You’re all managing your tasks wrong!

TL;DR Manage your tasks based on your energy levels. This allows to get done work with much more focus, accuracy and efficiency.

I’ve always failed to understand it and I’ve realised it’s not about managing my time, but it’s about managing my energy. That thought just shifted my entire perspective on everything.

I’ve been thinking for so long, how do I manage and schedule my tasks efficiently so that I can get more quality work done without burning out.

Managing your tasks based on the time of day or the day of the week doesn’t suit you. You don’t feel the same or have the same motivation or energy through every single day of the week or every single time of a day. If you try to plan and schedule your tasks according to someone else, you might have noticed that it doesn’t fit into your flow. This is because their life is different from yours and the energy flow they have is also very different. As both of you have different energy flows, you can’t cope up with the type of planning he had and might fail to get things done.

If you want to get done a task, you should take into account the impact of it on your energy. If you try to do a hard task when you feel too tired, you will burn out. This is why understanding your own energy levels and planning accordingly will help you manage your tasks efficiently.

To first of all, understand your energy levels. I suggest you follow these steps. This process might take a week to actually finish. If you feel like you’ve understood your energy levels, you can skip the rest of the days.

For this process, we divide each day into 4 different phases:

• Morning － Increased alertness and brain activity, feels energised.
• Afternoon －Experiences a “dip” in energy levels, feeling tired.
• Evening －Body prepares for rest
• Night －Decreased alertness and brain activity, feels tired, needs rest.

The energy levels described is commonly found in people and it may vary between each individual. What I want you to do is take down a diary and write down your mental and physical state in it on every single phase of the day and what you did at that time of the day. I want you to repeat this for a week.

Now, that we have jotted down our energy levels. Let’s take a look and understand it. If you have mornings of low-energy levels, you should shift activities that require high brain-activity to another time of the day. Now, take a look at the things you want to complete and you might see things that doesn’t require much attention or high energy. You can now move it to the top of your todo-list and get it done in the morning.

Based on the energy levels and experience I have understanding, creative works seems to much more possible in the afternoon after energy “dip”. It brings in more daydreaming and construction of illusions in the brain for me. This helps my thought process and articulating new ideas. You can move “creative” work to some time that you have more than or around mid-energy levels. The “complex thinking” tasks could be moved to when you feel highly-energised and the “simple” and low-energy consuming tasks could be moved to when you feel a mediocre energy level, which could be for some people in the “morning” or “evening”. The tasks could include chores you wanted to complete, some errands you wanted to do, etc. If you experience a low-energy level during the night, you should move tasks that require low “critical-thinking”.

But as I said, it’s always up to you. Don’t follow my energy levels. Our energy levels maybe very different. The best way to get your things done is by understanding yourself and by optimising your tasks based on it.