Keep Going and Slow Down by Managing Your Energy

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i'm Gretchen Spreitzer i'm a faculty

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member at the Ross School of Business

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and a core faculty member of the Center

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for Positive Organizations and today I'm

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going to share with you some of my work

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around energy management because we know

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in difficult times like this that we can

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feel very depleted we can feel that

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we're coping or we're surviving rather

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than actually thriving through these

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difficult times so I'm going to share

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with you some things about what energy

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management is and why you should care

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about it and share with you a tool that

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might be helpful to you as you're trying

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to better manage your energy so that you

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can be thriving rather than surviving or

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coping so what is energy management well

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it's specific practices that you can use

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in your everyday life to increase the

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probability that you have good energy or

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vitality vitality we know is one of the

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two key dimensions of thriving at work

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with the other being learning and

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growing and developing so there's three

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um core practices around energy

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management the first these are by the

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way these are things that you probably

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have some familiarity with because

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they're all within your control so first

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sleep we know sleep can be disruptive

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and challenging in stressful times but we

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should really try to keep a sleep

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routine trying to go to bed around the

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same time get up around the same time

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and shoot for around 7 to 8 hours of

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sleep second hydration and nutrition

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both really important um so uh keep

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fresh water nearby be sipping it

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throughout the day and while we might be

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tempted to eat a lot of comfort foods

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during these difficult times it's a time

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to also be thinking about maybe we have

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more time we can eat more healthily and

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cook from scratch more healthy meals and

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then third is about movement um now that

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the weather's getting nicer here in

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Michigan it's a little easier for us to

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get outside um but get out take a walk

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maybe it's with a friend and neighbor

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keeping that physical distance of course

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maybe it's taking your dog for a walk or

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borrowing a dog if you don't have one of

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your own so those are three core

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principles of energy management now let

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me share with you a quick tool that

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we've developed at the Center for

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Positive Organizations uh with Tracy

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Grant to better help you manage your

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energy and basically with this tool we

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ask people to rate their energy across

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each hour of the day so for example if I

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get up at 7:00 a.m and I'm eating

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breakfast I would write down 7 a.m

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eating breakfast and my energy level on

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a scale from 1 to 10 maybe I'm just

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getting going is a five at 8:00 a.m i'm

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going to rate my energy again on a scale

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from 1 to 10 maybe I'm doing email now

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and my energy's gone up a little bit at

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the end of the day then we ask people to

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create what we call an energy profile

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where they're plotting what their energy

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looks like over the course of the day so

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along the bottom you've got your the

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time of day on the y axis we have what

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your energy level is and you can begin

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to see where some of the peaks and

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valleys are the highs and lows what are

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the kind of things I'm doing most often

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when I've got low energy maybe that's

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when I'm doing something very routine or

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boring um what are the peaks what are

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the kind of things I'm doing when my

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energy level is very high maybe I'm

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learning that those are times where I'm

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interacting with other people so it's a

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tool that can help you understand the

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highs and lows of your energy management

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and help you increase those times when

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your energy's high the kind of things

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that are enabling that to happen and

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find ways to mitigate or reduce those

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activities that create depletion or low

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energy so I hope this tool is helpful to

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you as you're trying to best manage your

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energy during these difficult times so

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that you also can thrive or be more

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likely to thrive rather than cope or

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survive in these difficult situations