6 Proven Ways to Energize Your Workday

Better time management isn't enough to bring new energy to your workday. Neither is attending an online mediation session a couple of times a week. If you want to breathe new life into your workday, you need to take a more comprehensive approach. In this article, I share six steps to bring fresh energy into your workday. These practical ideas fit easily into even the busiest of days to help you improve your productivity and your well-being at the same time.

Before we look at the six steps, it's important to understand why time management isn't enough. When I work with teams and leaders who are struggling with heavy workloads and burnout, the first request is nearly always to help them with time management. But that is only one element that shapes your workday. You could be very organised and have good structure in your day, but if you are focusing on the wrong work, you are being busy but not productive. And if you know what work is a priority and have your time planned out well, showing up to do that work with low energy and poor concentration means that you won't be able to give your best effort. Finally, even if you deliver great results, you'll find everything more difficult if you can't collaborate effectively with colleagues and people across other departments.

All this means that if you want to re-energise your workday, it will take a little more than setting a 25-minute work block followed by a 5-minute break (also known as the Pomodoro Technique).

Step 1: Plan Your Breaks

That being said, building short breaks into your workday is a good place to start. Regular breaks throughout the day help you restore your ability to concentrate, make better decisions, and be more creative, all of which make it easier to complete your work. It also means you are more likely to finish your workday with more energy for the rest of your life. If you have ever cancelled evening or weekend plans because your workday has left you feeling exhausted, you know why this can significantly impact your work-life balance and well-being.

I recommend planning four different types of breaks in your work. These won't all happen on the same day, but taking a holistic approach means that you find the mix that works best for you, your role and your commitments outside of work.

The four types of breaks are:

• Micro breaks of 5-10 minutes after intensive tasks or between meetings
• Your main lunch break, which could be 30-60 minutes depending on your company
• A "me break", or half-day, a couple of times a year to take care of personal admin or take time out of a busy schedule.
• Big breaks of 1-2 weeks to fully disconnect from work and enjoy some well-deserved time off.

The best way to plan these breaks is to add them into your work calendar. I like to assign a specific colour so they stand out from your meetings and scheduled work, allowing you to see at a glance if you have planned enough breaks into your week, month or quarter.

Step 2: Find Your Motivation

If your workday has lost its appeal, now is the time to rediscover or find your personal motivation for the job you do. Having spoken with thousands of people about creating a better workday, I have learned that motivation is usually found in one of two places: the work or the people you work with. Some people find their work interesting, challenging, rewarding or a combination of all of these things. If that sounds like you, taking a few minutes away from your day-to-day tasks to remember where you find joy in your work is well worth it. Sometimes, this can get lost among back-to-back meetings, temporary projects or other responsibilities that have crept onto your desk. If you can relate to this, you might consider making changes to your week so you can experience the motivating parts of your work more regularly.

But maybe your work isn't very interesting to you. There certainly have been times in my career when the work I was doing was pretty mundane and repetitive. In these roles, the people you work with can make all the difference. Whether it's getting along well with your team and enjoying time together on breaks or between tasks, or taking pride in your work because of the people you help, people can put the meaning back into your workday.

Step 3: Spot Your Progress

One of the best ways to re-energise your workday is to build momentum into your work, so you feel you are making progress rather than always starting from zero. This can be a lot more difficult than it sounds. If you are juggling multiple responsibilities, are dependent on others' input, and are working in a team or company with a lot of change, the workday can look like two steps forward and one step back.

So how do you know if you are making progress? I suggest creating what I call the "Minimum Viable Plan" (MVP) to identify your must-do tasks and the outcomes you expect them to deliver.

1. List the top 2-3 outcomes you are working on this week. (What do you want to achieve?)
2. Below each outcome, list the 2-3 most important tasks. (What must you do above all else?)
3. Check off the tasks and outcomes as you complete them.

This approach focuses on the outcome, without neglecting the work it takes to get there. This is intentional for two reasons. If you focus only on tasks without a clear objective, you could get caught in a busy trap. But sometimes, even when you do everything right, the outcome isn't realised due to factors beyond your control. The MVP lets you track your progress, even when things don't go as planned.

Step 4: Manage Your Workload

Of course, it's highly unlikely that the MVP will cover everything you must do in a week. Most people I speak to have long to-do lists, along with meetings and other tasks assigned to them across different systems at work. Managing your workload is essential if you want to re-energise your workday; otherwise, any renewed energy you bring on Monday will feel stale by lunchtime on Tuesday.

This doesn't have to be another job to be done. Instead, I recommend making it part of your day-to-day work by using these helpful questions as you go through your list:

1. Is this task still needed? Is it still adding value, or can it be paused or deleted?
2. Does this task need to be done today? If not, when should it be done?
3. Am I the right person to own this task, or should I make plans to delegate it?

If the task needs to be done that day, you can start working on it right away and repeat the questions for the next item on your list when you come to it. You could then take 15 minutes mid-week to review your list overall, so you have a clear view of your workload.

This light approach to workload management is enough to keep you from feeling overwhelmed by a busy to-do list and to identify opportunities to delegate or delete tasks. If you struggle to complete the midweek review in 15 minutes, it might be worth reviewing your work with your manager to clarify the priorities and whether your workload is manageable.

Step 5: Focus on Finishing

Despite your best efforts to move through your day's work, distractions and interruptions can derail your attention. Research has consistently shown that fragmented work takes longer to complete, is more likely to spill over into the next day, and incurs a mental cost associated with switching between tasks. Knowing this, it can be tempting to try to remove all distractions and interruptions so you can focus on your most important work. That may be an effective short-term solution, but isn't sustainable over the long term.

As humans, we are wired for distraction and can sustain single-minded focus for only limited periods (which can be longer or shorter depending on how well we practice concentration). Also, nobody wants to work in a company where they can't interrupt someone else to ask for help. So instead of trying to avoid them entirely, what if you improved how you manage your response to these distractions and interruptions?

You can proactively reduce distractions by noting which type of distraction pulls you away most often. For example, if you are distracted by thoughts about other work or concerns in other parts of your life, then you might take a few minutes to jot those things down on paper before settling into a task that needs your full attention. On the other hand, if you are easily distracted by noise or visual cues, you might consider changes you can make to your physical environment.

There are also ways to proactively reduce interruptions; you can let people know that you are about to begin working on an important task, schedule focus time in your calendar so people can't book a meeting, or simply ask the question "can this wait a few minutes?" when someone approaches you while you are trying to focus.

None of these approaches removes distractions and interruptions entirely, so the second half of managing your response is what you do after the fact. After you have been pulled away from your work, the best thing you can do is return to the same task. Focus on finishing what you started, rather than being tempted to move on to something else. This simple approach is highly effective, as you are more likely to complete tasks and move them off your list, rather than leaving a long list of tasks in progress. This helps you build momentum throughout the day and finish work with a sense of accomplishment.

Step 6: Disconnect from Work, Fully

The final step to re-energise your workday is to fully disconnect from your work when the day is done. Checking emails and turning work issues over in your mind into the evening does nothing to restore your energy or interest for work the next day. More importantly, it can lead to exhaustion and burnout by leaving less space for other important areas of your life.

Being able to recognise the progress you have made during the day and having a plan to tackle what's left on your plate both help you disconnect from work after the laptop is closed. If you want to take it a step further, I recommend setting boundaries in four different areas: your working hours, the places you work, the devices you use for work email and other apps, and the situations where you do and don't work or check work email.

For example, you might decide in advance that you won't work beyond 5.00 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, that you won't do any work in your bedroom, that you will keep work email off your personal smartphone and that you won't check emails when you are with your friends.

These boundaries should fit your work and life, and they may shift from week to week. The purpose of defining these boundaries is to decide in advance where you want to draw a line between work and the rest of your life, and then become aware if that line gets blurred. As you practice setting and maintaining your boundaries, take note of how that impacts your work. Often, the next step is to look at how you manage expectations with other people so you can be successful without burning out.

Re-Energize Your Workday Today

By implementing these steps, you can transform not only how you approach your workday but also how you feel about it. Remember, re-energizing your work experience is a personal experience, and it's about finding what resonates with you amid the demands of your role. Take the time to reflect on your breaks, rediscover your motivations, and track your progress; these small adjustments can lead to significant improvements in your productivity and overall well-being. As you create more energy within your workday, you will likely find yourself more engaged and fulfilled, making it easier to tackle challenges and enjoy success along the way. Try something new today, and you'll be amazed at the positive changes that follow.