The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal.

You will run short on energy.
You will, at times, run out of energy.
When this happens, you need to say, “That’s ok. I’m currently out of energy.” 
And then, you need to build your energy back up—to replenish your energy.

If you try to accomplish something meaningful when you are practically out of energy, it will not work out very well. Let’s call this a “law.” It is a law of human life, and it is certainly a law of productivity.

Energy management is probably a new skill for this era of ever-increasing productivity expectations.

The problem in today’s competitive environment is that we need to replenish our energy as quickly as possible because there is always the next project to tackle, the next assignment to fulfill, or the next new thing to get to immediately.

And when we go directly from one energy-expending task to the next, we don’t have time to replenish as we should.

Here’s the formula:

Build up your energy.
then,
Use it nearly all up!
then,
replenish it for the next challenge.
then,
use it nearly all up again.
and,
continue; repeat.

And here are a couple of questions:

1. Are you spending your energy to the point of being “spent” occasionally? If not, you may need to become more productive. It’s probably a good thing to “spend it all” on projects that are worthwhile.

But, after you are spent…

2. Do you try to keep going without replenishing your energy? If so, you are headed for real problems. You’ve got to replenish your energy, or ultimately, you won’t have energy left to use at all.

To help you think about and tackle this, here are the four principles of energy “management” from the book The Power of Full Engagement. If you follow them, you will become a “Corporate Athlete.”

• Principle 1: Full engagement requires drawing on four separate but related sources of energy: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.

• Principle 2: Because energy capacity diminishes with overuse and with underuse, we must balance energy expenditure with intermittent energy renewal.

• Principle 3: To build capacity, we must push beyond our normal limits, training in the same systematic way that elite athletes do.

• Principle 4: Positive energy rituals—highly specific routines for managing energy—are the key to full engagement and sustained high performance.

Contributed by:
Randy Mayeux
Professional Speaker & Writer
Co-founder, First Friday Book Synopsis