How we choose to spend our time has a direct correlation to our personal bandwidth at the workplace or at home. Like any piece of technology—your computer, your internet connection, your smartphone—choosing which apps are running, and how you’re using its processor determines the efficiency of your device.
Conserving your personal bandwidth allows you to work on what matters—and doing that work well. It allows you to demonstrate your full potential in the work you do every day. It gives you the ability to uplift yourself and those around you. If you’re running your everyday tasks with full energy and efficiency you tend to perform well, and that permeates to those around you because you don’t need anybody to help you carry your weight, while being a great example for others to follow. Here are the five ways to conserve your personal bandwidth:
1. Create your barrier of ‘NO’
2. Avoid the ‘SHOULDs’
3. BUNDLE your day (your calendar) or “Time Blocking”
4. Disengage
5. Don’t multitask
Create your barrier of ‘NO’
Your ‘barrier of NO’ defines your focus. This creates guidelines on what tasks you should and you should not be doing. Learning to say ‘no’ is not a new concept. Creating this barrier helps you be more decisive and consistent in the things you say ‘no’ to.
If your role requires you to elevate and maintain the engagement of those who report to you, you would say ‘no’ to meetings that does not relate to that goal. Especially, unnecessary meetings that will take away time from your calendar that you could be using to have one-on-one sessions with your direct reports.
If your job is to create compelling press releases or ad copy, you would say ‘no’ to meetings that may be important, but doesn’t require your direct participation. Instead, you would spend more of your time writing to refine your craft.
If your goal is to be finish a manuscript for a book, you would say ‘no’ to activities that would take away time, energy, and inspiration to write that book. Perhaps you would say ‘no’ to binge watching or going out for drinks.
Of course, it is possible to attend random meetings and find time to engage with your team. Or write a book while spending your nights binge watching or going out for drinks. The question is, ‘Is it sustainable?’ Will you have the bandwidth to do both without diminishing the quality of the other?
Avoid the ‘SHOULDs’
We all think that there are a lot of things the we ‘should’ be doing—but do they align with our goals? ‘Shoulds’ lead us to overcommitting and overextending our capacity. When we do this, it may seem that you’re being productive and extra helpful, but in reality, you’re offering a mediocre version of your true capacity.
Doing the ‘shoulds’ will take away valuable time for you to work on what really matters, to rest, to recharge, or to spend time with your loved ones. ‘Shoulds’ also dilute the quality of your work. It’s better to complete five excellent initiatives than barely completing 10 mediocre initiatives.
Pick your battles—pick the right battles. Not everything aligns with your overall goal and vision for yourself and the organization you lead. Many things may sound nice to do, or seems like something could do, but should you?
Avoiding the ‘shoulds’ helps conserve your bandwidth for things that matters more. Things that provide actual value to your objectives.
Bundle Your Day— “Time Blocking”
This is something I learned from Cal Newport, author of “Deep Work” and “So Good They Can’t Ignore You.” To reach optimal productivity and use of your energy, you’ll need to strategically position tasks across your calendar. Arbitrarily stacking your days with different tasks is ineffective.
First, self-awareness. When are you most energized to do hard knowledge work—tasks that require a lot of thinking and deliberation? What time of the day is more conducive for your best work?
For instance, I find myself most productive, creative, and mentally alert in the mornings. From around 5 am up to around 10 am. Knowing this, I should not do mundane, administrative tasks during those times. It would be a waste of time and energy. In the morning, I would schedule tasks that require deep studying or problem solving. A lot of strategic type of work would also be well-suited in the morning.
This would also be my time to do a lot of writing and even working out. Yes, working out. For me, doing hard and structured physical work requires so much will power. I need to be in my ‘A’ game to actually go through it.
This is usually not the time for me to go through my email inbox. There are a couple emails I check in the morning, which is part of our daily operations report. Outside of that, the inbox will not be touched until around 10 am.
Next, you’ll need to categorize your tasks. Tasks that require deep thinking should be bundled together. Tasks that are more interactive, like one-on-ones and team huddles, should also be bundled together. If it’s that time to do a bunch of one-on-one sessions, block an entire afternoon to have them. Doing so helps your brain not get strained from shifting into different modes. It’s like changing down to 1st gear, all of a sudden, while cruising at 5th gear. It takes time for your brain to get used to a new mode. Once you’ve reached the peak of that mode, take advantage of that momentum to tackle other similar tasks.
Another point under this topic would be to actually block chunks of time in your calendar. This helps in two ways. First, it helps remind yourself on what you should be doing at a certain time of the day, and it also gives you a ‘deadline’ to finish the tasks. If I block 7 am – 8 am to write a report, my calendar will pop-up a reminder, and it also gives me the end time. So, that’s a signal for me that I only have an hour to complete this report. Thus, facilitating deep work into the task.
Next, blocking time also helps avoid distractions. If you’re in a large organization that has a connected calendar database, team members within the company can see your availability and may try to schedule time with you. If an event is not urgent, blocking chunks in your calendar can help deter random meetings that don’t contribute to your overall objectives.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting to never make any changes to your calendar. You should know what and who matters in your role. If something more important comes up, make the adjustments.
Disengage
Being ‘always on’ may sound great and heroic, but it’s not a healthy mindset to have. You can only give what you have. If you don’t have the intellectual strength and inspiration, how can you provide value to your work and to others?
Disengage. Identify a start and an end time on your work day. Schedule breaks in your calendar. You’ll need to fully disengage to be effective. Once you’ve created these downtimes, you’ll have a structured means to nourish your body and your mind to be ready to tackle the important items.
Don’t check work messages and emails after you’ve ended your day. Yes, this is a difficult feat. It requires much self-control. If you find yourself working so late, don’t send an email or a message to the team at that time. It only sends a message that they’re all expected to read and answer their messages round-the-clock. Try to save that email for the next morning.
This is idea is not absolute. There will be exceptions relative to your unique situation and your line of work. Just make sure you create your own guardrails and stay within it. Also—use your paid leave. Take vacation—to travel or just to relax at home. You earned it.
Disengaging also ensures structured time for your family and loved ones. Many of us have kids and significant others outside of work. We need to spend quality time with them as well. Not leftover energy, but the right amount of energy to have a meaningful relationship with them. This is more important nowadays that most companies have employees who are working from home. The separation of work and home has never been as blurred as it is today. We need to know when and how to disengage and turn work off.
Don’t Multitask
I’m sure I’ve mentioned this many times in other posts, but let me say it again, ‘do not multitask.’ Multitasking is not a superpower. In my opinion, it’s a vice. It’s an individual’s visceral need to please others and to be recognized as being super productive.
Like topics #1 and #2 above, you’re not doing 10x more great work if you’re multitasking. You’re probably doing one ‘okay’ work, six mediocre outputs, and the rest are failed attempts to achieving something.
Do things one at a time. Do not multitask.
Conserving your personal bandwidth is important for your well-being, and it benefits the teams and services you manage. Leaders can’t be ‘energy-neutral.’ You’re either an energy-zapper or an energy-sucker. You either bring positive or you bring negative energy. The tips in this post, to conserve your energy, will help you avoid being the energy-sucker in the team, or that person that adds negative energy into the mix.
Crowdsourcing FTW
Do you use any of the tips in this post to conserve your personal bandwidth? Which one do you think is the most important tip? Can you share other ways you conserve your bandwidth that you find effective?