As in, “I don’t know where you get them.”
I can’t make more time*, and you almost certainly know more than I do about managing your energy. But here are a couple of thoughts about doing stuff – and having fun – that relate to both.
Diminishing costs
You can (and should) ‘create’ time and energy by saving them through eliminating things from your life.
But you can also save time and energy by doing more, or at least by doing the things you already do more often, because doing them often makes them easier. For lots of things this is simply because you get better at them, so they cost you less time, and often less energy. For other things, the habit of doing them reduces the emotional energy needed to get going, or even to decide to get going.
Some examples:
- If you exercise regularly, it gets easier
- If you travel all the time, packing bags and getting to the airport becomes automatic
- If you blog every day, a blog post can take ten minutes to write instead of two hours.
- If you make films regularly – if, say, it’s your job – you’re probably an order of magnitude faster than an amateur
- Giving feedback – and having difficult conversations with people about their work – becomes much easier if you do it relatively frequently
- Cooking is easier if you do it a lot – you think and look for stuff less and spend more time actually cooking
This is partly about having things set up (you know where your tools are and they’re ready to use when you want them), partly about skill and experience (you’re better at the things you do often, so you’re faster), and partly about decisions (you’ve decided more things in advance and can get straight into the work, rather than sitting around and wondering about what font to use or shoes to wear).
Increasing Returns
For many things things, doing them more also increases their value:
- Sport and exercise is way more fun when you’re fit. All types of exercise – not just the one you do – become more fun. And as you get fitter you discover more energy and fun in the rest of the day.
- The more you write about something, the more you have to say about it – the quality of your thinking and ability to express it increases too
- Cooking is more pleasurable when you’re good at it… people compliment you on your cooking, so you enjoy it more, so you do it more…
- Reading is more interesting, richer, funnier, more useful the more you’ve read
- The more you contribute to an area of work (or play), the more rewarding your conversations and relationships become, and the more new people, ideas and opportunities come your way
Some of these are just side-effects of things getting easier, but many things benefit from positive feedback loops and network effects: doing things and making stuff leads you to new ideas, techniques and people, and new things become possible… leading to more new possibilities.
Outcome
If doing something becomes easier, relatively cheaper, faster and more convenient to do at the same time that it becomes more enjoyable and more productive, you’re a lot more likely to feel like doing it… so you’ll find ways to do it, and you’ll do it even when tiredness might have stopped you in the past. And then you’ve got momentum, so you’re less likely to stop… so you’re more likely to enjoy the rewards and do it more.
Voila: time and energy.
*Send me a private message if you do