Energy and Attention Management

I used to think I was really good at time management.

The person who's usually getting the family out the door on time to go someplace? That's me. Who has missed exactly one flight, because of a flat tire? Me as well.

Early in my career as a television journalist, I filled in as a weekend anchor for a few months. We were a pretty lean operation, so the weekend anchors also produced their own shows. This means I would write everything up, share the scripts with the technical team and keep time, cutting or lengthening stories on the fly while delivering the news on live television.

Having this kind of experience in my early 20s gave me two gifts. The first was being able to come across as somewhat credible and warm for 30 minutes while feeling like I need to vomit almost the whole time. The second was an almost hyper-awareness of time.

I've since learned that despite all of that awareness, time cannot be managed. It's a constant. It goes by whether we'd like it or not. We all get the same 168 hours a week in our local time zone. But we can manage our energy and attention -- which affect how we relate to time.

I was thinking about this earlier in the week when some sort of respiratory thing, not Covid, laid me absolutely flat for a day. I'd just come back from a Midwest spring break with my daughter, feeling worn out and slightly achy from all the driving. The next day, I could barely get out of bed. Sore throat, coughing, chills, the works. I had no energy or attention to give anyone or anything. Thank goodness I left a buffer day in my schedule after travel, and that the rest of the family could pick up the domestic slack for me and let me recover.

You can manage a calendar. Indeed, to do work like mine, you must. And I've learned that a lot of the magic in managing the calendar has to do with where energy and attention are best applied. This is why I usually dedicate several morning hours a week to health, fitness and writing.

If you could, how would you block your schedule to fit your energy and attention best? And are you sure you can't?

Image: User:S Sepp, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons