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How many productive hours a day do you have in you?
It's a more important question than you might think. When I was starting out in leadership, I might have answered that by saying eight, or ten. Or twelve.
What about you? How many productive hours do you think you have in you?
Like many driven leaders, I thought I was superhuman. Pushing the pedal all the way to the floor worked for a while, until it didn't.
Then—also like a growing number of leaders—I hit the wall. I burned out.
When I rebuilt my leadership in the years that followed, I started to manage my energy, not just my time.
Here's what I learned.
As driven and determined as I was, I really only had three to five peak hours in me every day during which my energy was high, focus was clear and my mind was sharp.
At first, that observation made me feel like a fraud. If I get paid for full-time work and put in eight or more hours in a day, how can I only have three to five peak hours in a day?
After doing more research and testing this theory with other leaders I've trained, guess what? Most leaders have only three to five deeply productive hours in a day when their energy is at its peak. That's it.
When I was writing my latest book, AtYour Best, where I explain how to leverage your peak and non-peak hours, I flirted with the idea of calling the book The Three Hour Workday (with apologies to Tim Ferriss). Obviously, that wasn't going to fly, but often that's how I think about my day, and I'd encourage you to think about your day too.
Here are five principles that will help you leverage your energy, especially your peak hours. Once you master this concept, you will get far more done in your peak three hours than you realize.
It starts here, by accepting that not all hours are created equal.
1. Accept that 24 equal hours don't feel equal or produce equally
You get 24 equal hours each day, but those hours don't feel equal or produce equally.
You might bring a ton of energy to a 10 a.m. meeting, but step into the board room at 4:30 p.m. and you might be struggling to stay awake and hyper-caffeinating just to make it through.
Here's the truth…your energy waxes and wanes over the course of the day. You're not a robot. You're human.
Daniel Pink points out that even physicians struggle with this. Anesthesiologists have an 'adverse event' about 1 percent of the time during 9 a.m. surgeries. At 4 p.m., the rate rises to 4.2 percent. In other words, you're 400 percent more likely to have a problem in an afternoon procedure than you are in a morning procedure. Why? Simple: research shows even doctors have trouble focusing in the afternoon.
Most of you reading this post aren't doing surgery. Many of you have more control over your schedule than a doctor does. Which means you find yourself in this glorious space: you have a real choice in whether you co-operate with your energy levels, or compete with them.
Co-operating with your energy levels is a much better strategy than competing with them.
Ironically, ignoring your energy levels (as in, pretending they don't vary) puts you on the fast track to making you less productive.
2. Find your Green Zone (+ your Yellow and Red Zones)
The second step in maximizing your peak three to five hours is to divide your day into three zones: Green Yellow and Red.
Think of your peak 3-5 hours as your Green Zone—when your energy, focus, creativity, and great ideas flow easily and sharpest. When you're in your Green Zone, you have enthusiasm for the tasks ahead. During those 3-5 hours each day, you're at your best.
Your Red Zone is the opposite—it's those 1-2 hours when you're dragging, need caffeine to stay awake and you can't focus deeply on anything. In your Red Zone, not only do you not produce your best work—sometimes you struggle to produce anymeaningful work.
Your Yellow Zone consists of the hours in between—you are neither at your best or at your worst. You're in the middle. You're fine in meetings, you can produce content or plan ahead. It's not your best work, but definitely not your worst.
Your results will differ, but my Green Zone happens between 7-11 a.m. every day, and (on good days) I get an extra hour between 1-2. My Red Zone is from 4-6 p.m. Everything else is Yellow.
Now that you know when you're at your best, shift your workload accordingly.
Do your most important work during your Green Zone, your least important work during your Red Zone (or, alternatively, take a break), and do everything else in your Yellow Zone.
If you get your peak hours right, the rest of the hours take care of themselves.
If you don't get your peak hours right, you almost can't work enough hours to make up for mismanaging them. Plus your stress level skyrockets.
3. Figure out what you're best at
To maximize your peak hours, you not only need to discover when you're at your best, but what you're best at. In other words, you need to figure out what to do in your Green Zone.
The most strategic Green Zone use is to spend it on activities anchored in your gifting and passion that have a big impact on your organization's mission.
If you Venn diagram it, it comes together like this:
Your giftingis your sweet spot—what you uniquely do best. Your passionis what you love doing. And impact refers to those things that, when done, will make the biggest difference to your mission.
When those three circles overlap, you find leadership gold. Everything becomes easier, more enjoyable, and ends up having a bigger impact.
In my role as a senior leader, I've found I've had the most success in my Green Zone when I focus on five things:
There are about eighty-six other things I could spend my time on, but these five produce the greatest results.
The question for you, then, is: what will produce the greatest results for you?
In your Green Zone, do that.
Once you identify your optimal Green Zone focus, you'll not only enjoy your work more, you'll see much better results.
4. Stop reacting to everything and everyone
The biggest obstacles to maximizing your peak three to five hours each day can be summarized in two words: everything and everyone.
Knowing you have three to five productive hours in a day and using those three to five hours effectively are two very different things.
Far too many days go down in flames because you have a to-do list that never becomes a 'done' list. Meanwhile, all kinds of things that weren't on your to-do list got done.
If you look at it honestly, the "oh my goodness, what happened to my day?" phenomenon you and I experience is not really a mystery. Nine times out of 10, you simply spent your day reacting to everything that came your way.
If you don't protect your Green Zone, you'll accomplish everyone else's priorities and never accomplish yours.
So, protect those hours. Work in a quiet environment, turn off all notifications on your devices and double down.
5. Let three to five focused hours replace your normal ridiculous hours
The reason you take your stress home, work ridiculous hours and feel like you're never finished is usually because your most important work didn't get done when you were working.
When when your most important work never gets done, you never feel done. Which causes you you to work all the time.
Ask any preacher whose sermon is still 'in development' Friday afternoon, any CEO who is not clear on strategy for the next quarter, or any manager who hasn't dealt with their toughest team issues, whether they can relax and they'll look at you like you have three heads.
When you realize you've basically got three to five hours to accomplish your most significant work, and you focus deeply enough to do it, everything else becomes so much easier. Doing that five days a week means you'll not only catch up, but you'll also likely get ahead.
I know when I get my major content done I almost feel like I can call it a day. I don't—I have meetings and other things that are less important to do. But the big stuff is done.
Which means when I'm in a meeting, I'm focused on the meeting, not thinking about other things. It means when I'm relaxing, I can relax. When I'm home, I'm home.
Having only three to five productive hours in a day might make you feel like you're losing, but when you leverage them, you'll start winning in ways you never imagined.
This article was first published atcareynieuwhof.com. Used with permission.
 | Carey Nieuwhof is a former lawyer and founding pastor of Connexus Church. He’s the author of several best-selling books, including, Didn’t See It Coming: Overcoming the Seven Greatest Challenges That No One Expects But Everyone Experiences. Carey speaks to leaders around the world about leadership, change and personal growth. Learn More » |
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