Time Management: Manage Energy, Not the Clock

By Mac Bogert

We talk about “time management” as if time itself were a resource we can schedule, allocate, or control. In reality, time stretches and contracts depending on context—what I call “Root Canal Time” versus “New Jersey Beach Time.” Rather than trying to control hours and minutes, a more realistic and effective approach is to manage our energy. Energy is what determines focus, creativity, and resilience, and it exists only in the present moment.

The traditional time-management mindset—an industrial-age relic—produces hyper-detailed agendas and rigid schedules. I refer to that tendency as CICE: Concrete Illusion of Controlled Events. Those who cling to CICE expect every meeting and training to unfold by the minute. They try to control others and external circumstances, and that effort usually wastes emotional and cognitive energy.

Instead of attempting the impossible task of managing time, focus on practical behaviors that preserve and amplify your energy. Below are strategies that help you stay present, prioritize effectively, and maintain the mental bandwidth needed for creative and critical thinking—especially valuable during crisis.

• Be transparent with yourself and others. Truth-telling invests energy up front and then produces ongoing returns. Deception and evasiveness drain energy because unresolved issues resurface repeatedly. Practice candor and clarity about facts and values. How much time do you spend skirting around a problem, only to revisit it later? Clear communication saves energy.
• Identify real, immediate threats: “Where’s the tiger?” Don’t let your primitive fight-or-flight reactions run the show unless there is a genuine danger. Worrying about disagreement, ambiguous feedback, or hypothetical disaster rehearsals consumes energy without producing constructive outcomes. Reserve your strongest emotional responses for present dangers and allocate calmer, rational energy to planning and problem solving.
• Check assumptions at the door. Unload preconceptions, expectations, and narratives about how things should be. Plans are useful but limited—wear them like loose garments. Agility, not rigid adherence, conserves energy. Frustration over unmet expectations is like punching a hole in your gas tank: you leak the very resource you need to act.
• Triage your sphere of control. Ask: What can I control? What can I influence? What is beyond my reach? Concentrate your energy on things you can control and influence; do not waste effort on what is outside either category. Manage energy from the inside out—begin with breath, presence, and a calm assessment of priorities.
• Listen more; explain less. Practice WAIT (Why Am I Talking?) and WAIST (Why Am I Still Talking?). Powerful questions followed by neutral, nonjudgmental listening are among the best uses of energy. Slow down your speech, condense your points, and check for understanding. Often, the more we explain, the less others retain or accept.
• Visualize your energy allocation. Draw a pie chart representing the energy available in a typical day when you’re not exhausted. How much of that pie is wasted on low-value activities—rumination, avoidance, unproductive meetings? Reimagine a healthier distribution of energy among rest, focused work, relationships, and learning. Do this exercise with family or colleagues and reward yourselves—literally—with something enjoyable, like a shared piece of pie.

Practical tools can help. You can download a quick values assessment and a one-page list of neutral questions to improve conversations and decision making. Both resources are free and designed to help you clarify what matters and to ask better questions during stressful moments.

For examples and further reflection, there are short writings and audio conversations that explore how people around the world are adapting—choosing to push forward through disruption rather than merely resist it. Listening to others’ approaches can spark useful ideas for conserving energy and maintaining focus.

About the author

Mac Bogert is President of AZA Learning and a regular columnist for The Learning Counsel. He began his career as an English teacher and for the past 25 years has worked at the intersection of leadership and learning. His background includes roles as a musician, professional actor, yacht charter captain, staff development consultant, curriculum designer, and author of Learning Chaos.

This article was originally published by The Learning Counsel, a research institute and news media hub focused on providing context for the shift in education to digital curriculum.