Energy Management with Julie Voris

So as you know, with the crank it up podcast, my goal is that you’re listening to this in the morning, That this becomes an essential part of your morning routine. I believe that you set the tone for your day in the morning.

If you can set the tone then we’ll create your morning on purpose. I believe that will help you create your day on purpose. And if you can string together A lot of days on purpose. You’ll string together weeks, months and a life on purpose. 

I really believe so much of that starts in the morning. So I’m hopeful that you are listening to this, and it’s bringing you a little bit of value in the morning as you’re getting ready, as you’re getting the kids out the door. 

Whatever you might be doing, this might be a little bit of inspiration, a little bit of motivation, a little bit of fire as you’re starting your day. And today, I wanted to talk about this idea of time management.

I hear this all the time. I just don’t have enough time, and I want to offer a word swap and then 4 ways to help you with that concept. And that word swap is, can we trade out the word time for the word energy? 

I really don’t believe that it’s time management. I believe it’s energy management.

It’s priority management.

It’s goal management.

Right? It’s focused management. And listen.

We all need help with our focus right now. We do. In 2023, my goodness, we all have the attention span the size of a gnat, so I get it. But I don’t think it’s time because we all know people far busier than we are, and we still have the same amount of hours and minutes in our day that they do. 

And somehow yet they manage to get more stuff done. It’s not because they’re managing their time. 

They’re managing their energy. 

They’re managing their focus.

They’re managing their attention.

 So I’ve got 4 ways for you today so that might help you. 

Prioritize Your Energy: 4 Ways to Manage Time and Focus on Your Goals

You know, I think you’re also probably lacking habits and strategies and that those habits and strategies might not be connected to something bigger. Okay. Well, that’s an easy fix. Right? Because, you control your habits. So it’s swapping it out. It’s not as much time management as it is more energy management and focus management.

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And perhaps you’re lacking some habits that help you with that focus management and the energy management. That is awesome because none of that takes talent to figure out. Right? 

So I got 4 ways that might help you the with that energy management, 

Number 1 Way to Manage Your Energy –  Create Before You Consume.

Create before you consume. Example: do your journaling. Write down your gratitude and your goals. Do your personal growth. Maybe even do your social media post.

Really create the energy and the vibe that you want in your life on purpose before you start scrolling social media or even consuming a podcast, really. You know, maybe you’re doing your journaling and you do your gratitude and you do your goals and you do some personal growth stuff the all before you do anything else.

That would be amazing. 

Maybe that’s a perfect world, but if we can use the mantra created before we consume, then I believe that will help us manage our energy. Can you create your social media post before you consume any social media? Can you do your journaling and create the energy that you want in your day? 

And maybe for you, it’s even a workout. Can you create that energy by moving your body and doing some fitness before you consume anything else? So just that mantra, think of how that might help you in your life. Can you create before you consume? 

And when you are creating before you’re consuming, I think that really helps us manage our energy. We’re so much more in charge of ourselves. Right? It really helps us feel in the driver’s seat of our life because we’re the ones deciding where our energy, where our focus, where our attention should go. So that’s number 1.

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Create before you consume. Apply that in any way that feels good and right to you. Okay. 

Number 2 Way to Manage Your Energy – Front Load your Week

Anything you can do to bulk up your Monday through, I’d say, Wednesday. Your Monday through Wednesday, anything. I mean, your Zoom calls, your meetings, Anything that you can do to bulk up your Monday through Wednesday and then leave Thursday, the Possibly.

This is just a suggestion. You can, you know, align your week in any way that feels good and right again to you. Thursday could be what my friend Holly Haynes calls CEO time, which is you’re gonna answer your emails. 

You’re gonna dig into your messages. Maybe you’re creating content that day. Maybe you’re calling and making personal appointments that day. Maybe you’re taking care of stuff for your kids that day. It’s CEO time where you’re not really putting out fires or showing up on Zoom calls or doing meetings, this is your time to feel like you’re catching up in your business, in your life.

Frontloading Your Week:
“You’re just more energetically aligned with the hustling more, working harder in the front end of the week than you are the back end. That’s just kinda how we are. Can front loading your week really help you feel more productive and then have that time at the end of the week where you have built in the opportunities for those appointments and for that catch up?”
— Julie 

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Friday, to me, is kind of a personal day. It’s the day when I try to schedule any of my appointments. It could be the dentist. It could be a doctor appointment. It could be an orthodontist. It could be nails. It could be eyebrows. It could be any kind of appointment that I might need to do.

It could be alterations, anything. I try to schedule those on Friday and have that kinda be a personal day because especially if you have children going into Saturday and Sunday, you’ve probably got stuff on the docket already planned for you. Right? 

I know I did when my girls were in the thick of their busy seasons. Saturday and Sunday were not like, let’s catch up and do laundry. Oh, no. They were like, we got rehearsals and practices and concerts and shows and places to be and, oh, by the way, football games and all the things. 

So the weekend is not necessarily that time for relaxing. But if you can give yourself Monday through Wednesday as just front loaded by the time you get to Thursday Friday, then you do get a little bit more time to breathe.

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You’re just more energetically aligned with the hustling more, working harder the front end of the week than you are the back end. That’s just kinda how we are. That’s how we’re set up .

As a society, I think, can you front load everything Monday through Wednesday and then Thursday be a catch up day for you and Friday be more of a personal day for you before you go into the weekend. 

And, again, all this is just a suggestion. You know? I offer suggestions. You make the choices. And if these suggestions help you with your energy management remember, we’re not managing time. 

With your energy management, with your attention management, with your focus management, can… can front loading your week really help you the feel more productive and then have that time at the end of the week where you have built in the opportunities for those appointments and for that catch up? If that helps you manage your energy, give that a go.

Number 3 Way to Manage Your Energy – Create a Sustainable Morning Routine

You had to know this was going to be in there. Create a sustainable morning routine. And by sustainable morning routine, what I mean is a morning routine that works in this season of your life. If you have a newborn baby and you’re trying to get up at 4 AM and do some extensive elaborate morning routine, that’s silly. Stop it. Knock it off right now. Knock it off.

However, if you are going through a parenting transition as I have been and you’re moving into maybe more of an empty nest this situation. It can be really easy to think you don’t need a morning routine. Now I’m a morning person. I love the morning so so so much. 

It can be easy though to think that you don’t need a morning routine when suddenly you don’t have a kid schedule driving your day. All of a sudden, you might be able to get up anytime that you want. 

What I’ve discovered is I really can’t get up anytime that I want. I don’t wanna get up anytime that I want, or maybe I should rephrase that. The time that I want to get up is still actually early in the morning, and I have found a morning routine that works for me right now in this season of life.

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Also, it’ll shift and change, and I think we just get ourselves,I don’t know, all worked up by thinking we get this morning routine, and now this morning routine has to be set in stone from now until the end of time. Why? You are a human being that is always changing, ever evolving, always adjusting, recalibrating. 

Your morning routine probably needs to do the same. Now you might have some components in it that to you are nonnegotiable, and that’s totally fine. You should. But perhaps the time that you wake up or the order in which you are doing the pieces of your morning routine, they might shift and change, and that’s okay.

 I’ve really learned to give myself grace in the time that I get up in the morning.

There are seasons in my life where I’m like, I’m getting up at 4:30, and this feels this So good. Like, literally, I can’t wait to get out of bed. It’s 4:30 AM, and this feels really good. And then there are other seasons in my life where it’s this 6:30 AM, and I’m like, really? I’m getting up right now? Are you kidding me? 

And I just think that our bodies sometimes tell us what we need, and then sometimes our mind needs to take over and say, you know what? We’re gonna dig back into a sustainable morning routine because we know that we’re gonna feel better. I’ve said this 1000000 times. You already know this. 

The feeling that you’re seeking comes on the other side of you, the doing. So what will move the needle for you, for how you wanna feel, and for your goals, what kind of morning routine is sustainable for you in this season and will move the needle on your goals, your momentum, how you wanna feel.

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What will get you to how you want to feel by the time you finish your morning routine and you’re walking into the rest of your day, and can you sustain that? 

I’m not getting up at 4:30 in the morning anymore, but I did for a season. And it was sustainable for me for a season, and then it wasn’t anymore, and that’s okay. And that’s okay. My sweet spot right now is somewhere between 5 and 5:30 AM. 

That is what works for me, you have to figure out what works for you in terms of how you want to feel and can you sustain that. Not well, I just really like to stay in bed because that’s probably not going to get you the feeling that you actually want. 

Number 4 Way To Manage Your Energy – The Concept of Start to Finish

It’s a concept I call start to finish start to finish. Now I’m gonna tell you right now. This does not universally apply. It does not universally apply. And with all of these, create before you consume, front load your week, sustainable morning routine, and this one – start to finish. 

You’re sort of taking the general concept of it and applying it where it works for you so that you can better manage and be in charge of your energy, your attention, and your focus. 

So I’m going to give you this mantra and kind of explain the theory behind it, and then you take it and run with it wherever it works for you.

Start to finish. What you start, can you finish it that day if possible? Let me explain. 

I first heard of this concept and started applying it to laundry. I started applying it to laundry. If I start a load of laundry in the morning, you bet your booty that I’m doing everything in my power to make sure that laundry is hung up in its place the By the end of the day, start to finish. 

House tasks like groceries, if you come home or you like, you go to Trader Joe’s. You come home from Trader Joe’s or you have groceries delivered. It’s really easy to kind of unload them or doing things and sort of get distracted in the middle and grocery still need to be put away or the vegetables still need to be washed or cut up or fruits or whatever, and you’re trying to get… start to finish.

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When you come home from Trader Joe’s, unpack all your groceries, get everything put away, decant anything that you decant, put it into your glass jars, wash your fruits and veggies, whatever it is that you might be doing. Like, do the whole task. Think of it in your mind as 1 big clump of a task. 

Then when you’re going to the grocery, you’re going to Trader Joe’s, you’re going to Whole Foods, wherever you’re going, when you’re coming home, the coming home and the putting away, that’s all part of that clump, start to finish. 

Maybe it’s a chapter of a book. If you sit down to read a chapter of a book, it’s start to finish. You know, in the business that I’m in, I think in terms of income producing activities as well. What can I start that I can finish on this day? 

Take that concept and think about where you can apply that in your life.

My favorite example is the laundry, the laundry and the groceries because I think it’s really easy to just throw this load of laundry in. And then 2 days later, it’s still sitting in the washer, and you’re like, well, now I gotta wash it again because now it’s just gross. 

Or you throw it in at night and then sometime the next day, you’re you know, try to tackle it from the…  Start to finish. It is such a productive, calming feeling to start the task and to finish it. When you go to the grocery, you come home, you unpack all those groceries, you put everything away. You decant all your stuff. You put it in your glass jars. All the little pieces that you do to put your stuff away, and it’s done.

And you wipe down your counters, and you look at it. You’re like, dang. It just feels so good when you start and finish a task in that time frame. So, again, use that concept wherever it might apply to you in your life. 

And if you’ve got an example of where it works for you in your life, please DM me. Email me. I would love to know how you’re using that concept. Again, I’d love to know how you’re using all these.

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All these are concepts that you can take and implement in your life in a way that works for you. 

1. Create before you consume. 
2. Front load your week. 
3. Create a sustainable morning routine that works in this season of your life that will move the needle for you, 
4. And this idea of start to finish. What you start, finish it within the time frame that you give yourself. 

I like to think in terms of that day. I’m starting the laundry that day. I’m finishing that day. And I’m coming home from the grocery store. I’m finishing it. I’m starting this chapter of the book. I’m finishing it. What can you start and finish in that same time frame? 

Okay. I hope this helped. I would really love to take the idea of time management just sort of off the table in our conversation, especially as females, and start thinking in terms of energy management, attention management, focus management because we all need help with our attention management. Right? So if these help, please let me know.

Shoot me an email. Send me a DM. And if you think that this episode would be helpful to a friend, would you do me a favor and share it? Because, you know, sharing is caring.

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That’s it for this episode. Thank you for making this podcast part of your life. It’s amazing to listen to a podcast. And listen, I so appreciate you listening to this one. What’s even more amazing is when you take action on what you heard. Use what you heard today to take action towards your goals.

It’s amazing to listen to a podcast. And listen. I so appreciate you listening to this one. What’s even more amazing is when you take action on what you heard. Use what you heard today to take action towards your goals. 

Please tag me on Instagram @julievoris with your takeaways and what you’re doing. If you enjoy the podcast, and I hope that you do, please spread the word. Invite a friend and leave a review. The world needs more positive energy, and you can be a part of that.

Now go – Crank It Up!