125: 4 Time Vampires to Avoid if You Want to Get More Done

Here’s the million dollar question… do you know how you’re actually spending your time?

Maybe you use a planner, or an online scheduler, or an entire pack of sticky notes to stay organized.

But no matter how you choose to schedule your time, you’re stuck feeling like there’s never enough of it. There’s never enough hours in the day, days in the week, even weeks in the year to do all the things you want to get done!

Okay, back to my million dollar question. Do you really know where your time goes? It’s a hard one, I know! But in this community of perfectionists and high achievers, we love a challenge.

So let me take it one step further and ask you: how are you really spending your energy?

Now you’re probably thinking, “wait, I thought we were talking about time here… I wish I had more time, Nicole!” Hang with me for a sec.

What if I told you that it’s actually energy that you need more of, not time?

In this episode, I’m breaking down one of the biggest productivity myths to tell you why energy is more important than time when it comes to productivity.

I’m also exposing the real vampires you should keep an eye out for– those pesky time and energy draining vampires, that is.

Keep reading and, I’ll walk you through the one strategy everyone wishes they knew sooner, the key to boosting your productivity.

My yearly productivity audit

About once a year, I like to do my own productivity audit. For one whole week, I track everything I do to get a clear picture of how and where I’m really spending my time.

And every time I do this, the same thing keeps coming up. I realized that I run out of energy before I run out of time.

You’ve probably noticed this too. You’re sitting at your desk for hours, getting distracted by everything at the end of the day, or you’re finding yourself counting down the minutes until it’s time to go home. It isn’t your time that’s slipping away… it’s your energy.

Why energy is more important than time if you want to be more productive

We think time is the problem. We say, “If only I had more time, I would have gotten way more done!”

But when we have more time, we just end up filling that time.

Parkinson’s Law states that the amount of work you have will expand to fill the time allotted?

It’s the funny way that we end up using our time. If you have 5 minutes to quickly reply to an email while standing in line at the grocery store, you’ll get it done in those 5 minutes. But if you’re sitting at your desk staring at the same email, you might take an hour to respond.

And, you guessed it, it’s all tied to the things that take up most of our brains’ energy: overthinking, perfectionism, and procrastination.

We only have so many mental resources in a day. We’ve learned that our kids’ brains are like sponges (Allison learns new things crazy fast!), but imagine yours as a cup (or coffee mug, wine glass, you get the point). Our brains work hard, but they have their limits.

Everything we do either fills that cup or drains it. And the mental habits that we’re all guilty of in this community of high achievers, like overthinking, perfectionism, and procrastination use up more of your brain’s energy.

On the other hand, the stuff we actually enjoy doing– hobbies like reading, cooking, hiking, you name it– these are the things that refuel our energy and motivation.

The things that bring us joy help us feel refreshed and re-energized to start a new work day, to get outside our comfort zone and try something different and exciting for a business project, or to finally get that to-do list under control. It’s like hitting the reset button for our brains so they can rest, recharge, then get right back to reaching those goals.

Here’s the bad news. A lot of the things that we do, whether you’re aware of it or not, are energy and time vampires. They’re so good at making us feel productive, when in reality they’re just draining our batteries.

4 energy and time vampires to avoid

Scrolling social media. In our modern digital world, social media has become a huge part of our lives.

Social apps are designed to hook us in and keep us scrolling through facebook, instagram, pinterest for hours!
You might start off thinking you’re just getting some creative ideas for your online business,
and next thing you know you’ve fallen down a rabbit hole, you’ve been on your phone all day, and you didn’t get anything done.

Doing busy work. You know you’re stuck in busy work when you’re doing literally anything else other than the task that's going to move the needle forward towards your goals.

If you’re in your office color-coding your entire schedule, refreshing your emails every 5 minutes, or rearranging everything on your desk… you’re stuck doing busy work.
And no surprise, this happens when you’re at home too!
Running errands all over town on your day off, reorganizing your pantry…
It’s your brain trying to convince you that all the tasks on your to-do list are equally important.
But that’s not true. Some of the tasks are just sneaky busy work that drains your time and energy.

Stressing over mental distractions.

Distractions can be external– your neighbor’s dog barking nonstop or your phone going off with texts and emails, for example.
But they can also be internal.
Self-doubt holding you back, worrying about what other people think, wanting everything to be just perfect, these are all internal distractions that pull your brain’s focus, drain its resources, and add stress on top of it all.
When your brain has to keep switching between these mental distractions, your productivity takes a nose-dive.

Skipping breaks to get more done.

Ever reach a point where you’re so physically and mentally exhausted but you’re telling yourself to push through and work even harder to finish what you started? R
emember, our brains have limits!
You can only focus for so long before you start to notice your memory and concentration go out the window.

How to uncover your own time vampires

Now onto the best part– the good news! The key strategy to boosting your productivity so you can take on any task, project, or to-do list every day without feeling like you’ve got zero time, energy, and motivation.

Find your own time and energy vampires.

These will look different for everyone.

Take a good look at your schedule and ask yourself, what drains your energy? What tasks do you dread? Then reflect on how your productive days are different from your busy days. You’ll notice a real difference.

Knowing what’s sucking your energy is the first step to leveling up your productivity. The more of these energy and time vampires we can banish from our days, the faster we can achieve our goals (and have the energy left to actually enjoy them!)

Key takeaways

Today, you learned the truth behind one of the biggest myths when it comes to productivity– it isn’t time that you think you run out of, it’s actually energy.

And because our brains have limited resources, it’s important to know what you’re really spending your energy on.

Some things refuel our energy and motivation, while others– the time and energy vampires– just drain our resources.

Practice the key strategy you learned today so you can find your own time and energy vampires and turn your busy days into productive days.

Show Highlights

[02:29] - We run out of energy before we run out of time.

[03:09] - We think we need more time, but when we have more, we fill it up.

[04:06] - Our brains work hard, but they have their limits.

[05:06] - A lot of the things we do to make us feel productive are actually time and energy vampires.

[05:22] - One of them is scrolling through social media.

[05:55] - Busy work is another one.

[06:43] - External and internal distractions can be a problem.

[07:25] - Sometimes we skip breaks to get more done, but our brains have limits.