Time management isn’t what it used to be.

In the current workplace and economy — disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and new workforce expectations — organizations need to seek out new ways to keep their workforce motivated, engaged, productive and thriving. This is especially true in hybrid and remote work environments and means employees need help differentiating what’s a priority and what isn’t to operate at their fullest potential. In fact, a study conducted at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence reveals that many employees who are highly engaged in their workplace are as well exhausted and ready to leave their organizations.

It’s No Longer About Peak Performance, It’s About Energy

The old model of time management focused on “peak performance” in a way that’s irrelevant to the modern workforce. In this new era of knowledge work, businesses need to align to changing needs and preferences which necessitate constant shifts in priorities and bursts of urgent requests. This is challenging for those who are linear thinkers or who prefer to follow rules and protocols in an orderly, prescribed fashion.

To develop an organization that performs at its best, learning leaders need to help employees to find ways to do more with the time they have: We need to shift the focus from managing our time to managing our energy.

The following four strategies will help you get there.

Strategy No. 1: To increase performance, focus on managing your energy, not your time.

Many of us race through life without ever taking a break. In the current environment of remote or hybrid work, many of us are unclear where work stops, and “home” starts. Offices gave us a sense of time management that now often eludes us. And time alone won’t help us achieve our goals. We also need energy: Without it, we can’t perform at an engaged level for any sustained period.

Each of us has a limited amount of energy. If we expend more energy than we can recover, it will inevitably end in burnout. In fact, recovery is an integral part of sustaining high levels of energy and thus peak performance.  In Nathaniel Kleitman’s famous research, he found that humans can only operate at optimum levels of engagement for about 90 minutes at a time. He called this the Ultradian Rhythm. Kleitman suggested that we need to rest approximately 10-15 minutes after every 90-minute “burst.” At work, this means taking a relaxing break. Have a coffee, connect with colleagues, or take a stroll through a nearby park for fifteen minutes.

As you plan your work, also plan your breaks. You can plan your entire day around these work-break “bursts” and have four to five of them in a workday.

Strategy No. 2: Embrace the value of vitality and creativity.

There’s never been a greater need — or value — for creativity in the workplace. In our current era of digital business, there has never been a fiercer level of competition. Clients and colleagues don’t so much need your time management prowess and organization skills as they do your creativity, vitality and idea generation often associated with a focus on personal energy management.

To drive high levels of vitality and creativity, we need to first find ways to focus most efficiently on our work. Rather than focus on a long list of to-dos, the best control their focus by seeking impact.

A helpful tool to accomplish this is to create a daily “big six” list: six priorities each day that will drive you to your week’s most vital outcome. This beneficial hack keeps you from becoming too tactical with your to-dos and ensures your laser attention on the right work. Once you’re able to keep your focus through realistic optimism, you can set your sights on boosting your creativity and managing your time and energy to allow your own brain to perform in both its analytical and creative capacities.

Strategy No. 3: Think big and focus on the broader context of what you do.

Jim Collins in his best-selling book, “Built to Last,” chronicled what successful companies did to ensure their lasting success. One of the greatest findings was the ability of organizations to think bigger. Collins coined the team BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) to describe the goals these companies set that seemed impossible on their face, but once broken down appeared more attainable. But to attain challenging goals on a personal level, we need to ensure we have the right sources of energy to stay on mission.

Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz tell us in their book, “The Power of Full Engagement,” that there are three additional sources of energy we bring with us to our work: emotional, mental and spiritual.

• Emotional flexibility allows us to align our emotions appropriately to a given situation rather than responding with rigidity. This allows us to experience the business day on a flat emotional plane, minimizing tone and subjectivity.
• Mental endurance keeps us focused and concentrated over time. It helps us, for instance, to power through the times when we’d rather quit but shouldn’t.
• Spiritual strength helps us stay connected to what we value most deeply. These values are our life’s compass, which keeps us connected to our career and personal life mission.

Focusing on and maximizing each of these energy levels will help us perform at our peak and give us the very best chance of achieving what we want. We should use them to set bigger goals that drive and inspire us. These are goals that at first blush almost seem impossible to achieve but, with a good plan and deep energy stores, can be done.

Energy in the New World of Work

Today’s and tomorrow’s workplace presents new challenges and opportunities that are different from what we’ve seen before. Each of us must develop the ability to adjust and respond to the challenges of balancing a remote working environment while maintaining personal and professional engagement.

The good news is that people are resilient creatures and, with the help of sound energy management and full engagement practices, organizations can help individuals achieve a sense of accomplishment and purpose in their work, no matter where they work or the type of interactions they experience.

To help individuals become and remain fully engaged, people must learn to actively build their energy capacity and direct this energy intelligently to the right tasks and activities each day. Performing at our best requires focus and finding ways to do more with the precious and limited time we possess.

In tomorrow’s workforce, managing our energy is not only a recommendation — it is a survival strategy.