Manage your Energy, Not your Time

Emotions and energy

Energy levels fluctuate throughout the day, and an energy deficit can lead to fatigue. When we talk about fatigue, we mostly mean physical exhaustion, which is common among labourers working physically demanding jobs. Otherwise, as pointed out by Professor Elliot Berkman at the University of Oregon, exhaustion is mostly mental exhaustion, mainly due to high-intensity emotions, both negative (e.g., anxiety) and positive (e.g., excitement), which can be mentally exhausting (Seppälä, 2007). As a result, you will find yourself drained of energy, an important resource.

Expanding and renewing energy

Energy comes from the body, mind, and spirit. Energy in each can be expanded and renewed through rituals, which are intentional behaviours aimed at turning automatic behaviours into purposeful ones (Schwartz & McCarthy, 2007). A helpful ritual that restores physical energy is harnessing the body’s ultradian rhythms through intermittent breaks; one that defuses emotional drain is reframing events with hopeful mindsets; one that increases mental energy is avoiding distractions; while one that increases spiritual energy is participating in meaningful activities (Schwartz & McCarthy, 2007).

Managing energy requires willpower

To initiate and maintain such routines for improving your energy, we all need to overcome the barrier of willpower. Willpower can be strengthened through practice and self-control, by resisting short-term temptations to achieve long-term goals (American Psychological Association, 2012). While inertia at first may seem to require energy, think of it in the long term: it is crucial for helping you achieve your end goal of managing your energy! 

Resource allocation

Besides starting routines and willpower, an important concept to understand is the allocation of mental resources. According to cognitive resource allocation theories, mental energy enters a deficit state when the amount of mental resources used exceeds the initial allocation, and can be replenished by the positive mental energy derived upon task completion (Wang et al., 2021). Three factors influence the pre-task allocation: task difficulty, the size of the benefit, and the trade-off (Wang et al., 2021). Hence, it is also important to allocate your mental energy wisely to maximise your cost-benefit trade-off.

Written by: Louis Dominique Beaumont

01/2026

References

American Psychological Association. (2012). What you need to know about willpower: The psychological science of self-control. Apa.org. https://www.apa.org/topics/personality/willpower

Schwartz, T., & McCarthy, C. (2007). Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2007/10/manage-your-energy-not-your-time

Seppälä, E. (2016). Burned Out? Why Energy Management is the Key to Resilience. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/sg/blog/feeling-it/201602/burned-out-why-energy-management-is-the-key-to-resilience

Wang, X., Janiszewski, C., Zheng, Y., Laran, J., & Jang, W. E. (2021). Deriving Mental Energy From Task Completion. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.717414