Managing Your Energy, Not Just Your Time

You had the time blocked. Your calendar was clear. So why did you end up with almost nothing to show for it?

In this episode of the Psych Leadership Podcast, host Luke UpChurch makes the case that time is not your most important professional resource — energy is. Drawing on current research in organizational psychology, neuroscience, and burnout science, this episode breaks down the four dimensions of human energy and introduces a practical three-part system for managing your capacity deliberately, not just your calendar.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why time management alone fails — and what the research says is actually limiting your performance
• The neuroscience behind the 90–120 minute cognitive performance window and what it means for how you structure your day
• The four dimensions of human energy — physical, emotional, mental, and purposeful — and how depletion in any one undermines all the others
• Why Gen Z and millennial workers are hitting peak burnout at 25 — and the energy management habits that interrupt that pattern
• The Know, Protect, Restore framework: a three-part personal energy management system you can start building this week

The most productive thing you can do is often not to do more. It’s to show up with something left in the tank.

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Transcript

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So next we have emotional energy. And this is all about your relational and physical state. Research shows that relationships are among the most powerful moderators of emotional energy, both physical and negative, or both positive and negative, rather. A manager that shows genuine empathy, a colleague that makes you feel seen, a conversation that restores your sense of belonging. These are not social perks. These are energy inputs. And conversely, a toxic dynamic, persistent conflict, a sense of not being valued, these drain how you show up and the output, whether you put a name on it or not. Okay. So let's let's put this back in a work context, right? A new one career. I'm physically burning the candle at both ends, right? Working late, skipping meals, not exercising properly, therefore probably not sleeping right because I'm living on caffeine and good feelings. Now, if I at least have positive emotional support at my work and in my personal life, maybe my foundation doesn't crumble so fast. But if I'm doing all that and I'm living in a place of drama, right? And and I say that not just in the work context, but I want you to think about the people that surround that you surround yourself with. If those folks don't give you joy, if having them in your life does not build value, I want you to really take an inventory on that. I have cut off people in my life that drain that energy from me. Because again, I'm I'm finally at an age where I understand that that is not an infinite resource. And if I give my emotional energy on you and your bullshit, on you and your drama, do I have enough for my kids, for my wife, for myself? Probably not, right? So I need you to think about that as well. So let's let's keep going. The third is your mental energy. This is your cognitive capacity, your focus, your creativity, that analytical thinking. So we're going back to our prefrontal cortex. This is the energy that most people are aware of, but they still tend to treat it as binary. Either you can think or you can't. And research tells us that that's a bit more nuanced. Mental energy fluctuates throughout the day and predictable patterns tied to our circadian rhythms. So most people have cognitive peak late morning and dip early afternoon. They get a second window of creative thinking later on in the day. Knowing your pattern and protecting your peak hours for hardest work is one of the most immediately actionable things that you can do to manage your own energy. So for me, for example, and again, I need you to take a self-inventory here. Think about the times of day when you feel the most energized. I know that I'm a morning person. Now I need to, I struggle with some health issues. So when I first wake up, I I kind of figuratively have to knock the rust off my joints, right? My my body typically aches. I for those of you that may be unaware, I struggle with psoriatic arthritis. And if you're familiar with it, it's it's kind of like rheumatoid arthritis, pretty similar. But in any case, when I wake up, I walk down the stairs like an 80-year-old man. I I want to fall down, but I'm afraid that I couldn't fall, let alone get back up afterwards. That's that's the level of soreness that I have when I first wake up. But usually after about one cup of coffee, man, I am ready to go. And I know that I'm gonna hit a uh a mid-afternoon lull, usually around 1.30, 2 o'clock. I'm starting to start to come down a little bit, starting to feel like, okay, end of the day is in sight. And then I'll get another, usually another peek just before dinner. I get a little bit of energy then, and then it's time to wind down. So, but that's different for everybody. I've got, you know, colleagues that are really night owls that will stay up late, but man, they are freaking worthless in the morning. Anything before about 10 a.m., they uh they need their emails proofread, right? So take some inventory of yourself, know where you land, and manage that accordingly. So the fourth type of energy is called purposeful energy. Sometimes this is called spiritual energy. And in research, we're we're not tying this to a religious sense. This is the sense that what you're doing connects with something larger than the task in front of you. Um, so this is the most understated dimension early in career. It when it's present, it amplifies all the others. When it's absent, even physical and mental tanks feels like they're running on empty. So we've talked a lot about this in the past, uh, about this concept of intrinsic motivation. That's really what we're tapping into, right? And it connects a lot into what we talked about in the last episode around your identity, right? When you know who you are outside of your role and your source of purposeful energy isn't dependent on the work that you do and that work going well, then you have something else entirely. Okay. So again, and I'm I'm turning this on myself so that you can kind of put it in perspective for you. For me, my purposeful energy, I absolutely love talking to people and and hearing about their stories, um, learning kind of what their journey was and understanding that human experience and um and and kind of that that two-way mentorship conversation where we are both mutually benefiting. I absolutely love that. And that gives me purpose. And so one thing that I have tried to start doing more, be more intentional about in my career is that during the workday, when I know that I'm going to hit that lull, I actually schedule meetings that will bring me out of that. So, what do I mean? Well, I just told you that when we go back to those four types of energy, my physical energy, I really try and get plenty of sleep. I really try to think about the output that I've used in terms of calories, burned, et cetera, versus my input so that I'm not uh overfilling the tank, as it were, right? If have I have I earned the right to need lunch, or am I just eating because it's noon and that's when I said I was going to take lunch? Right. That's that's two two different problems that you're trying to solve. One is boredom, one is true hunger. Um, so so I think about that physical energy, the emotional energy. I purposely avoid drama in my personal, personal and professional life, right? I want people that build me up. And if you're tearing me down constantly, it's one thing if you're going through something and you need a shoulder to cry on or a friend to support you. I'm there for that. But if you invite drama and you want to bring me into the party, hell no, dude. I have to back out of that one, right? I know that my mental energy is going to have a dip in the afternoons, but I know that my purposeful energy is mentoring relationships, right? So I typically schedule any of those like virtual coffee mentoring type conversations. I like to schedule them in early to mid-afternoon, right? Like that 1:30, two o'clock timeline, because man, that jazzes me up. And if that is working well and I've kept the other three components in in place, well, now I have something. Now I I have basically recharged my battery and I purposely manage that. So so what is that for you? Right? Maybe you absolutely love the outdoors. Maybe that's the thing that gives you that purposeful energy is just being part of nature. But then think about when you would see that dip in your day and go take a walk. It's raining outside, so what? Go sit on the front porch. You know, bring an umbrella. You'll be fine. Maybe it's walking your dog. Maybe it's just calling and talking to your kids or your wife, your spouse, right? A million different things that you can do to manage that. So that's how I have managed it uh throughout my career is just again being very purposeful about that. So now the let's talk a little bit about uh the system. I want you to think through. Three words know, protect, and restore. So when I talk about knowing, I want you to start by developing self-awareness of your own energy patterns. For two weeks, I want you to document this. And we've talked before about the power of journaling. This is a prime example. So for the next two weeks, I want you to pay attention to when you feel the most focused, when you feel the most depleted across all four dimensions. When is your mental peak? What relationships energize you? And what relationships absolutely drain you? What kind of work gives you purpose? What kind of work makes you feel hollow? Okay. Think about these things and you're building kind of a personal energy heat map. Most people never have done this intentionally. I want you to be intentional about it. And you can collect the data in whatever way works for you. Um, something I've been using lately, if you're in the Apple ecosystem, is just the Apple journal. You can go in there and kind of log your mood and what contributed to that mood. Um, you know, just jot those things down. That'll really help you out. Okay. So the next thing is protect. So once you know the patterns, I want you to be deliberate, intentional about protecting those. So schedule your highest cognitive demanding task during the times of your peak mental window, right? I told you that mine is in the morning. If I have to do a heavy lift, like analysis on something, I schedule that for the morning. I'll give you an example. Tomorrow morning, I have some legal documents that I need to review. Now, if you've ever read a legal contract, they read about as uh exciting as stereo instructions, right? I need to be at the top of my game. So I schedule that for 8:30 tomorrow morning, right? I'm gonna give myself a little bit of time to get into my day, to, you know, check my emails, look at the schedule, know what I'm getting into before my day really picks up. And then at 8:30, my very first task is to review these legal documents because I know that that timeline, usually from, you know, say 8:30 till usually around 11 or 12, I'm I'm doing pretty good, right? That's my peak energy. So when is yours? Guard that and put your important meetings, your important tasks there. Don't and and don't let low complexity tasks colonize your best hours, right? Learn to say, I'll get back to you on that when somebody needs something from you at a moment that you have nothing left to give. Okay. So even if your boss emails you, and I'll use again, you know, may, maybe, maybe you are like me, and and that uh that, you know, mid to late afternoon is when you hit a little bit of a lull, right? Your boss says, hey, I need you to do this complex legal analysis during that time, it's probably going to take you longer to do, and you're not going to give the quality of work. So operate at the top of your license. Hey, is this urgent right now, or can I get back to you tomorrow? Right. I mean, be respectful of the role, sure. There are going to be deadlines, there are going to be exceptions to this, but if you can push it till the next day when you were at your peak, why not? It'll take you less time, get you better results. I also want you to protect your physical baselines. So this is sleep, movement, nutrition. These are all professional habits, not personal luxuries. And I want you to be intentional about your relational inputs because your emotional energy is being shaped by every interaction you have. Okay. So protect those things. Finally, I want you to restore. So build a genuine recovery into your rhythm. Again, this isn't just shifting from work to brain-numbing Facebook scrolling or LinkedIn or wherever your go-to social media thing is. Research on micro breaks shows that short, deliberate, non-work intervals, even for five or 10 minutes, meaningfully restore cognitive processes and reduce emotional depletion when it involves true disengagement. So this is a walk, a real conversation, just sitting there in the quiet, meditate for Pete's eggs, any of those things. Whatever restores you. And the research is clear that the most sustainable high performers treat recovery not as a reward for completing work, but as a prerequisite for doing it well. So no protect restore. That's the system. It's not complicated, folks, but it does require you to treat yourself as a resource worth restoring, worth managing well, which is something that frankly a lot of people never do and you're never really told to do it. You're never taught to do that in your professional career. All right. So folks, I'm going to go on and bring this to a close. I think we have covered this topic uh well. I just, you know, again, remember your time is fixed, energy is renewable, but only if you treat it that way. So for the next two weeks, do that honest self-assessment, document it in some way, and think about the changes that you're going to make. And then I want you to think about the people in your work or your personal life that need to hear this message as well. Share the show with them. Talk successes, talk struggles. I guarantee you'll be in a better place in two weeks from right now. All right. We will talk soon. You have yourself a great day. Thanks for listening.