Revisiting Energy Management

Welcome! It’s the end of the sixth week of the Boot Camp Blog, and three weeks ago you began to record how you spend your time – and your energy.
Whether you used the Energy Management sheets or made notes in your journal, today’s post is about looking over your notes and analysing the results.
If, by any chance, you’ve been ‘too busy’ to make notes about how you are spending your time… well, there’s a clue right there! Seriously, if that is the case, take the chance over the next couple of days to make a note of where your time and energy is spent, and how you feel (physically and emotionally), then come back to the post.

To recap an earlier point, building your energy reserves is important if you are to manage them well. I covered the subject in Post 3 but in summary, it shows that there are four main ways to nourish our physical energy:
• breathing deeply
• drinking more water
• eating more healthily
• getting plenty of sleep.
How is that going? These four foundations to good health are key to your wellbeing and success – if you are not already incorporating them into your life, then now is a good time to start!

Analysing your Energy Management notes

What you were looking out for firstly were the ways in which your time and energy were spent:
• on things you HAD to do
• on things you CHOSE to do
• or things you did because OTHER PEOPLE wanted you to.
This can be a great opportunity to have some fun with highlighters or colouring pencils – enjoy your tasks!

You then considered whether you could change your perspective on any of the tasks, particularly the ‘had to do’ list, and thereby change which group it fell into.
Ask yourself the following questions:
• “Do I have a ‘fresh perspective’ on any of my regular tasks?”
• “Have I created any ‘positive energy rituals’ to make routine tasks as automatic as possible?”
• “Am I balancing the use of my energy? Resting enough, and then getting things done?”
• “Do I pace my energy expenditure – am I a sprinter, or a marathon runner?”
• “Am I a procrastinator, or an action taker?”
• “Do I have a plan?”
If you need to, revisit the post on Energy Management (Post 9) and come back to these questions when you’ve read it.

Getting things done!

Napoleon Hill said “the secret of getting things done is: DO IT NOW!” and it’s a well known saying – “if you want something done, ask a busy person!”

Busy people are generally in the habit of getting things done because they don’t procrastinate. If taking action is a challenge for you, find some strategies that can help you to change that.

For instance, I have a friend who has taken to putting a timer on when she’s working on a task – if the garden needs weeding, the timer goes on for an hour, and she gets right on with the task at hand because there is a close and pressing deadline to meet. Another tells that when she watches TV, she refuses to completely waste her time and is often amazed by how much can be done during an ad break! You might even call this a ‘positive energy ritual’ – she is compelled to hop up when the ads come on and do something positive.

• Do you have, or can you think or any strategies or tools that could help you to take action faster?
If you do, please share them in the comments section below the post, as maybe other readers might find them useful too!
• Have you taken any steps to make sure that you fit in tasks that might otherwise slip – such as buddying up with a friend to go swimming, or to a fitness class perhaps?

Remove the Distractions!

Another way to create time for important actions is to remove, put away or restrict access to those things that divert you from your good intentions. Dan Millman has a great idea about that:

“Make any positive behavior as convenient as possible. To break my habit of snacking in the evenings, I keep dental floss and a toothbrush in the downstairs bathroom near the kitchen. Right after dinner I floss and brush. I’m far less likely to snack, because if I eat something, I have to floss and brush all over again.
Make any negative behavior as inconvenient as possible. To smoke less, keep only one pack of cigarettes at home, in a small locked safe under some luggage in the closet in the garage. You might also put the television in that same closet, so you take it out only for special events, and use your old TV time writing that book, painting that picture, or learning a new language. In this way you replace old negative routines with new behaviors, pouring new energy into a new you.”
Dan Millman – Everyday Enlightenment

• Look at your energy management notes again – is there anything on there that could count as a ‘bad’ habit, and might be broken by making it more difficult to indulge in?
• Is there anything that is a ‘positive’ habit that you could make easier to do, simpler to access, and that can stand up against a ‘bad’ habit and change it?

Creating a Plan

I quoted the wonderful Ariane de Bonvoisin in the original post about Energy Management, and I’m going to repeat the quote here:

“People who successfully navigate change take action. They have a plan and know how to take care of themselves. Actions come in many forms. Some are big and obvious; some are so small you may think they are irrelevant. But any good action you take is a choice to move forward.”

A plan is that much easier to implement when you have the time to draw it up and carry it out – work on your energy management, so that working on your plan is part of your routine.

One of the final posts of the Boot Camp Blog will be about drawing up a plan to help you to stay firmly on your chosen path to wellbeing and sustained weight loss. Until then, stay conscious of your energy management – it’s good to be on top of things!
Best wishes

Dawn

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