Building a Time Management Routine That Honors Your Energy Levels

Welcome to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. My name is Angela Mondor, also known as the Geeky Girl. In this podcast, we’re going to be talking about some amazing things to help you get over overgiving.

Hi and welcome to this episode of the Overgiver’s Anonymous podcast. My name is Angela Mondor and I’m also known as the Geeky Girl. Today I want to talk to you about time management and routines and I don’t want you to think this is going to be boring because it’s not. We are talking about The type of time management routines that will honor your energy levels.

Some people call it spoons. There’s lots of different ways that people refer to what this looks like in your life. If you are a spoon person, this still fits. When we talk about our energy levels, it is impacted by a lot of different things. I will tell you from my perspective because I live in my own energy so I can, I can share with you what I know.

And I know that I have spoken to other people who have felt similar things. So I know that there’s something here you can relate to. When I think about my energy level and how it is impacted obviously my sleep is something that massively impacts my energy. The type of tasks I have on my docket impact my energy.

The people I spend time with impact my energy. The type of work I have that day, which is different than the tasks. So if I have like this, like I’m recording these things during the day is different than me presenting to a group of people, which is also different than me having a one on one call with a client.

So each of these things impact my energy in very, very different ways. so when I’m looking at time management, I am constantly thinking about it from an energetic perspective. I want to know how I can organize my week, because I do plan my week ahead of time, so that I am mitigating the energies. So if I look at a day and I’m like, oh, I’ve got three appointments that day with clients, for example, that’s three hours worth of time that’s going to be taken up where I am energetically giving and helping other people.

So. What’s left after that? What can I do after? Or can I do things ahead of time? There’s the trick. Okay, so understanding what it is that you are energetically capable of doing day to day. Now, changes multiple different ways. Okay, so because your energy and my energy are different, how it impacts you is different than the way that it would impact me, maybe I like to think about it as an energy cycle.

Okay, so for for you specifically, I want you to think about your energy cycle. You can think about it from a daily perspective or a weekly perspective, if that works for you. But there are different levels that will fluctuate. And it is. going to be different day to day versus week to week. Women, we are impacted differently as well based on our actual cycle.

Our menstrual cycle will impact our energy levels as well. So think about all of those different pieces that you’ll put together to make a picture of what your energy cycle looks like. And you might be going, I don’t have a hot clue, and that’s okay, because even just bringing this up, even just having you thinking about this right now, could give you some ideas on what that looks like for you.

You can make some assumptions right now, and then from those assumptions, you can start to pay attention, be more careful. more in tune with that energy and then you can start to feel into what this looks like for you. So yes, your energy is going to fluctuate. You might have, you will have probably different energy in the morning than you do in the afternoon, depending on who you are.

You may have a different energy in the evening. You may have a different energy depending on how many appointments you have or depending on how much responsibility you have with your family. That’s all going to be different for each and every single one of us. Okay, so understanding that’s going to be really important so that you can then prepare for some of the things that happen.

Now, things happen out of the blue that cause your energy levels to either soar or plummet. That you can’t prepare for, but when you have a system in place and when you have an idea of what that looks like regularly for you, you can adjust it. Okay? So tracking these energy patterns is going to be important.

How you do this is totally up to you. You can simply journal about them every day. I have an end of day journal that I do every single night before bed. It’s a really cool little book. It’s really fun. Something about this big. And it’s a five year journal. We’ll actually link that so you can go to see what it looks like in the Amazon store.

But it’s just a few little lines every day and it gives me the ability to actually see year to year what that looks like. So that’s kind of an interesting track of how things are going. Also in the Rockstar Planner, which is part of the Rockstar Success Circle, we have an end of week journal. So it’s a daily It’s one page that you can put daily reviews on what your, what your day was like.

That’s a great way to look at how does that energy flow work. You could simply do it in a book if you’d like to journal it in a book. But actually taking note and actually being mindful of what that looks like to you. Some of the other tools we talk about in the Rockstar Success Circle is when you’re planning your week to be able to say this block of time I’m going to do that, and this block of time I’m going to do that, and then you can see whether you’re more productive in one versus the other, and again that comes back to your energetic levels on what’s working best for you.

So, there are simple and more complicated ways to make it happen but I do encourage you to track your energy levels based on what you’re doing to see what works best for you. Okay. Our neurodivergent brains are so unique and different that they will experience way different things depending on the impacts that are triggering good or bad for you.

Okay. Hyper focus is something that will show up in certain areas. And sometimes when you can manage your energy well, you can actually manage the hyper focus too. It’s, it’s a brilliant, brilliant thing that you can do. I’m not saying it happens all the time and it’s not always reliable, There are some great times when I’ve been able to actually play my cards in a certain way so that I can harness that energy of the hyper focus and use that to my advantage as opposed to leading me down a rabbit hole that wasted my time.

So Being able to manage this energy can give you these really cool windows into these moments where you get some really great superpowers. Okay? I know people talk about this and there’s like, oh, you know, it isn’t a superpower. It’s a painful thing. And yes, having a neurodivergent brain doesn’t always work in our society.

However, I’m gonna give you some tools throughout this year that I’m gonna help you to be able to maybe harness some of these things and maybe turn some of these things that have been more difficult for you into things that are gonna be more like a superpower for you. And a lot of it is just understanding it, and understanding how it impacts you, and then making changes that work for you specifically, okay?

So I’m going to give you tools and ideas, and then it’s your job to implement and figure it out, okay? So when you’re looking at your time for your routine, you’re looking at that time management routine. I like to think about it as blocks of time. Now people call it time blocking and some people don’t like the concept of time blocking and it’s simply because of the way that sort of you know, typical people use time blocking.

But I like to think about time blocking in this way. I look at the week as a whole, I put in the calendar events, so if I have a client call or a dentist appointment or a doctor’s appointment or whatever, all of those things go in first, those are appointments, then I see what’s left. Okay? Where are the appointments?

holes, where are the blocks of time that I can then put things into? When I look at that block of time that is open and available, I can say, okay, that’s an afternoon block. I’m better off doing these kinds of tasks during that time. Or, oh, that’s a morning task. I’m better off doing these kinds of tasks during that time.

And I can actually block in the things that I have to get done that week based on the energy that I know that I’m going to have available. Or, if I’m like, oh, I’ve got three appointments back to back and I have this time left over, I know that that time left over, that has to be done for non brain tasks.

Like, I, they need to be brain dead tasks is what we call them. In the Rockstar Mastermind, we like to, we like to joke about it being a brainless task. Things that I can do that, like, I got to clean up, click up, or I’ve got to you know, or organize email or whatever, like, I need things that aren’t going to be super, super heavy on the brain because I’ve already expended three hours worth of energy doing those other things.

So that’s what’s important is thinking about What is it that you can do? And that’s how I time block. Those are the kinds of ideas that I use when I’m looking at that time blocking and I look at from an energetic perspective. Okay? So when you’re doing that, you can prioritize things. Some people like to use like a scale of energy.

This is gonna take me a lot of energy to do or this is not gonna take me as much energy to do. That doesn’t necessarily work for me. It’s more about the type of energy that I have. So For me to explain it, I would say that if we talked about the brain dead tasks, right? That is something where my brain doesn’t require to work as hard as opposed to, say, a task where I was building out a scenario that was programming.

I would need a different kind of brain energy for that. So I don’t match it in terms of this is, you know, high energy or those kinds of things. To me it’s the type of energy required. So again, that’s just the way I see those tasks. But you might look at it totally different and think of it from the perspective of, oh, those brain dead tasks are low energy tasks.

And the building a scenario would be a high energy task. To me a high energy task is like, I don’t know, going out. into the world to like, I don’t know, socialize and be go to a busy restaurant, right? That would be a high energy task for me. As opposed to the type of energy I need to get a task done that requires more brain power.

So how you see this is going to matter too. Okay. The way that the words that you use are going to matter. And so think about what does that look like? So some people might look at it from like high energy items might be like strategic planning or creative work. I mean, maybe for you, the creative work is actually a low energy task.

Moderate energy things could be like client communication or admin tasks. To me, those are brain dead tasks almost. The client communication is way more high energy for me because it’s very difficult for me to take my words that are in here to put them on paper. I can speak them well but I have a hard time actually typing them out.

So those kinds of things. When it comes to like communication I’m great if I’m writing my novel, but I do find it difficult to communicate with clients in other forms such as typing out the client communications because I do have some issues. And I mean, let’s be honest. Our neurodivergent brains leave us with some fun hang ups. Rejection sensitivity dysphoria is really big for me when I think about written communication.

I can’t see a person’s face. I can’t read what’s going on with them in that way. And sometimes the words can be difficult. I use goblin tools a lot when I’m unsure about what the direction of that conversation is going. I can take their information and pop it into Goblin and say, what does that sound like to you?

And then it’ll tell me whether or not I’m right, really. So if I get a message, I’m like, oh, are they unhappy with me? Because that’s the rabbit hole I always go down. And it’s like, oh, maybe they’re not happy with what I’m doing for them. I can take that and put it into Goblin tools. And then either they’ll say, oh, they are feeling, you know, like you’re missing this or that, you know, this, They’re feeling this way about this, or it could be they’re feeling good about it, whatever.

So Goblin Tools has been very helpful for me with that emotional you know, like that rejection sensitivity piece, which, so for me, that’s why that task is more of a bigger brain task for me. So for other people, it’s easy. Low entry things like you know, data entry or maybe even brainstorming really cool ideas is a low energy thing for you.

So. When you’re looking at what is working for you and what isn’t working for you, try to categorize some of these things and try them at different times of day or try them on a different day. Maybe, you know, these are things that work better on a Monday than on a Friday, whatever. Looking at those things from that perspective might be helpful as well.

Okay. So when you’re trying to create this time management system based on your energy. There are some tools that you can use to support that. Obviously, you know, we love ClickUp here. We use ClickUp all the time to store all the things. It also allows me to move things around if I need to. Being able to look at my week.

not only physically on my Rockstar Planner, but also to look at it in ClickUp allows me to move things around. Whiteboards and sticky notes could be valuable for you if you’re trying to categorize things or try to understand how you feel while you’re doing those kinds of things. And of course the Rockstar Planner is brilliant.

For helping you, especially on a weekly basis when you’ve planned out your week you can start to see where the time actually exists. We have a hard time sometimes with time management understanding what time actually means. And we work a lot on that inside the Rockstar Success Circle is to help you with your time management, not just how to manage your time, but how to understand what time really means.

Lots of times people come into the Rockstar Success Circle and they don’t realize that the plans that they’re putting out there are going to take more time than they actually have in the calendar. month or week or whatever to get done. And so understanding that has been very, very pinnacle for a lot of people to be able to make some differences and to really focus on the things that really matter for their businesses.

So having that tool is also really important. Alarms and reminders are also valuable. I use my Google Home to make sure that I’m having my lunch and that I’m standing up for that. I’m doing things that are going to be valuable for my body and myself. So there’s lots of different ways to do that.

Now when we’re talking about routines sometimes it can feel kind of gross or maybe heavy or it’s difficult. We’re talking about habits here. So find out how you can bring some joy around it for yourself. Whether that means that it is rewarding yourself in some way or finding some pleasure. I will say that my Google Home I’ve got it programmed for several times during the week where it’ll like give me little tidbits of information that are just fun, just kind of like brain floss I kind of like or, you know, little jokes here and there.

You can do all kinds of things to bring some joy and levity to your days as well as your routines. I talk about Atomic Habits a lot. That is one of my favourite books. If you’re trying to change your habits, one of the things that works really well is habit stacking. And that book is fantastic for that.

But music that thing over there, that’s programmed to give me music at certain times of the day, which gives me cues to do certain things. So I’ve got different playlists for lunchtime versus playlists for the end of the workday or different playlists that I use during Pomodoro sessions. So what does work for you?

Maybe going on a short walk or for me, I love to go into the forest, go some, do some forest bathing. It doesn’t matter what time of year doing those things to help build the creativity and move things along. And like I said, if you’re into rewards, then go for it. What is it that you can do for yourself to reward yourself?

How can you align your energy? levels with the work that you need to get done. When you do that, you’re going to have way better outcomes in your entire business and your life. You’re going to be less likely to be overwhelmed, overstimulated. You’re also going to be less likely to Sit into that space of not getting shit done, and I know you want to get it done, so honor your energy, figure out what that looks like to you, start to map out what your energy looks like, and once you start to pay attention, these things are going to get easier and easier for you to figure out, and yeah, that’s it.

It’s going to break down once in a while and that’s totally okay. But having the system in place, having these structure in place is going to be easier for you to pick up once you’ve dropped the ball. I promise you. So rely on doing this, do a little bit at a time. Don’t try to do everything all at once.

But definitely try Pick up on some things that could be very valuable and helpful to you. Do a little bit at a time and then start to make changes in your life. I promise you if you do this and you look at your routine and you’re basing it based on your energy versus time, you’re going to start to see some huge changes and you’re going to find a lot more joy in your life.

I hope that you’re able to take a few things away today and that you’re able to implement them into your daily life and I look forward to chatting with you next week. Have a great one. Bye for now. ​