When it comes to productivity and performance, there’s something crucial at the core of how people work and live day to day, and that’s the difference between managing your time and managing your energy.
What I see time and time again is that people focus on managing their time. They plan their tasks and structure their day, but they’re not often thinking about their energy.
And that’s often why things can feel more stressful and pressured than they need to be, but most people don’t realise that’s what’s going on.
The Two Types of Energy
The way I think about energy is in two parts: The first is your physical and mental energy, how you actually feel day to day, which can fluctuate depending on a number of factors. The second is how you design your schedule and workflow in a way that supports your energy, particularly your motivation, inspiration, and focus.
If you’re not considering both of these, you’re not really setting yourself up properly in terms of how you feel, your mood, your focus, your productivity, or your performance.
Your Baseline: The wellbeing basics
The first side of energy is your baseline, your wellbeing. Ultimately, we all want steady, consistent energy. Not big highs and crashes, and not feeling wired, stressed, or exhausted.
This comes back to what I call the wellbeing basics, something you’ll have heard me talk about before:
- Eating regularly and not skipping meals
- Moving your body enough (but not excessively)
- Taking breaks
- Getting good quality sleep
- Building in time for things that support your wellbeing
I also include time and energy management, as well as purpose and progress, within these foundations.
The fact that your energy is directly linked to your wellbeing might sound obvious… although in reality, it isn’t for everyone. But when people are busy, these basics are often the first things to go. And then they wonder why their energy drops, their mood is affected, their focus suffers, and everything starts to feel harder.
So part of managing your energy is actually planning these things that support you in advance and ideally into your schedule, not just hoping they’ll happen. Because in reality, that opportunity rarely comes unless you’re intentional about it.
Designing Your Work to Support Your Energy
The second side of energy is more nuanced. This is about understanding when and how you do your best work, and structuring your time in a way that supports that. It’s about being intentional with how your days and weeks are designed, so that your schedule works for you, not against you. And this is where many people don’t realise how much control they actually have.
For example, I work with a lot of business owners, and you’d be surprised how many don’t design their schedule in a way that works best for them.
They often fall into working reactively, responding to client requests, letting their schedule be dictated by others, or defaulting to a typical structure without really considering how they work best.
For those working in organisations, it’s often similar, and there’s usually more flexibility than people realise.
But in both cases, it requires stepping back, reflecting, and then intentionally making changes. And that’s often the hardest part. Because once you’ve created a routine, even if it’s not serving you, you don’t often pause to question it, let alone change it.
What This Looks Like In Practice
To bring this to life, here are a few examples of how I approach this myself.
Monthly structure:
I try to keep the last week of each month free from client work. This gives me space with no external pressure, allowing me to focus on more creative work or take time to rest and reset. It also gives me something to look forward to, whether that’s time off or simply having more freedom and flexibility.
Energy batching:
I group similar types of work together. For example, I keep most of my private client sessions to two set days a week, and I try to keep Mondays free of calls so I can start the week with focus.
Starting the day intentionally:
I usually spend the first 30–60 minutes of my day on admin – emails, invoicing, updating spreadsheets and reviewing the day ahead. It helps me feel on top of things from the start. Which then sets me up for the rest of the day feeling motivated.
I had a client in a very senior role who began her days with back-to-back calls. I suggested she block just 15 minutes at the start of her day to review her schedule and set intentions. She said it made a huge difference and then protected that time at all costs.
Protecting energy around key work:
Whenever I book something like a client call, a webinar or an important session, I immediately block out time before and after. This isn’t just for preparation; it’s also for my nervous system. It allows me to go in feeling calm and prepared, rather than rushed and last-minute.
Some of these examples may sound obvious, but many people don’t actually think about designing their schedule in a way that suits them. And with the smaller things, it’s often only in hindsight that people realise they should have put them in place, when it’s already too late. This is especially common when operating reactively, because by default, you’re not proactively planning your time.
The Role of Intention
What underpins all of this is being intentional, because if you’re not planning your time and energy in advance, you’ll naturally fall into reactivity. And that usually means responding to other people’s demands, working around everyone else’s schedule, and not being in control of how you feel or perform.
Of course, you won’t always have full control, but from working with hundreds of people over the years, I can confidently say that most people have far more control than they realise.
Final Thought
Good time management is crucial, but without managing your energy alongside it, it will only take you so far. Because your energy is what ultimately determines how you feel, how you perform, and how sustainable your way of working is.
If you’d like to start looking at this for yourself, take some time to pause and reflect on your current schedule and ways of working:
- What works well?
- What doesn’t?
- Where could you make small changes to better support your energy?
And if you’d like support with this, not just in identifying what works, but in actually making those changes, feel free to get in touch to arrange a call and explore whether coaching would be a good fit for you or your team.
Kate x
