If you’re feeling tired, exhausted or depleted, then here are some easy Time Management Tips to increase your energy, focus & productivity
Do you take care of everyone else and put yourself second? Are you exhausted at the end of the day, feeling depleted and just don’t have as much energy as you’d like?
Discover an easy formula for increasing your energy with “Radical Self-Care.” Today we share time management tips and simple ways to change your daily routine to put yourself first, while increasing your energy, your focus, decision-making ability, judgment and productivity so you can live a happier, more balanced life.
You know you should take better care of yourself but you haven’t been able to make the changes you know you need to make.
You set a goal. You have good intentions to lose weight, stop smoking, get more sleep eat a healthier diet, exercise or be more productive with your time and maybe you set time aside to do these things. But then something gets in the way and by the end of the day you’re exhausted. Too much gets thrown at you or you just can’t filter out all the chaos in your life. That priority you had, to make a change in your life, shifts and gets pushed to the bottom of the heap for another day.
It’s hard to make a change if we’ve developed habits that don’t support us. And when it comes to changing a habit, people are only motivated to change for 2 primary reasons: to seek pleasure or to avoid pain. Unfortunately avoiding pain is a greater motivator for most people.
Sometimes it takes an extraordinary event to become motivated enough to make a change and focus on taking better care of ourselves.
It took a horrible car accident to wake me up and change the way I was spending my time and living my life. I describe that story and how my life unfolded in my book, Triple Your Time Today on Amazon.
My colleague Gary is another good example of finally being motivated enough to make a change. Gary helps me with my website and the other day I called him to get help with changes I’m making. When I asked him casually how he was doing, he replied, “Much better since I had a heart attack 2 weeks ago.” My jaw dropped. I didn’t know what to say. I said, “Well how are you feeling?” Thinking he was probably speaking to me while he was laid up in bed and feeling guilty about having called him. But he said, “I’m really good now that they put 2 stints in and I’m getting more oxygen to my heart and brain.”
Then I remembered Gary had told me he was a smoker and had smoked most of his life. I asked him if he’d given up smoking and he said, “Yup, 2 weeks ago, right after I had my heart attack!”
You don’t have to go through a physical trauma or life changing car accident to be motivated enough to change your habits and take better care of yourself. The following time management tips can help.
If your energy is depleted and you feel exhausted most of the time, you want to make a change but you don’t know how to go about taking better care of yourself, then on time management radio, we discuss a formula for radical self care and time management tips with my guest Laurie Erdman, who’s known as the Get More Energy Expert.
Not long ago, Laurie was a corporate vice president and lawyer, working 60+ hours a week, chasing deadlines and deals. She was fueling her life from the vending machine and was on a first name basis with the barista. She knew something big was missing but didn’t know what else to do other than be a lawyer. She was too scared to quit her stressful-but-secure job and “find” herself; She had bills to pay. She was unhappy, unfulfilled, but resigned herself to a “someday I’ll feel fulfilled” life. She was burnt out. Then one day she received an unexpected call right before Christmas telling her she had multiple sclerosis. At that moment, she knew everything in her life had to change.
She made a commitment to immerse herself in absolutely everything that had to do with getting more energy, health and vibrancy. Laurie will share time management tips on how she changed her life and how she now helps clients get more energy, more time and feel more fulfilled. She offers 5 insider tips for eliminating fatigue and unleashing your inner superhero on her website at chronicwellnesscoaching.com. Listen to the interview here…
Time Management Tips to increase your energy, focus & productivity
You can take better care of yourself and increase your energy, focus and productivity without having to wait years or make the same mistakes Gary, Laurie and I made. Making a change is never easy, especially if it’s the result of an ingrained habit. But habits can be changed. Resolving to take better care of yourself need not come as the result of an accident or major medical emergency.
- The first step in taking better care of yourself and making any change is making a choice to spend your time in a new way that serves you better or gets you better results.
- If you really want more energy, focus and productivity and you want to change the way you take care of yourself, then you’ve got to start by making a commitment to put yourself first.
- Then you need to understand your motivation for not making a change.
Use this time management tip to grab a piece of paper or your laptop and write out the answers to these questions:
- How is not taking better care of myself helping me? What is the benefit or upside? There must be some benefit to you otherwise you’d already be taking better care of yourself.
- How is not taking better care of myself hurting me, what is it costing me? Money, time, productivity, focus, energy, health?
- What’s the downside to taking better care of myself? There must be reasons why you don’t take better care of yourself—what are they?
- What is the upside to taking better care of myself? How will it help me? What are the benefits to putting myself first. List all the benefits to taking better care of yourself.
Take a good look at the answers and weigh the risks and rewards. Your answers will reveal hidden clues to what’s really stopping you from changing your habits and your routines to take better care of yourself.
No matter what you’d like to accomplish, the secrets to feeling better, increasing your energy, focus and productivity and achieving success are the same with these time management tips…
- Develop Awareness. Notice how you spend your time during the day and what you think about. What stops you from reaching your daily objectives? This is the first step toward making any change in habit or routine.
- Decide what you want. Be as specific as possible. What do you want to change? The clearer you are about what you want in your life, the more you’re likely to achieve your goals.
- Get Perspective. Most people don’t tell anyone what they want or what they’re struggling with and they don’t seek an outside perspective. Without perspective, you won’t be able to see your way out of your current situation and you’ll stay stuck right where you are.
- Get Support. Very few people achieve anything great alone. Be willing to take responsibility for taking better care of yourself and how you spend your time. Ask for help from people around you, take a home study course, read a book or hire a coach so you can get the help you need to take better care of yourself and increase your energy, focus and productivity starting today!
And if you sign up for my Ezine in the box at the top of this post, I’ll send you the latest time management tips. You’ll also find information about time management training programs, my book, Triple Your Time Today! and executive and corporate coaching. So sign up today and let me know how to reach you. It’s the only way I can share additional information with you.
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Kathryn McKinnon is an executive coach dedicated to helping you change the way you spend your time so you can change your life. These stories, along with time management tips and strategies to save more time are found in Triple Your Time Today! on Amazon. If you’d like to hear easy ways to take better care of yourself, go to: http://webtalkradio.net/internet-talk-radio/time-management-radio/. If you want help changing the way you or your team spend time and are ready for personal or corporate coaching or training, contact Kathryn McKinnon at [email protected] and discover more time management tips.