Reverse Engineering Your Schedule
It was early in my Outdoor Leadership education that one of my instructors said something along the lines of, "You've got to pace expeditions so you always have something left in the tank in case shit hits the fan." He went on to say that a summit means nothing if you are depleted and can't make a smart decision to get back down safely. His general rule was to only exert yourself to about 60-70%. Leave 30-40% for if you have to self-rescue. And hey, if you don't have to, you have some in the tank to celebrate instead of crash when you're done!
So how did we do that on expeditions? Plan your food, breaks, sleep, gear care, literally everything was scheduled before mileage.
Why it took me so long to apply that lesson in business and in life, I'll never know, but I am convinced it has been the key to maintaining my decision-making skills and my self-regulation in high pressure moments at work and at home, and it has certainly been the preventative tool I needed after recovering from burn out that I was drinking to cope with.
Something I encourage all of my clients to do at an organizational level and personal level is to manage your energy capacity. The way we operate and the decisions we make when our energy is depleted are completely compromised. Notice I'm saying energy, not time. There is a difference! Time does not equal effort or production or stress. Time is not a reflection of how you feel after any given task.
I can spend four hours on my company's bookeeping and need a nap afterwards. I can spend four hours facilitating a workshop and feel like climbing a mountain afterwards. Someone else might feel the exact opposite with the same amount of time!
Why does this concept matter and why do we need to consider looking at our capacity in a new way?
We, as leaders, the ones everyone turns to for the answers, need to leave something in the tank for chaos, for surprises, for challenges, for self-rescue. People rely on us to be the calm in the storm, to regulate the room when everyone else is dysregulated, and to make quality decisions when the stakes are high.
I have gotten comfortable with a 20% reserve in my tank. When I managed more people and projects than I do now, I kept 30% in reserve because the issues were bigger, more draining, and more probable because of the type of work we did.
So what does it mean to leave some in the tank in practice, not just in theory?
I look at my schedule in blocks; quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily. For me, this looks like managing my capacity to bid on projects, take coaching clients, take consulting clients, speaking or facilitation gigs. It's easy for me to lay that out in a vacuum, but when I overlay my own health essentials (movement, eating, sleeping), family time, friend time, and community volunteering: that changes my capacity and not just because of time conflicts, because of energy.
I know what energizes me and what drains me. If I'm not leaving time for connection outside of work, my energetic capacity to "do" more goes down. If I'm not getting outside and exercising, my capacity to think creatively tanks. If I'm volunteering too much or too little, my battery drains. Everything is connected!
So, back to the real application, not just the theory: how do I save 20-30% of my energy? For me and for most of my clients, the best way to make this happen is to reverse engineer your schedule based on your energy capacity. Use your power of discernment to apply this where you have control or influence.
I call this reverse engineering because most of the high-achieving individuals and organizations I work with let their calendars be filled for them with as much work as they can take, and they believe they have to just take things as they come and they actually think they are really good at it. In some cases, this is true, but in most, you have more control than you think and continually running on E...you're not as good as you think but no one's willing to tell you because of your title. So, why not start with ideal and adapt as you need.
So where do we start with your calendar? Not with work.
1- Sleep: average 7-9 hour sleep per day
(If you didn't read my last newsletter to understand why this is first, now is your chance.)
2- Food: food prep and eating
3- Movement: minimum of 30 minutes per day
4- Connection: family/friend time will vary based on the context of your life, but know this is a human essential, not a luxury for when you have time.
5- Doctor/Dentist/Mental Healthcare appointments
6- Hobby that has nothing to do with work
7- Vacation/PTO
8- Percentage of reserve for potential family chaos/challenges (this might be really low if you live alone or could be really high if your partner is ill and you have teenagers and another one on the way and your elderly parent is living with you and you have a four dogs and a bird)
Holy crap! We aren't even to work yet...
8- Percentage of reserve for potential work chaos (this might be really low if you are never on-call, you have no direct reports, and you don't have to make decisions on the fly, or it could be really high if you have a lot of direct reports and everyone's paychecks are riding on your ability to regulate your emotions and make high quality decisions at any given moment)
9- Work that is physically, mentally, or emotionally draining to you or your team (get the hard stuff that you know you have to do on the calendar)
10- Work that fills you up and energizes you or your team
11- Gap-filler work that you or your team could do in your sleep and is really neutral on your energy
There's more to it, but this is your brain tickler so you can start thinking about managing your time according to your energy. Keep in mind things will shift based on your season of life, and also keep in mind this isn't permission to never challenge yourself and just kick back waiting for emergencies...This is a challenge to really apply practical, intentional scheduling into your life to learn what is productive and what is draining. To experience how you might operate when your basic human essentials are being met. To find out through experience if quality and productivity is actually more closely tied to time or energy.
Some people look at this and think, "Oh great, now no one will be working." I'll speak to you in my next newsletter! You might be someone who has unintentionally adopted the engrained idea that time= outcome. It's not your fault. America has run on proximity bias for a long time, and we are really, really bad at measuring outcomes and performance when it comes to work and life. We'll save that conversation for next time, but stick with me.
To wrap this up, once you build awareness around your energy capacity, your team's, your family's, you will start automatically running decisions through this filter before you raise your hand to take on another project for yourself or your team.
Once you see the effect on the quality of your work, your decision making, your quality, your wellbeing; you can't unsee it! If you know that you have a pattern of expending all of your energy until you crash, then choosing a coping strategy like drinking, drugs, screens to numb out until you get back up and go again. I'm telling you, there is another way, but you can only hear that so many times until you decide to experience it yourself.
You don't have to quit your job. You don't have to step down from your position. You need to get honest, and try a new way. Start managing the systems in your own life so you can start influencing the systems that impact everyone you work and live with. We are long overdue for a reckoning with our autopilot behaviors at home and at work that we think add value.
If you found this intriguing and you decide to give it a go, send me an email and let me know how it goes! If you think this is nonsense and will be the exact thing that crushes productivity in yourself and your workforce, send me an email and let me know! [email protected]
Naomi DuCharme | [email protected]
Workforce Wellbeing Strategist | Facilitor | Coach
Integrating Wellness Solutions: Where safety, health, and wellbeing aren't one-off programs or initiatives; they're outcomes of well-designed, human systems.
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