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Dear friends,
I’ve decided that we’re starting afresh on the lunar new year given the challenges of 2022 to date. Gung hay fat choy, and may the Year of the Tiger bring better times! This month I have a book recommendation and some advice wrapped in a roundabout story. Bear with me!
I recently read a book called At Your Best by Carey Nieuwhof. He makes a lofty promise that his approach can free up one thousand productive hours per year, which made me instantly skeptical. He has a lot of tried-and-true productivity advice in one place, and I do think it’s a useful read. One premise of the book is to match your activities to your energy level. He suggests that you track your energy and do your highest priority work at the time of day when you have the most energy. Hardly earth-shattering advice, right? The author gives the example that he writes best in the early morning, but he had gotten in the habit of exercising first thing instead. This example resonated with me, but I found myself very resistant to the idea of writing in the early morning and exercising later in the day. In past years when I scheduled workouts in the afternoon, I ended up exercising less but not getting any more work done.
Instead of dismissing this advice with “I’ve tried this already and it doesn’t work for me,” I decided, just for one day, to try it. Lo and behold, getting out of bed to write felt easier than getting up to exercise, and I powered through three different manuscripts before waking my kids up. I did the work twice as fast as I would later in the day, to my complete surprise. I had set aside a block of time to write later in the day, so I used that time to exercise. Instead of having the day’s work hang over me on a dark, cold, early morning, I felt so productive during my sunny afternoon jog. It was amazing!
I took away two important lessons from that experience. First, it really can be transformative to match your energy to your priorities. Maybe the reason lots of experts suggest that strategy is because it works. Second, when you hear advice, set aside your preconceived notions and try it. You and your circumstances change. A tactic that didn’t work for you in the past might be a key to success right now. Similarly, don’t be afraid to set aside ways of working that don’t serve you anymore.
Try a new tactic for efficiency this month, and let me know how it goes. Finally, if you become more productive in your work, please do not reflexively agree to do more. Consider becoming more efficient at work so that you will have more time to rest! As always, please send me your good news so that I can amplify it, and share this message as widely as you like. You can sign up at the bottom of the page here for monthly messages from me.
Warmly,
Urmimala