The Millennial Pilgrim: Not time management, we need energy management

In a time-starved world, where we are trying to pack as many activities in the meagre 24 hours we all have, we have to find creative ways of being able to do things we enjoy and live with a sense of non-hurry. It is not uncommon to marvel from time to time, how a year has gone by without us even noticing. There is something sad about time passing by so fast. It’s as if we have been robbed of precious moments of presence. It’s not just the regret of having sleep-walked through most days that makes us sad, but also the regret of not using each day optimally. Of having lost days to meaningless fixations, which now seem to add up to nothing.

To fully use time, we don’t need more time management tools or reminders. Most of us are not Prime Ministers or CEOs. It’s not like we wake up in the morning to several interview requests, thousands of files to be cleared, and meetings with heads of states of other countries. That kind of hectic is for a minuscule population. Most of us live a normal life, with a normal schedule of waking up, going to work, eating and then sleeping. So, all this motivational toolkit around how to manage your time is quite useless. To be honest, we have way too much time on our hands. There are no urgent tasks to be done. Or else we wouldn’t spend the entire day scrolling through social media.

Thus, there is something fundamentally wrong with drawing up timetables and to-do lists because they never work. What can work, though, is our close attention to how we feel at a given point in time, in terms of energy. It is energy that we need to get the maximum number of things on a given day.

First, a look at why we end up wasting energy. To my mind, we lose our energy to primarily three things.

Fear of getting started: There is always some resistance to getting started. Be it finishing that pending article, or getting the laundry done, there is a lot of inertia one needs to overcome. It is very difficult to automate tasks for human beings without feeling like robots. Waking up in the morning and brushing our teeth is probably one of the few automated behaviours that gets the day started. That’s because brushing teeth doesn’t require any cognitive energy. You can do it while planning your entire day, or having an imaginary conversation with your boss, about why you may turn up late that day. But you can’t do the same while doing your morning Yoga, as it requires a fair bit of balance and alignment. Anything that isn’t automated behaviour requires us to make efforts.

To overcome the initial resistance is the first hurdle one must clear. The negotiation with the resistance is extremely time-consuming. Fear of jumping into action is our mind not wanting to come out of the automated action. That’s why it’s so easy to spend hours scrolling through Instagram because the brain likes the things that are easy to do. Yet, there is another part of the brain which is alarmed by the amount of time we are wasting. The wrestling between these two voices is extremely energy consuming. What we

Wanting to do everything at one time: On Sundays, I have plenty of time for the things I love to do. On workdays, most decisions about what you need to work on are taken by a senior or decided by external forces. But on a day when you are free to choose what you want to do, the biggest energy killer is the decision about what exactly to do.

Lingering effect of the previous moment: Yes, this one is a big energy sucker. We dwell on the moment that passed by for a long time. Now, go back to a scenario where you had a regular, non threatening conversation with your boss. What happens after you have dropped the call? You go over, every word you said, or was said to you. It keeps you disturbed, slightly on the edge for some time. Whether it is a good thing or a bad one, certain events trigger a tinge of excitement in our body - be it a call from a senior from work or a crush. Our entire chemical system in the body goes haywire. It takes us some time before we can come back to base level.

How best to preserve and manage energy:

Meditate and re-centre when something has visibly affected you or caused a mild emotional turmoil.

Take the decisions that you need to execute early in the morning, one night in advance.

Don’t make everything about yourself and take nothing personally.

Ritualise your mornings.

Don’t beat yourself up when you miss the ritual or the routine. Start from where you dropped.

Do the difficult things when you have the maximum energy.

Take a small post lunch power nap.

Never forget to relax your body once you are done with your work.

Finally, stimulate yourself visually when you start your work.

The key to energy management is stimulation and relaxation at the right time, in the right quantity. If we can do that, we have endless energy to accomplish most things we want to accomplish in the limited number of waking hours in our day.

(The writer is a mental health and behavioural sciences columnist, conducts art therapy workshops and provides personality development sessions for young adults. She can be found as @the_millennial_pilgrim on Instagram and Twitter.)