Now, I am not a person who can claim and lecture on a healthy lifestyle as mine is far from that. But this is my routine for the last couple of years and I found it to be very effective in managing my productivity and overall energy for the day.
Think of yourself as a mobile phone for a second! In the morning, you are fully charged, amped up, and speeding to perform hard tasks! This drains your battery pretty quickly. Yes, you can plug yourself back into a power outlet, but that’s not always possible, right? You might not be able to eat, sleep, shower, and re-energize yourself while at work. So what will we normally do with a phone that is running low on battery? We will optimize it in a way that it goes for a longer time without compromising on important tasks. For example, turning off unwanted connectivity, reducing brightness, closing all background apps, etc. Now, how will we optimize ourselves for low-energy performance? I don't have the right answer, but I have my answer.
Let's take a look at a few tips to manage your daily energy until you find a power outlet!
Wake up early: Now this is something that I started only recently but waking up early gives you a decent window of time before you rush up to work. Use this time to build your energy and mood for the day. I take my dog (Major Hachi Ko) for a quick walk outside, brew a strong coffee, and catch up on some updates from the web (I don’t focus much on the news and current affairs as that itself can ruin your day- I look for tech-industry-business articles).
Have a good breakfast: Breakfast must be filling and healthy - not something that induces sleep and mood swings! A decent cup of oatmeal will do just fine. Stay away from Indian (spicy*) food for breakfast as that might put your body through much work and will come out as anger!
Start your workday listening to some music: I know this might not be possible for every domain. However, I would recommend, to those who jumps right into a hard task at the beginning of your workday, to start 15 minutes early than the norm. Anyways the music you play is very important here. Do not play something too relaxing nor play something too peppy. Achieve the perfect balance! I do listen to some ambient (no words) soft-rock or soft-hiphop. Use these 15 minutes to organize and plan your day. Revise, Schedule, Check emails, Write back, etc. Ease yourself into the day.
Time to stop the music!: Use your full potential and energy to finish all the essential and consuming tasks for the day. Run around, Scream, Type like hell, and Enjoy Working!
Keep hydrating yourself: Drink water at intervals. Do not chug a gallon only once after you are exhausted cause unlike a mobile phone, we don't have fast charging. Take small sips of water throughout the day.
Lunch is important, but! : Do remember not to have a heavy lunch. Rather than having one major lunch at noon, try breaking down the meal into 4/5 parts throughout the afternoon. This could be a salad, some fruits, nuts, crackers, soup - whatever seems feasible. A heavy lunch will make you drowsy and a lot of your energy will go to work on digesting the whole thing!
It's time to put yourself on Power-Save: You will have to tread lightly during the second half of the day to maintain your productivity. Avoid unnecessary speech (especially on phone calls)— Reserve your energy for work-related stuff. You can do so much more with all that extra energy saved!
Refresh: Once you are done with your day, restore! Have a shower, early dinner, unwind, etc. Cultivate the habit of reading at least one page a day of any book. This ensures that you are at least one page better than yesterday! Hit the bed early.
Hope this makes sense!
