In this clinic about "Energy Management for Work/Play Balance," Blake explores some simple, effective tools and techniques for maintaining energy throughout the day so we still have time and motivation to get out and play, train, connect, or perform outside of our work and responsibilities. Every day has natural transition points, so you will learn how to use yours, based on your specific needs, to set up, maintain, and wrap-up our day, on purpose.
Based on current evidence-based methods while remaining relatable and applicable to real life’s ebbs and flows. Come ready for discussion, some visualization, and a dash of accountability.
In This Clinic
- A Balancing Act
- What Would You Do With More Energy?
- What is the Primary Ingredient of your Day?
- Transition Points - Morning
- Transition Points - Evening
- Transition Points - Work Day
- The Time Management Matrix
A Balancing Act
How we can balance ourselves and our needs within our responsibilities, within our hobbies or passions in our life?
There's often a tipping point where it's hard to do the things that are important to us, but not not life-changing if we don't do them. We're going to talk a little bit about how to be checked to find our own balance throughout the day and creating that in a sustainable way because that's the most important thing. We can we can try something out for a few days but if we can't sustain it, we don't get the benefit out of it, it's not worth pursuing further.
What Would You Do With More Energy?
- Take a moment to reflect on what you would do if you had more energy in the day, if you had more zest, more aliveness, more awakeness.
- Maybe some of the important things that don't get a lot of attention right now - what would that be for you?
- We start with this because this is your why and this is the motivator this is going to be in some ways a part of the fuel, the the part of you that wants to do more, that wants to thrive more - the part that, for example, wants to balance climbing hard and working hard.
What is the Primary Ingredient of your Day?
Take a moment to reflect on what are the most important things for you to have in your day. Those things that are the most important ingredients for your day; those are the experiences that invite experience, where you feel most tuned in to your life and happiness.
That could be..
- Energy
- Clarity
- Compassion
- Drive
- etc.
We use the power of visualization because it allows our thinking mind to calm down and we can kind of let things come up without judgement, or at least with less judgment.
We use transition points to mindfully move from one part of our day to the next, such as from morning to work to the evening. We'll use these as self-check-in points and organize our day around that. This will help us manage our energy to because we'll only be doing one thing at one time and articulate our energy to have it when we need it through the day.
Transition Points - Morning
Save the intentional moments
In the morning if we want to train, we should be thinking how can we set that up in the evening; if we want to go out, how can we set that up in the morning. Sometimes we can get really lost in the pressure of our lives around us, and when that pressure starts closing in the person in the center can often lose their needs, needs like movement connection play autonomy. Those simple but very important needs will get kind of brushed aside and instead we'll do what's easiest.
Routine v. Ritual
Routine = something that we do on autopilot, something that there's some sort of simplicity with. We're not thinking about it much and we're just doing it; there's not a lot of mental emotional bandwidth involved.
Ritual = could be the same actions or the same thing for one person as a routine could be for another person, but with a ritual the difference is that the action is braided with intention. It has meaning; you're trying to get something out of it or create something special from it.
An example would be meditation. For some, it might simply be a part of their day, but for others it could mean a time of intention, goal setting, etc.
An Intentional Morning Routine
An intentional deliberate morning routine is probably the most strongly evidence-based focal point for a good morning, as it's been studied and found that folks with a deliberate morning routine are more likely to be driven, to maintain energy maintain and to maintain effectiveness throughout the day.
Start Simple
A satisfying morning routine or ritual doesn't have to take hours and hours. It does not mean you have to have to get up at the crack of dawn. It is a place to start - so how does it look like to sustain that?
That's really the power of ritual: something can be really simple but if we do it on purpose it can feed us in a way that's totally unique and even bigger than than whatever small thing we're doing. Like a cup of coffee, if we're really savoring it, that experience can be wildly nourishing as opposed to just like slamming down coffee as we run to the office or something.
Transition Points - Evening
Similar Concepts
What do you need for your evening, what do you need to close the day, what sort of intention would help you wrap up the day?
Also think of your current evening routine: what might you add, subtract, or multiply to meet that need? So start with what is the primary thing that you need in the evening to close out your day, to sleep well - what is that primary ingredient so that your day is wrapped up and tucked away like a little gift so you can leave it and go to sleep?
Keep it really simple, and really manageable but truly think about what would be a really potent way to wrap up your day.
Two Bookends
Morning and night are these two kind of bookends of our day because within the rest of the day a lot of things can get lost, but how we start our day is kind of how we're setting the stage for the day and making sure our needs will be met throughout the day, and how we end it is how we close it out to ensure the next day will proceed smoothly.
Transition Points - Work Day
Create Distinctions
If we try, we can be 100 focused on working and 100 focused on taking a break - so with that in mind, what would set you up to really show up to your work day purposefully?
What kind of mindful routine or ritual would transition you into work mode on purpose; what could that look like for you to create clear distinction between this is my time to be a real human with needs and then this is my time to focus on work and prioritize that?
Boundaries
Boundaries are essentially what we're saying yes to, which, in a roundabout way, also sometimes includes what we're saying no to as well.
Not setting boundaries is. adirect ticket to to getting really burned out, and leads to the kind of energy depletion that leaves us not willing or ready to train because our brain has been switching back and forth all day between work, rest and distractions - and that's exhausting.
The Myth of Multitasking
What would it look for you to transition out of of work or responsibility mode? We don't want to infuse them because then it kind of means we're doing a less effective or efficient job at both. So what would it look like to work for whatever section of time you need and then to break away and focus in a direction aspect of your life?
Multitasking reduces your IQ to similar as if you had smoked marijuana or stayed up all night, and for multitasking men it lowers their iq scores to the average of an eight-year-old child. Neither of which cases you want to be while you're trying to perform at work. Multitasking it's a myth. It doesn't really exist; we're not doing multiple things at once but rather our brain is struggling to do one thing.
The Time Management Matrix
The time management matrix was designed by Stephen Covey who also wrote Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This time management matrix is based on the combination of of urgency and importance, set up as kind of a four square.
Not Important, Not Urgent
- Distractions!
- Phone calls, emails, social media
- General busy work
- These things are holes in your pool of energy as we're often really tempted to go to those unimportant distractions or urgent distractions because they take less emotional investment or bandwidth than what we actually need to do.
Important & Urgent
- A house fire
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Your kid got hurt
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You're hurt
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Some projects or things like that
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For these, we need to drop everything and give them our attention .
Important, NoT Urgent
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This is the heart of this workshop: how we balance work and play, how we balance our lives.
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Your life goals
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Your wellness and well-being
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Connecting with people in your life
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These type of things are not gonna come necessarily banging on the door for your attention; they're gonna be the things that you could put off for a really long time - but also the things we really shouldn't.
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Ex: You could put off training runs for a really long time and and not get enough of them because you're making excuses, but then on game day you're screwed.
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