episode 247: why time management is overrated and what you need to manage instead
You don’t need more hours in the day — you need more energy.
This week, I’m breaking down why traditional “time management” advice doesn’t actually work, and what to focus on instead. Because you can have all the time in the world and still not have the mental capacity to do the thing you planned.
We’ll talk about:
The real difference between time and energy management
Why doing less might be the key to doing more
How to build your own “good, better, best” options when your energy tanks
The simple mindset shift that can help you stop burning out and start following through
If you’ve ever thought, if I could just manage my time better, I could get so much more done…this one’s for you.
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247
[00:00:00] All right. Welcome back. Thanks for listening today to the Diet Diaries. I move the microphone closer so you can actually hear me. There's probably a big change in the sound right about now because the microphone's in front of my face rather than a foot away. And let me see. I do have some notes for today.
So today's episode, I talked about this on Instagram like over a month ago on a story kind of randomly, and honestly, it was a. Like real talk. I get like I would say minimal to low amounts of engagement on stuff. And I tend to get more engagement on things that are not related directly to the work that I do.
Right? So when I'm not talking about food, or I'm not talking about clothes, or I'm not talking about exercise, I get some engagement on that stuff. But when I talk about things that are, that are kind of like tangentially related, I don't know, it's just, it's this really interesting phenomenon and that's not really what I'm talking about today.[00:01:00]
Um, but in this, in this story on Instagram, I talked about this idea. I. Of, um, kind of time management versus energy management, and I was sharing kind of a specific anecdote that I was dealing with that day around. I had a lot of time in the morning, which kind of quote unquote in theory meant I should have been going to the gym to do a workout, but I did not have the mental energy for it.
And so I was pivoting and doing a different type of workout instead, that required less mental energy of me and so many of you. And if you don't watch social media, then it wasn't you. But so many people messaged me about this and were like, oh my God, this is really hitting home for me. I've never really thought about it.
I've kind of felt this, but never been able to articulate it in this way before. And I promised a, um, a podcast episode and you know, it took me a month to do it, but here it is. Because I think that, I think that this is a really important topic. I think [00:02:00] everything I talk about here is important and not like a self-serving way, but important for all of us.
And I think the thing that's interesting about this is time management is such like a buzzword, right? Like it's just, you hear about it everywhere and you can buy coaching programs and software apps and calendars and like the skylight thing. And we talk to our kids about time management. I talk to my own kid about time management, right?
Mm-hmm. It's something that's kind of like deeply ingrained to us, like culturally. And especially now because we live in such a hustle culture, such a glorification of busyness culture, that this idea of time management, I think is now even more. Paramount and insidious than it ever was before. And it's kind of like this, I don't know, this, um, this, this thing that we're constantly striving for is to be able to effectively manage our time.
I'm actually reading a book, it's taking me a while to get through it. Not 'cause there's an issue with the book 'cause I just don't read very often. Um, called Time Management for Mortals. It's really interesting. It's much more of like a, I'm [00:03:00] gonna call like a meta. Look at time management and what the construct of time is and how we think about it.
It's not about like, oh, find a time blocking app and start time blocking your calendar and start prioritizing your tasks. It's not about that at all. I'm not gonna get into that book. Um, but this is something that I have been thinking a lot about and because when we think about time management, we think about how can I optimize my time?
How can I create more time? And we think that if we're able to do that, that that. We'll kind of fix everything that everything that needs to get done will get done because we've created the time for it. But it's not that simple because your energy levels need to line up with what you have the capacity for.
So the crux of this is that just because you have the time for something doesn't mean you have the mental energy capacity for it. You can have a lot of time and no mental energy, and you can also have a lot of mental energy and less time. And we have to think about how do [00:04:00] those two things kind of overlap?
It's almost like a Venn diagram circle, right? Imagine a, a time circle and a mental energy circle, and how do they overlap? We need to get them to overlap, and that's kind of the sweet spot because it, we can create, we can manage our time and have all the calendar apps and time blocking in the world, but if we don't have the mental capacity to do the thing that we're supposed to do in that time slot, it doesn't matter.
And so we have to be able to pivot and we have to be able to assess, and we have to be able to know and get really honest with ourselves about what we have the mental capacity for in those moments, and either follow through with what we know we have the capacity for that we kind of had planned or pivot and do less.
And so over the last several weeks of podcast episodes, there's kind of been an unintentional theme. I hadn't planned it out this way, but as I look back I'm like, wow, this is, this is kind of cool. Um. Is that there's been this overarching theme, which is kind of like, I'm talking about it again today, which is this idea of like [00:05:00] doing less and how do we kind of keep ourselves going?
How do we keep up and do the things that we need to do? And a lot of that, a big part of that is sometimes dialing back and doing less than we want to, less than we think we need to. And that shows up in so many different places. Right. I talked about it in terms of going to the gym. I talked about it last week.
Um. What was the, about like meal prep and meal planning and so this week I'm talking about it kind of just in this bigger picture concept of, of time management. And here's the interesting thing is like we know that time is finite. We know, right? We know we have 24 hours a day, and I think I've said this before, but I'll say it again just in case, like we do not all have the same 24 hours in a day, right?
We don't all have the same 24 hours in a day, but. Everyone in fact has 24 hours in a day. But they are, um, the, the load of that and the freedom and the autonomy of that time is not the same between people. But [00:06:00] factually speaking, from a scientific clock based standpoint, there are 24 hours in a day. Right?
It's finite. Energy. We don't think about energy in that same way. We don't have really a way to measure our energy. Time is very clearly and easily measured because it's like a new, it's, we have, it's a number system that, that we think of that is the mechanism through which we understand time. We don't have that for energy.
Energy is a much less tangible, um, kind of mental psychological concept. And I'm not really talking as much about physical energy and like fatigue. I'm talking really about mental energy and mental load, right? And mental load has become a big buzzword over the last few years and I think rightfully so.
Um, but it's easy to ma to measure time. It's not easy to measure energy. And because of that. I think we just inherently automatically think that energy is kind of unlimited or that we can adjust it or mess around with it or play with it or get it to be. We want it to be, and that's not true. [00:07:00] I have, I don't, I mean, honestly I've created, but I use kind of a visual analogy of a pie when I talk about time, energy, and attention, right?
We know time is finite, but energy is finite as well. And you know, like if you've, on the days that you are. When you're like, oh my God, I'm so drained. Or you can't focus at work, or you lose your shit with your kids, that is because your mental energy is gone. It, there's nothing left. And you keep trying to add, and you keep trying to do more and you can't focus, you can't get the work done.
You can't pay attention, you can't engage with your kids. You lose your shit because you have no mental energy left. That's why, because it's gone. But we just don't have a numerical way to measure that. And so I do think, and I've talked about this on another podcast episode, um, if you take the visual of a pie and you think about your energy, your, your, all of your energy is a whole pie.
And then we cut slices, right? And you can cut six slices of pie. You can cut eight slices of pie. You could cut a hundred slices of pie if you want to, but every pie piece is gonna get smaller and smaller and smaller. And which means your energy is getting divided up and divided up and divided up into more [00:08:00] and more and more things.
So you're taking on more, but you're taking it on with less energy. And that is, that's kind of the crux of why we struggle so much. We can't keep taking on more and more and more. We don't have more and more energy to give. That energy that we're giving to those extra things is gonna come from another pie piece.
And so then that other thing gets less energy and the new thing we're adding is also getting less energy. And so they, we hit a breaking point and sometimes that breaking point happens every day at the end of the day. Sometimes it builds up over time. But the issue is we keep coming back. We keep blaming time.
And I don't think the issue is time. I think the issue is we are mismanaging our energy and we are not paying attention to what we actually have the capacity for. And there's a constant mismatch between what we think we have the capacity for and what we are actually doing, not what we think we have the capacity for.
Here's the mismatch. I mis said that. There's kind of two mismatches. There's a mismatch between what we think we have the capacity for and what we [00:09:00] actually have the capacity for. And there's a mismatch between what we actually have the capacity for and what we do. And we need to create a matchup between what we actually have the capacity for and what we actually do.
And so again, all the things I've talked about the last couple of weeks, right? If we think about having mental energy to work out, right? And the example I talked about on Instagram, that kind of was the genesis of this whole thing. Was around having a ton of time in the morning based on how my schedule was for that day, but not having the mental energy to go do a strength workout.
'cause that takes a lot of mental energy for me. But I was easily able to throw on my vest and go for a walk, which takes almost zero mental energy for me. That might not be the same for you. Could be the reverse for you or something totally different, but that's what's true for me. And so I kind of pivoted and did the thing that took less mental energy.
I also talked about it in kind of like a meta way where I talked about it on stories and it kind of just let it come out organically rather than trying to like write this neat, perfect little post in a reel and write a caption and have this thing all tightly [00:10:00] packaged, that was gonna take so much more mental energy for me to create that piece of content rather than me just kind of talking to the camera and letting it come out, right?
I was able to share this idea that I felt was important. But in a way that required less mental energy. And so identifying kind of options in terms of how much mental energy something requires is super important. And you can approach it. And I've talked about this recently too, but like a good, better, best approach, right?
Where like, you know. What's kind of the ideal when I have, like, when I have kind of prime time energy, what's, what do I, what can I ideally do when I have like middle of the road energy? What can I do? And when I'm like barely hanging on by a thread, what can I do? Because here's the thing, what happens is because we've only planned for the prime time, best option.
But the reality is that life kind of rarely allows that to happen. We don't have a plan for the good, better options for the middle of the road or the crappy options, and then we just end up not doing [00:11:00] anything. And so the reason I'm talking about this, 'cause this very much ties in to the work that we do here and talk about food and exercise and taking care of yourself.
Um, and this also just is a much bigger like life concept. And so really identifying again, and I'm, I know I've said this now, but probably four times I've talked about this in the last couple episodes, and this was not planned, but identifying. Kind of three options for any kind of like big thing that you are trying to do on a regular basis.
So let's call it, um, like having nutritious food to eat, uh, exercising and getting dressed right. I'm just gonna use the things that I talk about a lot. Having an option, having kind of like the ideal option for those things is fine. But if you don't have kind of your quote backup options and your backup to your backup.
That's where you're screwing yourself. And because it's a, it's a mismatch of actual energy to what you can actually do. And there's nothing like, this [00:12:00] isn't a bad thing. This is actually a good thing. This is actually us being on radically honest with what life is actually like and being really connected to like what we truly can do and having some self-compassion around it.
Right. Not beating ourselves up because, oh, there I go again. Like I didn't make time for the workout, or my alarm went off and I was just too tired. I couldn't get up. I have to get better at X, Y, Z. No. It's like we'll do less right? Plan to get up in the morning and do a 10 minute workout, not a 45 minute workout, right?
If you feel like you can't throw together a whole outfit in the morning, put on a cute necklace with whatever outfit you've already worn three days that week, and call it a day, right? Throw on some mascara, pull your hair up in a ponytail and wear your sweats. Right. What is the backup and what's the backup to the backup?
And I'm gonna keep talking about this because I think it is extremely underrated. Extremely overlooked. And when we talk about energy management, this is what it is. Um, how can I do less? How can I do something that's [00:13:00] gonna take less energy? And this is different for everybody. It's not the same. Like I'm throwing out some examples that happen to be kind of relevant for me that I think might be relevant to some of you, but some of them might.
Not be relevant, um, but look at the areas where you continually struggle, where you keep trying to make a change and maybe it sticks for a little while, but it doesn't follow through long term. What is the realm of that? Like, what is kind of like the topic? Is it sleep? Is it food? Is it exercise? Is it getting dressed?
Is it cleaning your house? Is it spending time with your kids? Is it getting off social media? Like what, there's like a million different things. And then identify what is it that you're trying to do, and is that your best option, right? Are you doing this? Are you scaling this on a good, better, best? And where does that fall on good, better, best?
Is it your ideal option? Because if it is, you need to back way off. And you gotta come up with other options that are not quote unquote ideal, and work with that because that's the reason that you're not able to follow through. [00:14:00] It is not a you problem, it's an energy management problem. And this is something that, why would we even be aware of this, right?
And I think when I talked about this, people are like, this makes so much sense. I've never thought about it like this before, but this is exactly what I feel. Um, because we keep trying to make it about managing our time better. And yes, we do need to have a sense of how we're spending our time, but we also need to know how we are spending our energy.
And I think like we act, we will often spend our energy on things that don't need it, don't warrant, don't warrant it, or that we don't want to be, and then we don't have energy left over to do work. Like I think social media is such a great example of this, like I think the vast majority of humans who are on social media.
Are spending way more energy on it than we want to. Right. And that's not just time. It's not just, oh, I spent an hour scrolling Instagram. It's what is the energy drain from doing that? Think about all of the mental stuff that's happening, where you're watching whatever you're watching and you're comparing yourself.
You're online shopping, you're wishing [00:15:00] you had something, you're second guessing something you did, you're watching a video about something that's. Totally unrelated to you. You start thinking about a person that you used to work with, or suddenly you're down a rabbit hole of like your kid's best friend's, mom's, brother's, soccer coach, and like where they live and what they're doing, right?
You know exactly what I'm talking about. And then you've spent all this mental energy thinking about that in whatever form, and then you are like, oh my God. Holy shit. I just spent 45 minutes on TikTok. Not only now is that time gone, but that energy is gone too when you can't get it back. So then whatever it is that you have to go and do next, you are gonna have less energy for.
And I think that's the bigger thing because again, there doesn't have to be, you don't have to have a lot of time and a lot of energy. You can have little time and a lot of mental energy. That is definitely a thing because you can have a lot of time and no mental energy, right? There's not always a, it's not always like a one-to-one, um, relationship.
Sometimes it's kind of like an inverse relationship. But I think we need to start paying a lot more attention [00:16:00] to what are our energy sucks. And on the flip side of that, what are our energy kind of replenishers, our filler uppers? Um, what, what fills your cup, so to speak? And I don't mean like fills your cup, like makes you feel good.
Like yes, that's fine, but I literally mean like what gives you mental energy. Um, and I think understanding that is important too, because where does. How are we allowing and creating space for that as well? I'm looking over at my notes to see like if there's anything else I want to say about this. And I think I've really started to kind of, to, to, to capture this.
Um, you know, I think like the big crux of this is that. Uh, we can create all the time we want and we can do all the time management want and we can, I keep seeing ads for like this, this like skylight app and, and you can use your phone or your planner. You can get cool planners and you can sit there. I mean, I remember doing that a couple years ago, not for time, but like for lists of things.
You can use all the time management [00:17:00] stuff out there in the world and you can take all the courses and do all that, but if you are not looking at how you are using your energy alongside that, it's never going to work. And again, this concept of. Identifying the mismatch between what you. Think you have energy for and what you actually have energy for, and then what you actually have energy for and what you're actually trying to do.
Right? Because if you actually only have energy to go for a walk, but you're trying to go out there and like do a 30 minute run, like, and again, I'm not talking about physical energy. I'm about mental, mental energy. It's just gonna be a shit show. And then you're gonna be like, oh, I suck at running. I'm so bad I never follow through.
Well, that's not really the issue. The issue is you have a mismatch and mismatches are such like a. They're like a thing that I'm realizing more and more kind of captures, like things that we are struggle, that we, that we struggle with, where we think it's us, but it's actually a mismatch between what we're doing and either what we think we need to do or what we think we have the capacity to do anyway, that's kind of a little [00:18:00] bit of a separate thing, but having a backup to having a backup and having a backup to your backup.
Is very important. Identifying, again, I'm kind of, I'm just kind of recapping a little bit, identifying what are like the big areas in your life that you kind of keep struggling with that feel really, really tough and have you looked at what is it that you're trying to do, what you think you need to do?
Have you really assessed whether that matches up with. What capacity you have in your life in many different factors. And then have you identified like your backup and then your backup versions. And if you haven't, I highly suggest like you start doing that and come share with me what happens because I guarantee you, I won't guarantee because I can never guarantee.
But I think that is really gonna start to help you see some shifts. Um, it all comes back to doing less. Do less, do less, do less, do less. Um, 'cause it's easier to scale up, it's harder to scale back [00:19:00] once you're already doing something. And so if we start with less, we can kind of add on more and see what we have the capacity for.
Um, so all right. There we go. I think that's good. Thank you for listening. Um, I'll be back of course, next week and, uh, more soon.