Your To-Do List Should Support Your Energy
You know those shape sorting boxes. The ones where you have a rectangle, square, circle, diamond, etc. and you have to find the matching slot where it can fit through and drop into the box?
Well, we are very into that toy right now, but my son gets the diamond and the triangle mixed up all the time. He will sit there for what feels like minutes trying to force the triangle into the diamond slot or vice versa. The more times he tries, the harder he pushes, and eventually he's grunting and visibly frustrated.
That's usually my cue to step in, rotate the box, and show him the correct slot where the diamond easily fits and falls in.
We both sigh in relief. It feels so good when the shapes are aligned.
Now, I would never compare my clients to my toddler, but sometimes, they too just need someone with an outside perspective to calmly walk over, ask a question, and help them see what they missed because they were too close to the problem.
Those AHA moments, those sighs of relief, are some of the things I love most about coaching.
Not all days are created equal
Just last week I had a client frustrated with how she was showing up each day. She is super organized and has a great system to track all of the things she needs and wants to do. But when it came to execution, she just wasn't doing it.
She would make a plan for the day, put a realistic number of things on her list, and even add in time to exercise a few times a week. But with the variability of her workdays dealing with patients and the inconsistent sleep habits of her baby, she hadn't considered the idea that not all days are created equal.
So I asked her...
Are there any days where you have more energy than others?
When in the week is your energy at its lowest?
And that is when her lightbulb went off.
She was applying the same formula to every day and expecting her energy and motivation to be there consistently, day in and day out.
But the truth is, for most of us, our energy ebbs and flows throughout the week.
Think of it as a circle
Next, I asked her..
What if you thought of your week as a circle?
At the top of the circle are the days when you feel energized, motivated, and productive. For my client, those days are Monday and Tuesday. She starts her work week on Monday and if she's had a restful weekend, she's ready to go!
After a couple of productive days, and maybe some not so restful nights being up with the baby, her energy starts to decrease so that by Thursday evening, she's at her low for the week. It's why Thursday and Friday are the days she's ready to throw her to-do list out the window and just scroll on her phone instead.
Saturday and Sunday, if managed correctly, are days where her energy starts increasing again because she's relaxing, resting, and spending time with family to refresh herself for another start of the cycle on Monday.
If you think about your weeks, do they follow a similar cycle? Maybe the days of the week are different for you, but is there a natural high and low in terms of your energy and motivation?
If yes, USE IT to YOUR ADVANTAGE!!!
Work with your energy
Do the big-picture, important projects when you have high energy, and put the easier, organizational, purely execution tasks on your low energy days.
Plan adventures with your kids or sweat-inducing workouts with your high energy, and some snuggle time and yoga sessions during your low energy days.
When you try to apply the same formula to each day, i.e. I must cross 5 things off my to-do list, workout every morning, and be wildly productive, you'll succeed some days and "fail" on others.
Whereas if you KNOW that the motivated, productive energy just doesn't exist for you on certain days, and you PLAN for that, you won't be disappointed. You'll be honoring how you feel and working with your energy instead of against it.
It was a simple shift really, but it made a world of difference for my client in how she approaches her weeks and most importantly, how she feels about them.
And not surprisingly, she gets the same amount of things done, if not more, by working with her energy.
All it took was someone with an outside perspective asking 2 simple questions.
That's the power of coaching.
Have you ever thought about your week as a circle instead of a straight line, like what we see on a calendar? If not, are you going to now??
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