How to Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time

Why a tidier calendar rarely fixes a tired leader

Time management assumes every hour is equal. It is not. An hour at your sharpest produces a different quality of decision than an hour when you are drained, even if both sit in the calendar as 'strategy work'.

The phrase 'manage your energy, not your time' was popularised by Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy in a 2007 Harvard Business Review article. Their core point holds up in daily leadership: you can squeeze more tasks into a day, but you cannot squeeze more good judgement out of a depleted mind. Planning around energy accepts that limit and works with it.

Run a one-week energy audit before you change anything

You cannot manage what you have not noticed. A short audit replaces guesses about your energy with evidence from your own week.

1. 01

   Rate yourself three times a day

   At mid-morning, early afternoon and the end of the working day, score your energy from 1 to 5. Add a word for the quality: focused, flat, wired, foggy.

2. 02

   Note what came just before

   Beside each score, write the activity or conversation that preceded it. Patterns appear quickly, often within three or four days.

3. 03

   Sort activities into drains and sources

   At the end of the week, list what reliably lowered your score and what lifted it. Include people, meeting types, tasks and habits such as skipping lunch.

4. 04

   Find your peak window

   Most people have one or two stretches when thinking feels easiest. Mark them. These hours are your most valuable asset.

5. 05

   Choose one change for next week

   Pick a single adjustment, such as moving a weekly review into your peak window or adding a ten-minute gap after a draining meeting. Test it before adding another.

Four sources of energy, and one lever for each

Energy comes from more than sleep and coffee. It helps to look at four sources separately, because a leader can be physically rested and still emotionally flat, or mentally sharp and quietly disconnected from why the work matters.

Protect your peak hours for the work only you can do

Once you know your peak window, guard it. Block it for thinking, writing, difficult decisions and the conversations that need your best self. Move routine approvals, status updates and administrative meetings into the hours when your energy naturally dips.

This is often hardest in organisations where senior people expect immediate availability. Start small: protect two mornings a week and tell your team why. When the quality of your decisions improves, the arrangement usually defends itself.

During Ramadan, when many Gulf organisations shorten working hours and the rhythm of the day changes, your peak window may move. Rerun a short audit in the first week rather than forcing your usual schedule onto a different day.

Mistakes that make energy management one more thing to fail at

• ✦Copying someone else's routine. A dawn workout and a 5 am start suit some leaders and exhaust others. Build from your own audit, not from a profile of a famous CEO.
• ✦Treating recovery as a reward. Breaks are not something you earn after finishing the work. Short, planned recovery is what makes the work possible.
• ✦Ignoring the emotional drains. A recurring conversation you dread can cost more energy than a twelve-hour day. Name it and decide what to do about it.
• ✦Filling every gap. Back-to-back meetings with no transition time mean you carry the residue of one into the next. Even five minutes between them helps.
• ✦Relying on the weekend to repay the week. If you need the whole weekend to recover, the problem sits in the weekday pattern, not in how you rest.

Example: a newly appointed CFO in a family-owned group

Imagine a CFO who joins a family-owned group and finds their days filled with approval requests, family shareholder updates and long evening calls. They are working longer than ever and feel they are thinking less. A week-long audit shows a clear pattern: their energy peaks between 8 and 11 in the morning, and three recurring meetings in that window leave them flat for the rest of the day.

They move two of those meetings to the early afternoon, batch approvals into a single daily slot, and keep Tuesday and Thursday mornings for the financial strategy the board hired them to deliver. They also notice that one shareholder conversation drains them more than any other, and use coaching to work on why.

This example is hypothetical. It shows how a small number of changes, based on evidence from your own week, can return the hours that matter most.

When low energy is a coaching topic and when it needs a doctor

Coaching helps when low energy comes from how you work: unclear priorities, difficulty saying no, a drive to control everything, or habits that keep you switched on. In resilience coaching, we look at those patterns and build routines you can sustain. If you recognise yourself in the signs of burnout in leaders, it is worth reading before you decide what support you need.

Coaching is not therapy or medical treatment, and it is not a fix for exhaustion with a physical or psychological cause. If tiredness, low mood, poor sleep or stress persist, see a doctor or a licensed mental health professional. Coaching can work alongside that care, focusing on performance, thinking habits and behaviour.