How to categorize your work into energy levels to increase productivity?

Do you know that 20% of the population owns more than 80% of the world’s money and the rest 20% world’s money is shared by the rest of the 80% population? So what those 20% smart individuals are doing? Education, knowledge, and financial background do not count when you work smartly all the time.

Not all work requires the same amount of energy and focus from you. Some work I can do during cram time, or catch-up time, or somewhat distracted time. For some work, I need high energy levels and the freedom to focus.

For me, it’s writing: the actual production of words on a page. Whether it’s copywriting for a client or writing a post for this blog or another or working on a long-form project, writing requires focus and energy.

Other tasks don’t. A list of low-energy tasks might include…

• answering email,
• scheduling social media updates,
• reading blog posts,
• finding and saving research/studies to read later,
• scheduling,
• final editing and proofing,
• finding/creating images for posts etc.

I have two main blocks of work time in my day, one in the early morning and one in the afternoon. I’m best in the morning, so I give that time to the highest priority, high-energy tasks.

The first part of my afternoon gets the remaining high-energy tasks, and then I tackle the rest because by that time my brain is pretty fried.

It doesn’t always work out that neatly, but I try to schedule myself so I’m not required to stay at high-energy, top-quality, laser-focused levels all day long. Because, frankly, I can’t. So my quality will slip, and I’ll end up either producing something that’s not as good as it could be, or spending way too much time on something that shouldn’t take me so long (because my attention/energy is low), or having to go back later and redo it.

Or all three.

Think about your recurring work tasks.

What can you do in-between, and what do you need to do in your peak hours?

Give yourself a room in your schedule – even if it means taking on less work – to do the high-energy work in your high-energy hours. This is my work management.