“You can always get more money, but you can never get more time.” – Jim Rohn.

The benefits of an effective time-management system are numerous. It allows you to optimally allocate your time and to strategically tackle your tasks to completion. Moreover, if you’re a goal oriented individual and have dreams you would like to see realized, then time is your most valuable asset.

Time, however, is a variable you can’t control. It will pass anyway. But what you can control is what you do with it. In making a documentary about Warren Buffet, a journalist asked to meet with him for an interview, and Buffet reportedly agreed to the meeting, because, from an actuarial standpoint, it fit into the amount of hours he intended to spend on extracurricular activities vis-à-vis his life expectancy.

Really?

Yes. This is an example of a person who using his time to live an intentional life. Now, most people don’t think about their time in that way, and you don’t have to go that far either, however, what we can learn from Buffet about time management is this: the quality of your life depends on the value you give to your time. It’s really that simple, and it’s truly up to you.

A lot has been written about time management, and I don’t mean for this article to be just another addition. But I’ve noticed that much of the time management advice out there is aimed at a general audience. Also much of it recycles the same old advice: categorize your tasks in terms of their importance and urgency and delegate them, eliminate them or negotiate how or when you’re going to do them. This system works well for some people and for some professions. However, it doesn’t do much for people who, like writers and entrepreneurs, have already a whole lot that they’re committed to doing. They simply can’t delegate those tasks, eliminate them and don’t have the leverage to negotiate them.

So how can you make the most out of your time to get more done without becoming overwhelmed? You need an Energy Management System.

The energy management system that I’ve created is made up of two parts: Three time-blocks of decreasing lengths coupled with what I call the Seed Planting Technique.

1. Energy Management v. Time Management

Studies have shown that we tend to work optimally for the first three consecutive hours. If you try to clock in any more than three hours in one sitting, then, in accordance with law of diminishing returns, your concentration levels will dip and so will the quality of your work. To clarify this further, your concentration levels will look something like this:

• 1^st hour: 10/10
• 2^nd hour: 9/10
• 3^rd hour: 7/10
• 4^th hour 2/10

Put up a resistance and fight your way into working for a fourth hour, and your work will probably need to be re-done. Another disadvantage to working a fourth hour is that you will need longer rest periods to recuperate. It will also become harder to get back to your work and finish it. In addition to needing longer rest periods, exerting yourself in such a fashion will make you prone to negative thoughts and possibly procrastination. Both of these can become so chronic that they can paralyze you from taking consistent action. Accordingly, I recommend that you think of your ability to work in terms of productivity waves. Try to figure out when you tend to work productively and for how long you can ride those waves.

Some bloggers recommend that you optimize your productivity using David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) method. This method is based on the idea that starting with the smaller and easier tasks creates a snowball effect that will help you tackle the rest of your tasks, including the larger ones, more easily. However, I don’t think this is an optimal usage of anybody’s time. Most people are creative and most able to tackle demanding tasks first thing in the morning. So why would you spend the time where you’re cognitively sharpest to respond to emails, pay your bills, or work on other easy tasks? It seems like a waste of your cognitive resources.

That’s why I recommend using a time-block system that’s consistent with your energy and creativity levels. When you’re sharpest, spend that time on the most demanding tasks, and when you’re beginning to feel fatigued, work on the things that need less of your intellectual energy.

I personally tend to work best with a time-block system that gives me 6 hours of work a day as follows:

1. First time-block: two and a half hours, followed by a 2 hour break.
2. Second time-block: two hours, followed by a 1 hour break.
3. Third time block: one hour and a half.

Following this regimen has allowed me to use my working time optimally. It’s done wonders for me. In fact, I am currently using this very breakdown for my 90,000 words in 90 days challenge. In sum, I encourage you to think about your time-management system in terms of your energy levels, and I advise you to craft time-blocks that respond to them.

2. The Seed Planting Technique

The seed planting technique is a time management technique that helps you get a head start on your work such that you’re working as efficiently as possible in each time-block.

Most people aren’t working efficiently because of familiarity deficit.

Each new task requires that we spend a certain amount of time getting familiar with it. For example, if you have to read an article or a report, then you first need to spend some time familiarizing yourself with the author’s writing style, the purpose of the paper, the breakdown of ideas and the overall aim. Strictly speaking, this is not productive work. This type of “getting ready” to do work can steal valuable time from your assigned working time. To that effect, you’re really not reaping the fruits of your labor until you’re well into your second or third hour of work. From my perspective, that’s wasting time.

So what I recommend you do is to skim your reading assignment in, what I have referred to elsewhere on this blog, a low-pressure environment. This is pretty much any place where there is zero expectations for you to actually do any work. So give it a quick skim in the bathroom, on the bus, while eating lunch, while waiting for class, waiting for coffee, waiting on a friend, waiting for a meeting, and so on and so forth.

You can probably access most of this information on your phone, so why not make use of it. When you become familiar with your assignments outside of work, you’re essentially planting seeds that you could reap their fruits later. So when you’re back at the office, you already familiar with your task and you’re ready to do actual work and reap the benefits.

Now, please don’t under-estimate how much a few minutes can do. They add up quickly. So make use of these opportunities. Keep in mind, however, that you’re not supposed to exert yourself at this stage. You’re simply just getting familiar with the task so that you can do actual work during your productivity waves.

3. Results Using this Technique

This technique has added tremendous value to me life. It’s extremely effective and has saved me thousands of dollars in wasted time.

It literally saved me close to $70,000 in tuition and living costs in my graduate school years: I worked on two Master’s degrees (each is designed to take 2 years at a time), and I did three years of my doctoral work; all in as little as 5 years. It usually takes no less than 7 years to complete this amount of work and writing. That’s 5 years including a semester I spent in a third Master’s program in Journalism (at the end of the first semester, I withdrew from the program because it didn’t complement my goals). Moreover, if you’re in business, this technique can add an extra $200 – $1000 a month to your profit. That’s exactly what it did for me in one of my consulting gigs. I hope it will be of value to you too.