High and Low Energy Tasks

Not every task which we have requires same focus and energy. Some tasks require deep concentration, while others don’t. Let’s take a look at tasks from this prospective.

When judging whether a task is high energy or not you need to be honest with yourself. Sometimes there is temptation to think that some task requires more or less energy than it actually does. I believe that giving more things a high energy level than actually deserve this, is terrible situation. We don’t have that much focused time in a day.

So I want to limit tasks in high energy bucket by having simple criteria defining them.

High energy tasks are creative, decision making, or require positive attitude:

  • To create something new you need to be “in the zone” and have relatively large time slot. For some tasks half an hour is enough. For others 4 hours is not enough. There is got to be enough time to not only do the work, but also to dive into the task and get into the flow state. This kind of tasks include writing, drawing, brainstorming, learning, planning, etc.
  • Just like with creative tasks you need to be in high energy state when making important decisions. In contrast to creative work this kind of tasks often doesn’t require long slots of time. But the cost of an error is high. Therefore you should be at your high when making decisions.
  • When your energy is low it’s hard to be excited about anything. Still we have tasks for which positive attitude is the key. Some of these we don’t even consider tasks. Few examples are a meeting with wedding organizer, playing with your kids, attending new places.

Everything else are low energy tasks. Many of them you can do on the go, in parallel with other things, even sometimes automatically. Some require specific place or time, but not your energy.

Take into account energy level required for the task when you plan your days. Then you can be more productive during your high and low energy time in the day.