By Karen Cross
Special to NurseZone
Between your family, the demands of work, household chores, family and social activities, finding the energy to keep up with all your commitments can be exhausting. The trick is to manage your energy more effectively. To start, try the following simple strategies:
Tune in to yourself. Start to pay attention to the messages you send yourself. Are you telling yourself that you should be able to multi-task and get everything done? Do you criticize yourself if you don’t get everything done? It is important to shift these internal messages and give yourself permission to let minor things go.
Set priorities. Setting priorities is understanding: 1) what absolutely needs your attention right now and 2) what do you need to let go of? In asking yourself these questions, you will make choices that will conserve your energy. Determine what your top five priorities are and stay focused on these.
Schedule “you time.” “You time” is a period of time in the day when you do something for yourself. During this time, you’re not answering the phone, checking email, answering the door, listening to messages, responding to any demands of any kind, etc. It could be a block of 15 minutes or it could be an hour. It doesn’t matter. Just as long as you make a commitment to yourself that during that time, you are doing something for you.
Breathe. This may seem rather obvious as people are required to breathe. However, when people are in chaos, breathing becomes shallow and rapid. To slow yourself down, remember to breathe deeply.
Delegate. Giving some of your responsibilities to someone else will free up some of your time and energy that can be used elsewhere.
Script your day. Just after you wake up in the morning, stay in bed and take a couple moments to script how you want to feel as you go through your day.
Create systems to get organized. A system is any technique that you can implement to make better use of your time and energy (i.e. a filing system, keeping work and causal clothes separate makes getting dressed a snap).
Set boundaries and say no. Choosing to say no will help you to stay focused on your top priorities. Always saying yes means you end up taking on more and more.
Know your intentions. Before you take on something new, ask yourself how it will serve you to participate in that activity/project. If it doesn’t serve you at all or doesn’t serve you well, then it doesn’t meet your intention.
Eliminate energy drains. What are you tolerating in your life that is utilizing energy. If you got rid of this energy drain, you would be able to use that energy for something else. Examine your relationships, environment, work and so on and work on eliminating those things that drain you.
By practicing the above strategies, you will be able to manage your energy and by doing so, will reduce your exhaustion and stress levels. You will be in control of your life, instead of your life being in control of you.
Karen Cross, BSW is a life and career coach and founder of Pathfinders Solutions .
For a free copy of her “10 Ways to Bring Meaning to Your Life” special report, call (250) 714-0996 (pacific).