For the last decade, the corporate world has been very conscious about time management. We have seen an extraordinary amount of books, audio programs, online courses and other materials that have been created to help us manage our time better.
Why exactly is time management so important? Why has it taken the corporate world and entrepreneurs in every country by storm?
The answer is that time management is really life management. How we manage our time is a direct correlation to how we manage our lives.
I am a huge advocate of being a master of managing our time and finding new ways to incorporate better structure into our lives on a daily basis. However, I have seen countless people who were terrific with how they managed their time but still seemed to not get much of anything of value accomplished.
The reason why someone could be excellent at managing their time but still not rise to the top of their selected profession and live a tremendously satisfying life is because they lack energy management.
Energy management is the missing link. You could be the world’s greatest planner and be very careful about where you spend your time, but if you mismanage your energy it does you absolutely no good.
The key is to become an excellent manager of your time along with mastering where you direct your energy. The major problem I continually see is people directing an enormous amount of energy towards low-value tasks, which then depletes energy levels when it comes time to work on the high-value tasks.
This way of operating will forever create average results.
Instead of working solely on time management, start to analyze and focus on where your energy is going. When you begin to carefully track your energy levels, the results could be substantial simply given the fact that most people neglect managing their energy.
This isn’t to say time management is useless, because it’s not. However, great time management combined with phenomenal energy management could completely change the game for you and take your success levels to new heights.
Before you begin a new task, ask yourself exactly how much energy needs to go into that task.
If an athlete wastes all of their energy in warm ups, how in the world will they have enough energy to perform at their very best when game time comes around? Sadly enough, I have witnessed this exact scenario before several times throughout my football career.
Think of those big tasks and projects that have the ability to advance you closer to the achievement of your goals as your game time. Don’t waste your valuable energy in warm ups.
Energy management is the missing link.
Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com