Time-management vs energy-management

Do you obsess over getting the time to get all the stuff you want done? Well, maybe you’re doing it wrong? I was.

I’ve spent years trying to perfect my time-management. I tried to perfectly time everything, and ended up running from one thing to another — not really being present in anything. Even in my sleep I was thinking about all the things I needed to get done.

Needless to say — that’s not very good to your mind or body.

Always being stressed and behind on sleep made sure the quality of my work was never at it’s best, and that stressed me out even more. It all changed when I decided to stop focusing on time-management, and began to focus on energy-management instead.

I started to go to bed early (around 22:00), and get up earlier (around 06:00). I also started (and this is the secret sauce) doing the really hard, complicated and/or boring stuff first.

Instead of jumping into my inbox and letting people decide what I should focus on, I choose the tasks that would give me the most progress. The problem was that my subconscious usually picked the easy wins that really did not matter in the big picture. But that made me feel good then and there, before I evolved into even more bad conscience. But by doing the tasks that gave a big progress first something happened.

I discovered that it was a lot easier getting my “bad conscience” tasks done as the first thing in the morning. My willpower, energy and ability to focus was much stronger. And as I started reading up on things I realized that I was not alone. A lot of people think that we have more willpower and energy early in the day. As the day pass by, and the longer we stare into a screen it starts to sink dramatically.

It’s easier to be re-active then pro-active when you select the tasks you should be working on. Re-active gives us the feeling of small quick wins, but being pro-active keeps you ahead of the game, and gives you a long-term win instead. It takes a lot of practice to be able to do every morning, but wow — when you get the hang of it, your days feel so much better. I sleep better, I don’t stress things and I have much more energy. More energy gives me more time to do the things that matters to me. In both my professional and personal life.

So try to focus on your energy instead of the time the next few days — you’ll feel a big difference. I promise. You’ll have the energy to do the stuff you want. Instead of being half present, half asleep, when you try to do the stuff you want to, you’ll feel well rested and present in the moment instead.

And that’s awesome. For yourself, and the people around you.

All the popular bloggers in Norway follow the same pattern

Blogging in Norway is different compared to the rest of the world. While most people outside the nordics think of nerds, mostly male, that write about their passion when they hear the word blogger — Norway thinks of young girls, that writes about themselves and their everyday life.

What I find interesting about the differences between Norway and the rest of the world is that it’s only the content that varies. Successful bloggers follow the same pattern, no matter what they write about. Let me rephrase. Personal brands with success follows a pattern, and most of them start out as bloggers.

Successful Norwegian bloggers these days are much more than “just bloggers”. They have a big audience on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter — even SnapChat. They have huge mailing lists, and create a lot of different content for all their channels. Doing a better job the most ad/media/pr agencies.

They make money on advertising, endorsing products and attending events. And now, also by selling their own products and services.

It all follows the pattern that I first read about in one of Chris Brogans newsletters. Content, community and then marketplace.

They’ve spent years creating content, and when their audience grew they started to build a community around them. As the community has grown stronger and bigger — they suddenly had the possibility to start monetizing of it.

At first they piggybacked on others (ads, endorsements etc), and as they grew bigger they were able to create their own marketplaces. Many of them now have their own web shops and even create their own products and brands.

They’ve grown from bloggers sharing their thoughts to businessmen and women who makes a good year’s salary on their personal brand. But they started with great content, and hard work.

Min neste bok – Logg av

Jeg var fast bestemt på at jeg aldri skulle skrive en bok til. Etter 123blogg var jeg helt ærlig ganske lei av både det å skrive bok og ikke minst bokbransjen. Det er en bransje som ikke er særlig åpen for endring. Så jeg må innrømme at jeg ble veldig overrasket over meg selv når jeg plutselig bestemt meg for å skrive en ny bok i romjulen.

Fordi boken fant meg. Det er et tema som jeg brenner for, og som er viktig å belyse.

Etter den personlige reisen og utviklingene jeg har gått igjennom det siste året, hvor jeg har funnet en indre ro og balanse, føles det både riktig og viktig at jeg nå sitter og skriver bok igjen.

Vi lever i en støyete hverdag. Svært få styrer sin egen tid og prioriteringer, selvom langt fra alle innser at de ikke lenger har kontroll. Folk er stresset, slitne og det går utover både helse, familie og venner.

All denne teknologien som gir så fantastiske mange muligheter, bringer også med seg en rekke utfordringer. Vi som et samfunn har enda ikke hatt nok tid til å tilpasse oss, forstå og respondere til hva teknologien gjør med oss.

Ser du på bussstopper, ventehaller – ja til og med kinoer og restauranter. Mennesker har konstant nesen sin ned i en skjerm. Mer tilstede digitalt enn i det øyeblikket de er i.

Det gjør meg trist.

Jeg elsker teknologi, sosiale medier og hvor lett det er for alle å dele sine tanker, få nye venner og utvikle seg. Det jeg derimot ikke liker, er når teknologien tar overhånd. Når teknologien setter agenda, når man føler seg overveldet av all informasjonen og alle forventningene.

Det er derfor jeg måtte skrive denne boken. Fordi jeg mener det er viktig å logge av i perioder.

Følg med på Facebooksiden til boken. Ønsker du å få beskjed når boken går i salg? Meld deg på e-postlisten.

The tools I use to get things done

Over the years I’ve posted hundreds, if not thousands, of thoughts online. Words, blogposts, tweets, checkins, status updates, pictures and videos. I feel really lucky that while sharing I’ve built up an audience of wonderful people how often sends me emails, tweets and messages. That’s the number one reason why I still spend so much time sharing.

A couple of months ago, after blogging about how I like to work (norwegian link), I got an email from one of my readers. He wanted to know more about the tools I use to organize and work everyday. I’ve been and GTD (Getting Things Done) fan for many years, after my friend Morten introduced me to this method. And it’s been a life changer. By having total faith in my system, I’m never afraid of forgetting things.

So. What tools do I use to accomplish this? Actually, it’s just to apps.

Evernote
I use Evernote for collection everything. My inbox for everything if you like. Here I collect clips from the web, quotes I like, facts, pictures, links. I even take a picture of all the physical mail I get, and all the business cards and archive it in Evernote. I have two inboxes in my life. My e-mail inbox, and Evernote. Everything in Evernote is indexed so I’m able to search for any word in any document or picture. Even the pictures of my whiteboard scribbles show up in search. I never lose anything.

Every day after work I browse through my inbox and add tasks of the things I need to do before the end of the week. And every  friday I go thoroughly through every item in there and process them all.

Omnifocus
While Evernote is where I collect everything, Omnifocus (on my mac, iPad and iPhone) is where I organize and decided what I’m going to spend my time on. Personal and business related stuff. I have all my active projects, all my todos and a timeline of when things need to be done.

I make sure that I have only five important things I have to get done every day. To give me the feel of accomplishing things, and after completing these tasks. I select five more. I only view five at a time, and only fridays under my weekly review I view them all – and review them all.

I start every task with a verb, and break them down to as many small tasks as possible. If a task needs more than one task  to be completed – I create a project for it.

–

By sticking to my system, and being consistent of where I store and how I organize. I have a lovely feeling of always being in control. It’s a powerful thing.

En måned uten – en oppdatering

Desember var måneden i prosjektet mitt ett år uten hvor jeg skulle leve uten smarttelefon. Min dumtelefon skulle være eneste telefonen jeg skulle ha med meg. Telefonen virker kun for å sende meldinger og ta/få samtaler – så jeg så frem til roen midt i desember stresset.

Slik ble det ikke. Jeg fant aldri frem min dumtelefon, selvom jeg flere ganger leitet – så har jeg innsett at den er mistet. Etter de første dagene så bestemte jeg meg for at jeg skulle kjøpe en ny dumtelefon, dette skjedde heller aldri. Desember stresset slukte meg og jeg glemte helt å stikke innom en butikk for å kjøpe en.

Så jeg failet. Jeg har brukt smarttelefon og vært relativt aktiv på alle apper, sosiale medier og det som hører med. Sånn er det av og til. Av og til når man ikke målene sine, og av og til får man ikke ting til.

Hele desember var  litt i ubalanse for meg, men i dette nye året har jeg fått tilbake litt fokus og indre ro. Januar er måneden jeg skal leve uten søtsaker, dette går foreløpig veldig bra. Klart jeg har godtesug etter en ganske så usunn desember, men føles deilig å spise sunn mat igjen.

Tilbake til min smarttelefon vs dumtelefon. Med litt dårlig samvittighet ovenfor meg selv i hele desember pga at jeg ikke klarte å logge av som jeg ønsket, var dette faktisk den avgjørende faktoren som gjorde at jeg bestemte for mitt neste bokprosjekt. Så noe bra kom det jo ut av dette!

Denne måneden som alle andre, kommer jeg til å poste i Facebookgruppen til prosjektet fra tid til annen. Følg med der, og still gjerne spørsmål og kom med innspill.