Dan Martell - Why Energy Management Is Better Than Time Management

Time management is trying to figure out the productivity side of the equation. Energy management is saying what is the energy involved to accomplish that task and what part of the day do I do that? I feel like it s more important to manage the tasks and energy levels of those tasks throughout the day than to try to just overly schedule and be super productive.

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody what's up it's Dan here and today I want to talk about the

00:00:04.360 difference between time management and energy management. A lot of people

00:00:09.240 confuse the two and it's been something that's been instrumental in my

00:00:12.180 entrepreneurial career to get right because I believe that you can't manage

00:00:16.920 time. Time is infinite like this minute or these minutes you're gonna watch this

00:00:21.280 video are just gonna occur. You can only decide what you do within that time and

00:00:25.320 what I've learned over the years and it's taken me like 10 plus years to

00:00:29.400 figure this out is that it's more important to manage the tasks and energy

00:00:34.520 levels of those tasks throughout your day than to try to just overly schedule

00:00:39.420 and be super productive or whatever you think that is. So again, energy

00:00:43.080 management over time management. So here's how it works. Time management is

00:00:47.520 trying to figure out the productivity side. Energy management is saying what is

00:00:52.740 the energy involved to accomplish that task and what part of the day do I

00:00:58.200 Do I feel would be the best to represent that?

00:01:01.360 So here's how I do it for me.

00:01:03.000 I always like to start my day with the best routine.

00:01:05.980 I call it the morning ritual.

00:01:07.700 And this always involves, just because of me again, everybody's different.

00:01:11.460 I always go to bed somewhat early, around 9.30, 10 o'clock at night.

00:01:15.000 I like to get up early and go to the gym.

00:01:17.340 Because I know that if I go to the gym, I'm going to have one of the most amazing days.

00:01:21.080 I then spend time getting ready for the day.

00:01:23.720 It's kind of like my planning moment where my willpower and my brain and my thoughts

00:01:27.900 on what do I want to do that day are really the strongest.

00:01:31.400 So I sit down and I plan my day.

00:01:33.280 Now I usually get one or two what I call big rocks and it's not my concept.

00:01:38.520 Many people have written about this online.

00:01:40.520 Many big rocks finish for the day in the morning.

00:01:43.740 This is before anybody else, any other meetings that I schedule.

00:01:47.020 I try to schedule my first meeting at 10 a.m. with the team.

00:01:50.420 Everything's done before 10 a.m.

00:01:51.940 This is when I move the big rocks so that if I get nothing done for the rest of the

00:01:55.060 day, which I'm sure you've experienced where at the end of the day you'll look back and

00:01:58.380 say, what did I do with my day?

00:02:00.940 You'll at least get that done.

00:02:02.400 So I get those big rocks moving.

00:02:04.980 Then I try to do paperwork after my morning meetings.

00:02:07.820 Again, it's just the way my brain works.

00:02:09.340 I just feel like I'm more detailed oriented right before lunch.

00:02:12.120 I always have lunch with people.

00:02:15.040 It's the only part of my day because I have two small kids and I'm very involved in kind

00:02:19.840 of spending time with them.

00:02:21.880 is my time to interact with people from outside the business. Anybody who wants to reach out to

00:02:26.060 me and have lunch, that's when we do it. And then after lunch is when I organize my in-person

00:02:31.140 meetings. For me, it's a lot of phone calls. I don't like traveling or spending time in the car.

00:02:36.880 I think that's a huge time waster. If you're that kind of person that always goes to errands,

00:02:41.560 you really got to ask yourself, why do I always need to drive to go see somebody? What if I could

00:02:45.320 get them to come to me? Or even better yet, what if we just did a phone call or shot an email? I

00:02:49.840 think a lot of people spend time in commute that don't need to. That is my afternoon. So I keep

00:02:56.660 the energy high because usually at lunch if you didn't eat something super lean it's going to

00:03:00.800 have an effect. So I do my phone calls, I do my meetings, it energizes me. And then at night time

00:03:06.380 after I always get the kids and then bring them back and kind of feed them, bathe them, put them

00:03:10.480 to bed. At night time is when I do my research. This is for consuming any content that might have

00:03:15.840 came out through the day. I don't like getting distracted. I'm easily distracted and it's probably why I spent so much time trying to figure out this process. So at night time is when I sit down and I read anything, I research stuff, I kind of go through all the stuff that I need to learn more about to kind of work on my day or my week or my month. And that is my night time routine. So that's how I manage the energy levels throughout the day knowing who I am. Some people like to work late. I used to be that way but it just seems when you've got human

00:03:45.600 alarm clocks you just can't do that as well so for whatever it is for you just

00:03:51.060 understand that it's not about time management you'll get way more done when

00:03:54.420 you start thinking about what are the energy levels during the day what is the

00:03:58.140 most suited type of tasks that match those energy levels and how can I put

00:04:03.120 them in group them together so that I get those things done in that form again

00:04:08.340 my friend Alex asked me to do these videos I'm gonna do one a day for the

00:04:11.460 the next 30 days, every Monday, I will see you next Monday

00:04:15.000 and I'd love to hear from you in the comments below.

00:04:17.160 Let me know what the biggest takeaway,

00:04:19.080 let me know what you wanna hear from me,

00:04:20.380 I'd love to understand that.

00:04:21.920 So just leave a comment below and I'll see you next Monday.

00:04:24.820 Have an amazing week.

Dan Martell - December 10, 2014

Why Energy Management Is Better Than Time Management

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