Yesterday, the blog covered a foundational understanding of your energy each day. When it peaks and what you need to recharge.
This post will take that knowledge and introduce activities that make up our days. By combining your understanding of your daily energy with the 7 categories described below, you can begin to map out the flow of an “ideal” day.
Charge – The time focused on recharging so you can be at your best the rest of the day.
Create – The time when you are focused on producing your best ideas and individual deep work.
Craft – A lighter form of create, this is time focused on email, refining/editing writing or presentations. These could still be creative endeavors, but ones that take less focus than your create time.
Care – These are the times you are spending energy caring for others and your physical environment. Activities include making dinner, driving a loved one to an event or appointment, and cleaning the house. Your current life stage can play a big role in how much time each day is spent in this category.
Connect – These are times when you are meeting with others. At work, this time is focused on collaboration and coaching. At home, this time is focused on deepening bonds with family & friends.
Consume – These are times when you are consuming content with purpose. This could be reading, listening to podcasts, watching videos or movies. The key is that consume comes with intention.
Chill – These are the times where you are relaxing without intention. You may watch some TV or scroll social media. However, there is not the intention that exists with consume or connect.
My Story
As mentioned yesterday, I’m an introvert and a morning type. Those two, combined with my current life stage – college/adult children – helped me develop my “ideal” schedule. This is how it would look:
- 6-7 am – Charge – Start the day quietly with personal care, meditation, podcasts, and coffee making.
- 7-10 am – Create – Spend time with new ideas and individual work. This would include creating presentations and training, analyzing research, writing, and other deep work.
- 10 am – 2 pm – Connect – This is the ideal time for me to collaborate, coach, and generally make progress with other people. I know that after about four hours I will feel drained and need a break.
- 2-3 pm – Charge/Consume – Taking a mid-afternoon break is important for me to recharge my energy and, honestly, be able to continue the day in a positive way. Whenever possible, I take a one-hour walk, listen to podcasts, and soak in the nature around me.
- 3-6 pm – Craft – These hours are a combination of work and home time. On the work front, , I might craft email responses, work on refining a presentation that was started in the morning, or edit some writing. Outside of work, photography and jewelry making fit well in the early evening.
- 6-8 – Care – Early evening hours involve time spent caring for things around the house. At my current life stage, this primarily involves cooking dinner, doing some laundry, and tidying up the house. This was VERY different when I had younger children at home!
- 8-10 pm – Connect/Consume/Chill – The evenings are less structured than the daytime hours for me. However, there are primarily three activities happening at various times. I’m connecting with family and friends, consuming content (books, magazines, and articles), and a bit of chill watching something on TV or perusing social media.
You can see how energy is managed across the day. I’m feeding the morning lark with my most productive and creative hours focused first thing in the morning. I’m respecting my introvert tendencies by scheduling in a mid-day charge time.
Your Turn
When you consider the 7 categories, what time(s) of day do you tend to focus on each?
Do the focus times line up with your energy curve and introvert/extrovert tendencies?
Do you think there are ways to shift things around to better use your energy?