10 Simple Ways to Balance Your Energy Levels Throughout the Day

Do you feel enthusiastic and inspired in the mornings – only to find yourself exhausted in the afternoons? Perhaps you only ever seem to perk up when you’ve got a coffee in hand, or you manage to concentrate for 30 minutes but then find yourself procrastinating.

If your energy levels fluctuate a lot, you might need to focus on achieving more balance. These ten tips should help: Read the Rest of This Article »

How to Start Your Morning: 5 Tips to Create More Energy and Confidence

Does your morning routine feel more like a “mourning” routine? The first 30 minutes of your day has a powerful grip over the rest of your day — your morning behaviors and attitudes can influence how you feel and what you do for the rest of the day. Instead of smashing the alarm clock, kicking the cat, and cursing your life every morning, you can do five simple things that will start your day off on a better note and help you live your best life. Read the Rest of This Article »

Are You Taking a Much-Needed Break – Or Just Being Lazy?

It’s ten thirty in the morning. You’ve been working for an hour or two, so you decide to read your favorite blogs for a bit, and check out some web comics.

But you feel a bit guilty. After all, shouldn’t you be powering through your work?

You Need to Take Breaks

No-one can work effectively for hours at a stretch – especially on tasks which require a lot of mental energy (like writing, planning strategy, designing, and anything involving creativity).

So you need to take breaks. You’ll actually find that you get more done in a day where you stop for ten minutes out of every hour than on a day when you keep on and on working. Why? Because when you force yourself to stick with a task, you’ll slow down. You’ll end up checking your emails, getting distracted, or staring at the screen in front of you, feeling like your brain’s already gone home. Read the Rest of This Article »

7 Ways To Let Go of What’s Ailing You

Photo credit: OnceUponaLife

Have you ever had a thought that stressed you out, rattled around in your brain, and just wouldn’t go away? I’m sure it has; it happens to everyone. The problem is that when non-useful thoughts get stuck in our heads, they destroy our focus, creativity, and productivity. One simple nagging thought can throw off an hour, a day, or even an entire week. If you want to avoid losing those precious hours and days, then you need to let go of those thoughts…

“Letting go” doesn’t mean ignoring the problem. It simply means that you realize that there is nothing you can do about the issue right now, and rather than having it consume your life with stress and anxiety you are going to put it aside until you are in a position where you can deal with it. Read the Rest of This Article »

How to Find the Energy for More Than Just Your Day Job

Image courtesy of Amelia PS/Flickr

So you’ve got something you’re really passionate about. Perhaps it’s a hobby which you think you could turn into a business. Or a community project, or a novel you’re writing, or a diet or exercise routine which you’re really taking seriously this time.

The problem is, you’ve got a day job. It takes up most of your time and energy each day.

So how can you find the energy to get anything else done?

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not easy. I wrote fiction, then a blog, alongside a day job, and I started out freelancing while still working full-time. It was tough, and it wasn’t a situation I’d have wanted to sustain in the long term – but it was necessary while it lasted.

Although I ditched the day job a couple of years ago, I still need to balance my time and energy; I’m studying a part time masters alongside freelancing.

Here’s what works for me: Read the Rest of This Article »

Long-Term Productivity Means Looking After Yourself

Many of us place a lot of importance on being productive. We want to achieve our goals, succeed in our ambitions, and accomplish something worthwhile. That’s all great … but sometimes it  can go too far.

Have you ever pushed yourself too much, only to end up producing poorer quality work … or worse, getting sick or ending up just plain miserable?

To be truly productive over the long-term, you need to take care of yourself. In his bestselling self-help book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey distinguishes between our actual “production” and our “production capability”, explaining that we need to pay attention to the latter in order to continue to have the former.

So how can you take care of your ability to keep on working towards your goals? Read the Rest of This Article »