The Best Way to Effectively Optimize Your Time

When you want to be successful in your life and in business, you have to effectively manage your time. I often say this, but one thing that you must do is have a clear system of managing your time, evaluating your actions, and effectively executing your plan. Today, I am going to walk you through a process of evaluating how you handle time. I want to help you effectively optimize your time for peak performance.

Taking steps forward

I want to make sure that as you take steps forward in your business, you are ready to act and not to just react to situations, as they arise. I also find that many times, entrepreneurs are quick to say that they want to make more money and have more clients, but they aren’t properly managing their time, energy, or resources.

While our focus for today will be on your time, in the future, I’ll be sharing more with you on managing your resources and your projects. For now, let’s zoom in and get hyper focused on optimizing your time for peak performance. If you think that you might feel a bit overwhelmed in this process, consider taking a moment to A.C.T, as I described in my last post. Then come back and continue with this process.

A time to do your best work

Recently, I shared this post with my Instagram community about how you should be working at your time of peak performance. “There is a time when you do your best work. That is when you should work on the things that require the most from you.” After I shared this, I was asked by one of my followers, the best way to know when your peak time of performance is. I want to discuss this with you here, so let’s dive into this first.

How to identify your best time or peak performance

There are times of the day when you find yourself the most tired. Maybe this is when you feel like you need more sleep or when your are most irritable. For some people, this is a time when you find it harder to function and doing things take more effort than they do during other times or the day.

For me, this happens in the afternoons, after 3:30 pm. During this school year, we opted to homeschool our children. At the end of everyday, I am drained and need to take a refresher. I have to clear my head and take a quick nap or quiet moment to myself. My children are aware of this and can tell the difference between when I am refreshed and when I’m not. On busy days and prior to homeschooling, this was the time of day when I would find myself reaching for something that would energize me, like a hot mocha from Starbucks or a chocolate brownie. These types of foods are caffeinated and give me a quick boost of energy.

Identifying the signs

You will find that during the times of day when you have the least amount of energy, you will reach for unhealthy foods that your body craves, knowing that it will give you a boost of energy. This is one indicator that your energy is low and this is not your peak time of performance.

Watching how your body behaves, how you feel emotionally, and how you handle things will tell you if it is your optimal time of day for you or not.

When it comes to learning when you operate at your best, you will have to pay attention and evaluate yourself.

What types of questions to ask?

As you evaluate yourself, there are specific types of questions that you must begin to ask. What times of the day do you feel the most energized? If someone were to give you a task, when would you be most apt to pump out great results. This isn’t the time when you struggle to get the work done. Instead it is the time when you can get lost in what you are doing because you are working so diligently and producing the best results.

During this time of day, you interact better in your relationships. You find that you care for yourself better and make better decisions. This time of day is your peak performance time.

For me, this is between the hours of 4:00 am and about noon. Yes, I said 4:00am. There are times when I wake up at this time for no reason, cannot go back to sleep, and I am able to do my best work, think the best, focus on my personal development, read, and plan for the remainder of my day. This is not a time when I involve others in my process, but it is the beginning of my peak performance hours. After noon, I can continue to function, but I have to force myself to be intentional about eating properly, focusing my energy, and getting results.

How to go about effectively optimizing your time for peak performance

As you go through this first step of evaluating yourself, you need to take a hard look at optimizing your time by realizing your hours of peak performance. Doing this will enable you to get your best work done when you are at your best.

So here is what I want to encourage you to do. For the next few days, I want you to keep a log of your activities, your eating habits, and how you feel. You want to annotate the specific times when you are experiencing certain things. Take a look at what is required of you and how you respond to your responsibilities at specific times.

This will help you to learn how to make adjustments in your schedule, eating habits, and with your mental and emotional activities, so that you can handle things better.

One way for me to help you understand this is with my very full schedule. While I am homeschooling my children on a daily basis, there is lunch-time call that I do with my coaching clients. It is towards the end of my peak performance time, so I prepare for the occasion with this in mind. I make sure to eat well, be well rested, have things planned, and to prepare for the event. I also have to push out a lot of energy to fuel the conversation and encourage my clients.

My day does not stop at noon. I still have activities with my children and my family, I have coaching appointments, and other commitments to my professional and personal life. Some of these go well into the evening hours, but it doesn’t change the fact that I must be able and ready to perform, as necessary. In order to do all that I do, I must be at my best. I make sure that I am ready for the job, able to give myself fully to my commitments, and perform at my best.

I would not be able to do this, if I were not aware of myself and how I perform. I had to do a clear evaluation of myself in order to be at my best, for both my family and my clients. I make decisions based upon what I know about myself. In short, there are times when I must say no because I won’t be able to give my best. This also helps with avoiding burnout.

I want you to be able to perform at your best, as well. So make sure to take the time to do the activities that I’ve given you. Then come back and we will go through the next part of this process.

If you want more assistance with getting results, make sure to get my 5 step guide to getting the result that you want in your life and business.

Until next time, thanks for reading, monitor yourself and remember to come back for the next step.