Just like making appointments with friends, colleagues, or clients is usually a process that most people are conscious of doing with the rest of their days productivity kept in mind, or by having ‘rules’ for your scheduling such as not interfering with particular work times or family time etc, you should also know when to book your activities based on your daily energy fluctuations and daily rhythms. Most people know their circadian (daily cycle) or biological rhythm that prefers to sleep, eat, move, rest etc at roughly the same times each day, but less people take into account that we also have ‘Ultradian’ (more-than-daily) rhythms that occur several times throughout the day. And these cycles effect your energy and mood quite significantly. If you know these cycles you can plan your high energy activities, such as your fitness training, sales calls/meetings, or important tasks at times when you know you’ll be at high alert and plan lower energy activities, such as mundane tasks, down times, or lower focus jobs when you know you typically won’t be at full throttle. This is healthy not just for productivity sake but also for sustainability.
Many people say they hit a lull at certain times of the day. For some this is in the midafternoon, for others it’s mid to late morning. Either way, what most people do to overcome this is the less-sustainable method of the high-dose caffeine hit to adrenalize the lull into an acute stress reaction that ‘gets you through’. But instead of trying to PUSH through this period with stimulants you can simply let that lull happen if you prepare for your ‘high productivity’ work to be done during peak times and plan the less important stuff to coincide with the lull. It is far smarter to work WITH your daily energy cycles that to try to fight them.
This is especially true with your fitness training. First and foremost you book it when you CAN, so you know you’ll get it done, but even more advantageously – book it when you know you perform best!
