Five years ago I chose the path of freelancing and the lines between my work and life began to blur. Then I started my own little family, then moved into my adulthood, and with the birth of my child last year, I realized that I was running out of time.
I grabbed every bit of free time to work, I effortlessly quit swiping on short videos, I didn’t have time to watch my favorite shows and movies, and I started to have time anxiety as my days were crammed full.
I’ve realized that there’s only so much time left in my day for work in addition to sleeping and eating, spending time with my family, reading, running, and all sorts of chores, and it’s impossible to add to that no matter how hard I try.
I also find that while I spend about the same amount of time each day on various things, sometimes I feel energized and sometimes I feel physically drained.
I realized thatI should have focused more on energy management than time management.
Do the important things first
Spend a little time figuring out what consumes your time at work each day and then prioritize them in order of importance. Prioritize the most important part of your day, and it’s okay to put off or not do the unimportant ones.
- Conceptualization and validation of selected topics ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Writing and Revision ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Filming and editing ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Post an article or video ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Reply to comments under articles, videos ⭐️⭐️
- Reader’s Chat ⭐️
- Swipe social media for information ⭐️⭐️
- Organize emails ⭐️
- Surfing the Web ⭐️
Setting deadlines for project organization
“Work will swell to fill all available time.” — Parkinson’s Law (Parkinson’s Law)
If you don’t set a deadline for a project (an article or a video), it’s easy to take far more time to complete it. Reasons for this include inefficient tasks taking up too much time and the dreaded perfectionism.
For example, if I’m planning to research a certain selection and produce and publish a video recently, it often takes a week or more for that video to go live. If you limit yourself to just two days, you’ll eliminate a lot of distractions, ignore the minutiae, and focus on getting it done in a much shorter period of time.
“Parkinson’s Law” appears to be a time management concept (compression of working hours), but in reality, it is energy management, i.e., focusing on the most important 20% of things instead of being distracted by the 80% of insignificant things.
Improve work focus and reduce distractions
If you can’t concentrate and focus on something, you’ll never have the time.
–The 4-Hour Workweek (Timothy Ferriss)
Concentration is arguably the scarcest and most valuable resource for brain workers.
–Building the Second Brain P164
With so many distractions and temptations on your phone and computer, it’s important to create a work environment with fewer interruptions, such as turning off notification alerts for WeChat and email in ‘work mode’ (which is easy to do with a Mac), keeping your phone out of sight, or even disconnecting your Mac when writing. Try using the Tomato Clock to create time slots for focusing on your work.
If you are working from home, communicate with your family ahead of time that you will not disturb me during work hours unless it is important (which is very rare).
Do something every day that restores your energy
Energy is like a battery in the body; it can be depleted and replenished throughout the day. There are many things that can be done to restore our energy, as well as ‘recharge’ it.
The most important thing is sleep. Regular and sufficient sleep ensures that the ‘batteries’ in the body are fully charged. If you don’t sleep well the night before, you won’t have enough energy battery the next day, and you won’t have much energy left to do important tasks.
Exercise is also important as well as a healthy diet.
A few suggestions for exercise:
1, don’t be sedentary. Many people will underestimate the health hazards of sitting for a long time, Apple Watch has a standing reminder, you can also use the software to set up a timed reminder, for example, every half an hour to stand up and move for 2 minutes (you can do 20 push-ups or squats, it’s not difficult, right).
2, 10-minute walks after lunch and dinner.
3, at least 30 minutes of brisk walking or jogging (Zone 2 training) at least 4 times per week.
If you can do these three things for a long time, your physical fitness will not be too bad, and each of them is not difficult to do, the hard part is to stick to it for a long time.
I also have two more actionable suggestions about healthy eating:
1, one (boiled or steamed) egg + one cup of plain milk per day. For those who are intolerant to plain milk, you may consider yogurt (preferably without any added sugar or containing only less than 4% sucrose);
2, eat less over-processed foods (UPFs), 99% of the packaged snacks in the supermarket belong to this kind, even if you drink 100% pure freshly squeezed juice, its benefits to the human body is not as good as directly eating the fruit itself, because drinking fruit juice glycemic index (GI) is usually higher than directly eating fruits, and juice will lose a lot of good for the body’s dietary fiber.
My current list of beverages (other than plain water) is only plain milk, black coffee, and tea.
That about the increase in energy management
There’s another aspect to this.
From relationships
Especially in intimate relationships.
Good intimacy will be a nourishment for your energy
It’s also a recharge.
As a final point, recognize the reality that there really isn’t enough time, lower your goal expectations, and be imperfectionist.