You can know all the productivity tips in the world, but nothing will work if you don’t have the energy to give 100 percent. Personal energy is a measure of how strong, invigorated, or up to a task you may feel at any moment. If you feel down, your zest ebbs, and you tend to produce mediocre work. So know your own rhythms and plan your work around them. If you tend to have a lot of energy first thing in the morning, then do your most challenging work then. High energy gives you the ability to concentrate well, make critical decisions, perform complex analysis, or do any task requiring creativity or problem solving.

When your energy is low, however, these tasks become more difficult, take longer, and often have poor results. So if the afternoons are difficult for you and you experience low energy, choose a healthy way of dealing with it rather than coffee. Pick something that will bring you back to a state of alert productivity. When you feel like you simply cannot start a new task, take a break. Go for a brisk walk, eat some protein, or stand up, stretch, and move your body. Nobody has an unlimited supply of personal energy, so know and honor your patterns and match your tasks to your energy level.

(C) 2010 Laura Stack – All Rights Reserved