they also have podcasts, wellness guided programs, sleep
programs with Nick Jonas and Diddy, it's pretty cool... and theatrical performances, a-list comedy
as well as exclusive audible originals. I mostly use it for listening to books but there's just
a lot of things that you can explore with your membership, so if again this is something you guys
want to check out visit audible.com/rowena or text rowena it to 500 500.
And with that thank you guys so much for joining me, thank you for being a part of the sweet potato fam, thank you for
watching all the way to the end... If you watch all the way to the end, give me some sweet potatoes and hearts
in the comments section! Maybe there will be none. Maybe there will be a lot. We shall see! Hug hug
as always, and I hope you guys are having a beautiful day, it just started thunderstorming
outside in New York right now but you know what hey it's okay it'd be like that sometimes, and it is so hot.
Alright! I feel like a new woman just by the way with my hair cut this short okay bye!