If you follow my blogs or have read my book, you know I like simple and memorable success strategies. And so, despite the fact that I got my degree in accounting and had an unrecognized minor in economics, the financial advice I gave my children came from NerdWallet: spend 50% of what you earn on your needs, 30% on your wants, and 20% on savings and investments. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that.
I like these numbers, and had a feeling they could be used in other contexts. Energy management came to mind—it’s another form of budgeting, after all. And managing energy is just as important, if not more so, than managing money.
A quick note: I prefer the term “energy management” to “time management” because it focuses on the more flexible and essential resource. Unless you’re a football coach, you’re powerless to stop the clock. But your motivation, momentum, and focus—the factors that constitute your “energy”—are within your realm of control. Your productivity depends on your ability to manage and direct these variables.
So, let’s apply the 50/30/20 rule to leadership.
Invest 50% of your energy on essential, “paying the mortgage” activities. These are the tasks you need to accomplish to keep yourself, your teams, and your organizations moving. They might include planning, relationship building, coaching, mentoring, and process improvement, as well as your day-to-day workload.
30% of your energy should be spent working on your craft—the particular expertise that you bring to the organization. Scaling your leadership depends on continuous learning, which requires work! In order to strategize, delegate, and engage your teams, you have to stay current to new developments and strive to improve.
Finally, reserve 20% of your energy for activities out of the business. One of the challenges we face in this country is work-related exhaustion. If we expend all our energy on the job, we lose sight of what matters most and risk burnout and inefficiency. It’s important to have enough left in the tank to enjoy our families, practice our hobbies, and take meaningful vacations.
It is time for a leadership reset. Give yourself the opportunity to reflect on your mindset, patterns of behavior, and impact. Celebrate your successes and experiment with the complex calculus of where your energy flows and goes. By paying attention to how you allocate your energy, you’ll unlock productivity beyond what you can imagine!
Send me an email at [email protected] if you’d like to improve your energy management.
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