The first installment in this Surviving Work series, Managing Power Zones, deals with using the time that you have every day, at both work and in your personal life, to complete the tasks in front of you in a more time efficient manner. This has been an important topic for me for quite a while, because, while I am very passionate about my job at times, I would much rather work to live than live to work, as the saying goes. What I mean by that, is that I would much rather spend a large portion of my finite, disposable free time every day enjoying my life, spending time with The Girl, or friends or family, than I would working late, or washing clothes or doing the dishes. Who wouldn’t, right?

With that in mind, and without having ever read ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People‘, I’ll try to describe how managing my power zones is a method that I use to make myself more efficient in my life. First off, though, I want to focus on the subtle, but important difference between the terms effectiveness and efficiency. As the book above touts, there are methods that have been outlined that will help us become more effective, but is that what we want? The term ‘more effective’ implies being able to accomplish more. But needing to accomplish more in our lives usually isn’t the desire of most. We don’t want to be able to complete extra, unnecessary assignments at work. When we finish washing the dirty dishes, we don’t want to go over to the neighbor’s house and clean theirs as well. We don’t want to take on more tasks, we want to be able to complete the tasks that we are already responsible for more quickly, and with less effort, and that is the definition of efficiency.

So what is a ‘Power Zone’, exactly? And how would the management of such help someone to be more efficient? The term Power Zone is simply one that I came up with to describe those times when we frequently perform tasks more actively, and with the most motivation. By manipulating our schedules in such a way so as to handle those tasks that are most difficult, or time consuming, at a time of day that we are most active and motivated to perform those tasks. This seems quite simple in theory, but in practice, the success of this strategy depends on your own ability to honestly and objectivly evaluate your habits at work and at home in relation to performing difficult or unappealing tasks, as well as the potential to change your schedule in such a way as to take advantage of your own self evaluation. Everyone wants to believe that they are an ideal worker, and always engaged, and motivated, but the reality is, this is simply not true for the vast majority of those of us who work a standard office job. Accepting and understanding this point is key.

My choice to post about this strategy for managing time efficiently is referenced here because of my application of it in my work, but it has its roots in my personal life. I realized at some point a few years ago, after leaving work and arriving home, that I basically went through the same tasks at the same unscheduled times every night. When performing particularly undesirable personal administrative tasks, such as paying bills, cleaning, or even running errands, if possible, I often did so between the hours of 10:00 PM and midnight. I simply had more energy and desire to perform those types of tasks in that daily time frame. Knowing this, I applied the same type of self evaluation and observation to my work habits. I actually noted a consistency in my work and personal Power Zones, with most of my motivation and activity at work coming within the period from 10:00 AM to noon, and with a sort of secondary Power Zone from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM. Thinking about this in retrospect, the following three things are notable:

• My Power Zones are fairly consistent with my personality - I’m not an early riser by any means, and in fact, I’m a bit of a night owl, so it makes sense that my ‘Power Zones are late morning, later afternoon, and late evening. However, I don’t know that this will b consistent among individuals. The Girl isn’t really an early riser either, but from what I can tell, her Power Zones are earlier than mine, from about 8:30 AM to 10:30 AM, and from about 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM.
• Power Zones aren’t specific - Sometimes I’m motivated and more active during different times of the day. The times listed above as my Power Zones are simply what I found to be the times when I was most consistently motivated and active. When trying to determine your Power Zones, don’t become so wrapped up in specific time frames that you deem every hour of every day to be your Power Zone. We’ve already determined that isn’t likely.
• Find your personal Power Zone(s) first - Your personal Power Zone should be the easiest to determine, since the personal actions that we perform are less influenced by the schedules and deadlines of other people. Additionally, once this Power Zone is set, it might allow you to gain some insight in to when, if ever, your work related Power Zones occur.

With our Power Zones now determined, we can increase our efficiency by scheduling our day in such a way as to take advantage of the energy and motivation that we possess during these time periods. For example, I like to arrive at work between 9:00 AM and 9:30 AM. I usually begin my day by performing fairly rote tasks, such as preparing checklists or to do lists for the daily tasks that I need to accomplish, checking and responding to e-mails, preparing tasks to be completed later in the day, or even cleaning up my work space or my computer’s desktop. Basically, I’m preparing myself for my first Power Zone. The majority of my daily tasks are then tackled from 10:00 AM to noon, or 12:30 PM, or for however long I’m motivated. I try to schedule meetings with managers, or clients, when possible, in the early afternoon, or I try to coordinate with others on shared tasks. In the late afternoon, I try to tie up any loose ends on tasks that I wasn’t able to complete earlier in the day, or any smaller tasks that I haven’t yet started, and then I head home around 6:00 or 6:30 PM. It’s important to note that I’m not always able to stick to this general schedule. However, it’s also important to note that days that I am able to stick to this schedule are almost always the days when I get the most accomplished.

Finally, it needs to be noted that your schedule won’t be the same as mine if your Power Zones are different. For instance, if you have earlier Power Zones, you might spend the last portion of each previous day preparing for the next, so that you can be ready to go when you arrive to work in the morning. I promise, though, that if you make an effort to be more efficient, and our honest in your assessment of your work habits and your daily motivations, that you will spend less time each day doing those things that you need to do, and more time doing those things that you want to do.

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