Managing your time and energy: an engineering approach

One of the biggest drivers of happiness is a well managed life. Very surprisingly, it almost gets no attention in education and on work floors. Probably you now start thinking about 'time-management', a term everyone is familiar with. However, what is most often neglected and equally important is 'energy management'. So you have 2 basic finite resources: time and energy.

This article uniquely combines findings from psychological science with important time management principles. The newly developed concept - what I call 'the engine theory' - will give you a lot of clarity and a practical roadmap to take better control over your own life. Part 1 of this article outlines the concept, Part 2 is about applying it. Let's get started.

Your two key resources: time and energy

Every time you wake up, you start your day with a full bucket of the two resources that matter: time and energy. Throughout this article, we will refer to them as 'fuel'. Indeed, and that's the key message of this article, there is only one bucket fuel a day and it's all about using it wisely. Once you're out of fuel, you're out.

Figure 1: your two daily finite resources

• Time is very simple: we all have 24h in a day and need around 8h of sleep. Let's assume we have 16h in our bucket every day
• Energy is a bit more complex: supported by psychological science, you only have a finite amount of mental and physical capacity in a day. This capacity, together with time, allows you to accomplish things. The psychologist Baumeister calls this capacity 'willpower'. Throughout a day, our willpower depletes. A snack, lunch or nap are temporary refills, but at the end of a long day, your willpower has often been depleted. You need a good night of sleep to fully recharge. As many of you are very familiar with the term 'energy', we'll use it instead of 'willpower', even when strictly speaking, they are not synonyms.

Energy is more complex because as opposed to time, it may vary throughout the day and over days, weeks, months. It's a dynamic resource. Time is a static resource.

First, just look at the very remarkable graph in Figure 2a. The amount of favorable decisions of judges (in that case, favorable for prisoners) at specific times during a day was strongly affected by their access to a snack or lunch. Second, as you know, not every day, week or month is the same. You can feel more tired in wintertime, you may be affected by a cold, fever or stress, and if you have kids, I don't have to explain you that not every night is the same. So as shown in Figure 2b, while the time we have is constant, our energy levels may vary. So your fuel bucket is not equally filled every day.

Figure 2: a real example of the impact of willpower ('energy') depletion on professional decision making (a); the dynamic behaviour of energy levels, as opposed to the non-dynamic time (b)

The engine theory

We all know fuel engines: they consume fuel and convert it into (mostly useful) results (i.e. they work). In fact, your human body does the same: during your life, you spend your time and energy (your fuel) on certain engines that drive certain activities. There are two categories of engines (Figure 3): positive ones and negative ones.

Figure 3: you can spend your time and energy on 'positive projects' or 'negative actions'

Positive engines

These engines drive your positive 'projects': they build your happy life with achievements. All of us have different roles (see Covey's 7 Habits) such as 'parent', 'sales person', 'mentor', 'volunteer', 'friend', 'member of a sports team', ... So your current profession is just one role, or it may be multiple ones combined. All of the 'projects' you choose to work on need certain amounts of time and energy to succeed: the fuel for the positive engines driving your projects. Results do not come without spending fuel. No fuel in your car, no work, no movement.

Negative engines

These engines consume a lot of fuel and only have negative outcomes for you and your environment. Examples are 'anger', 'fear', 'worrying while not solving', 'envy', 'chronic negative thoughts', 'distraction', ... . There is something special about these engines:

• you don't want to feed them with fuel, but they come looking for fuel themselves. This is a negative energy flow.
• with practice, you can control how much fuel they get (e.g. 'you decide to not get stressed in traffic, because you cannot control the situation anyway'; 'you decide to control your temper when your kids challenge you'). This control happens through a small positive engine: your self-control. This green engine, also consuming fuel, controls the fuel valve to the negative engine. When you don't have energy left to control yourself, you hence might 'lose control'. Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman talks about 'System 1' and 'System 2' in your brain (see references). Your System 2 can overrule your more animal-like System 1, but only if a) it's strengthened through practise and b) has sufficient fuel left. At the end of a day, and especially before dinner, this is challenging.

 Figure 4: luckily, the negative energy flow can be conciously controlled - but that takes practice and also energy

Every bit of negative fuel spent cannot be used for positive projects such as your family and kids. Just remember this.

The engine theory in action

Let's bring these concepts togeter and look at Figure 5. Your daily fuel bucket gets consumed throughout the day by different positive and negative engines. I hope most of your fuel goes to positive projects, but undoubtly, some will go to negative non-productive activities. You probably notice the following aspects:

1. Not all engines are equal in size. Some consume more than others.
2. Not all projects are equal in size. Some consume more than others.
3. Not all engines have equal priority. For example, in the case of Figure 5, 'Projects 3 and 4' clearly have lower priority and only get fuel if Projects 1 and 2 'spill over'. Project 4 clearly has lowest priority.
4. Your self-control engine ideally has fuel all the time

Being a business owner, father of 3 kids and a voracious reader, people often ask me: 'how do you combine all of this?'. Well, my answer is quite simple: my Projects 1 and 2 are my business and my wife and kids. My project 3 is my family and friends. So yes, I see my friends less than I used to in the past. And I have less 'hobby projects' as well. And I don't watch any television.

Please note that this prioritisaiton is based on my own values. Your optimal engine configuration (i.e. the ones that provides you happiness) might look very different.

Figure 5: the engine theory in action: watch where the fuel gets consumed

Just like with a real engine, you can make a Sankey diagram as shown in Figure 6. The key message is that you have to divide a finite amount of fuel over carefully chosen projects. We'll come back to that later in this article.

Figure 6: it's easy: if the fuel is limited, it has to be divided over a finite number of projects, and preferably over positive ones

Understand that projects differ

Just like real engines, two main features control the fuel consumption:

1. Engine efficiency (i.e. fuel consumption in proportion to the useful results)
2. Engine power (i.e. the capacity to produce fast - the intensity of the work)

Figure 7: the two big features of engines: efficiency and power

Engine efficiency

Psychological science has also proven that if you work on a project, let's say your job, it's important to have both a) the necessary skill level and b) sufficient challenge (Flow, Csikszentmihalyi).

• If both features are met, you can produce a lot of results (i.e. engine labor) with limited time and energy. This is efficient (you're in 'flow').
• On the other hand, if you're skilled but not challenged, you will face an energy depleting boredom
• And if you're challenged continuously but not sufficiently skilled, you will face an energy depleting anxiety
• Anxiety should not be confused with a person learning new skills: the learning process will consume a lot of fuel initially, while limited results are produced. Learning is temporarily inefficient. The efficiency of such an engine, if that person also likes the project, will rapidly increase.

Both boredom and anxiety can hence lead to small projects needing a fuel-wasting engine. Just try taking on a big project that needs a specific skill you are very weak at. And if you hate your job, it's a big project with a gigantic fuel-wasting engine, both in terms of time and energy.

Engine power

Looking at my personal situation, it's clear that the business I own and lead consumes most of my personal fuel (i.e. time and energy). This clearly is a big engine dominating my life. A second big engine that especially needs time is my own family with 3 kids. My hobby's on the other hand are very simple and without big commitments (e.g. no scheduled sports training). I would call them small projects. Just as with the efficiency attribute, the engine power can vary throughout time. For example: I had a bigger family engine when my 3 kids were babies and toddlers. The crying consumed a lot of my energy and the caring a lot of my time. The same for a business: starting up a business is a totally different commitment than managing a mature business.

Applying the concept: managing your time and energy

So far, we've discussed the concept. Let's now look at how you can use it to your benefit. By now, you'll understand that the amount of projects you can take on is limited simply because your fuel is limited. So if you have a couple of big projects, you simply can feed less engines. If you keep your projects small, you can have more (Figure 8). It depends on how you want to live your life. But everyone needs focus.

Put more wood behind fewer arrows - Larry Page

Send more fuel to fewer engines - Sciencepreneurship

For people with professional ambitions reading this: you can't build a spectacular business or career without making your business or career a very big project. Live with this.

Use this key principle: write down the projects you want to work on and try to prioritize. Then start operating and make sure none of the engines is without fuel for very long periods of time. Revision might be needed. If you don't have a balanced system (Figure 9), two things will happen:

1. Your selected projects will not deliver as expected
2. The projects that hardly get any fuel will decrease your feeling of control

Figure 8: two examples of a balanced situation (the negative engine was removed for simplicity)

Figure 9: an example of an unbalanced situation - some of the engines will not get fuel for long periods of time and might rust out (the negative engine was removed for simplicity)

Concrete tips for managing time and energy

In the first place, understand that time management and energy management are different concepts, and equally important. Time management is avoiding a traffic jam if you can. Energy management is avoiding stress once you're in it.

A dedicated article on these tips will follow. However, here are some good suggestions:

Energy saving tips

• Give people feedback so they can improve, instead of backtalking or pondering about what is annoying you
• Avoid ineffective meetings or discussions and meetings before lunch or dinner - or provide food and drinks
• Surround yourself by positive people. Avoid energy sucking people
• Stay fit and eat healthily. Get sufficient sleep. Eat regularly - slow sugars
• Think about solutions instead of problems
• Search for hobbies you relaly like
• Change bad habits, but focus on one at a time (e.g. don't quit smoking while changing time management habits)

Time saving tips

• Tackle challenges with the OST principle (I have a video on this): Objectives - Strategy - Tactics. Always start with the objective. Many people start with concrete solutions (tactics)
• Apply a very effective self-management system for tasks, emails and calendar. I have a separate blog article on the system that works for me
• Fight perfectionism. Very challenging for some people, but worth fighting

Time and energy saving tips

• Manage your engines: map your projects and control your fuel consumption. Iterate and revise.
• Stay within your circle of influence (Covey). Before spending any energy or time on something, ask yourself: can I actually control this situation? Focus on things that are within your control. (e.g. avoid that useless, fuel consuming twitter discussion; don't have that argument with that inconvincible person you're not depending on, ...)
• Master the super power of delegation - delegate what you're weak at (saves energy) to people that are better at it (saves huge amounts of time)
• Focus on activities that are in line with your strengths and values

If you don’t produce, you won’t thrive, no matter how skilled or talented you are - Cal Newport

Bibliography

1. Willpower (Roy Baumeister) - energy management
2. Danzinger, S., Levav, J. and Avnaim-Pesso, L., 2011, Extraneous factors in judicial decisions, PNAS 108 (17), 6889-6892 - energy management
3. The One Thing (Gary Keller) - time and energy management
4. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey) - time and energy managemnt
5. Thinking, Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman) - brain and self-control
6. Flow (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) - energy management

WHAT.ARE.YOUR.THOUGHTS? If you think this is useful, share!