Why high energy levels start with your first meal

All our talk about productivity assumes that you ensure there to be enough energy in the tank needed to get all your stuff done. After all, you can only do as much as your energy levels permit. Sure, you can trick your system for a bit with caffeine and other stimulants, but that approach is neither healthy nor sustainable.

The strategies that I share to help you maintain high energy levels throughout the day will come as little surprise. We all know that what we eat and how we care for our bodies are central to being able to engage in our work at consistently high levels. Yet so many of us fail to practice what we know, which results in low energy and a sense of underperformance.

Being an abundant mentor

Mentoring programs typically fail because one or more positive ingredients listed above are missing. Without question, the mentor’s head has to be fully in the game. When I first began as a head of school, I was assigned an experienced mentor from a different school on the other side of the country. He agreed to help me as a favor, and, predictably, as the school year progressed and his schedule became increasingly more filled, our time together dwindled to the point that the relationship had practically ended on its own.

In addition, a mentor has to be able to earn the protégé’s trust. That is not as simple as it sounds. In addition to demonstrating capacity, effective mentors find ways to make their protégés genuinely feel that they have the mentor’s best interests in mind.

One great way by which to build such trust is to think in abundance. Abundance theory sees the world as offering infinite possibilities. It suggests that not only is there plenty to go around (the opposite of scarcity thinking) but it also posits that my helping others will help me, in terms of sharpening my skillset and building increased capacity and demand within the field.

Never, ever give up!

Their presence triggered mixed emotions

Recently, at Sabbath prayer services, a group of young men were in attendance

Turns out that they attended a NYC yeshiva that I had interviewed at when I was in process of leaving Atlanta eight years ago

That job search, like a few others, had come up empty, and again I was feeling low

How to productively knock out those 2-minute tasks

Blocking out time on our calendar is great for diving deep into specific tasks. But you might be thinking, what about the many tasks on our plates each day? You know, the ones that require but a few minutes, that you can knock out in around two minutes? What should we do then?

Author and productivity consultant David Allen is famous for his “2-minute rule.” The rule is: "If it takes less than two minutes, then do it now." The reason for this is simple. For many of these tasks, like replying to an email or calling someone back, the effort needed to keep remembering them, or even to write them down in a way that you’ll actually remember later, exceeds just getting them out of the way.

Quit Repeating Yourself!

You’ll often hear productivity experts (this author included) preach the need to “work smarter, not harder.” But what does that mean, in practical terms?

Computer programmers have an answer with a concept they use to write more efficient code: Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY). In software engineering, DRY is the principle of reducing repetition in the code, referring to a single source—or "snippet"—of reusable code whenever you need it.

While the Don’t Repeat Yourself technique (or DRY Principle) was made famous by coders, it is easily applicable to non-programmers alike.

Is social media making our kids "intrapersonally stupid?"

Of Howard Gardner’s identified multiple intelligences, perhaps the one that we tap into least in the classroom is intrapersonal intelligence, also known as being “self-smart.” Examples of intrapersonal intelligence include quiet contemplation, reflection and analysis, where we ask our students to go deep within themselves to connect and make and offer meaning.

Intrapersonal intelligence can be seen as the opposite of interpersonal intelligence, or being “people smart.” In many ways, 21st-century learning has been a huge boon for interpersonal learning. The current emphasis on cooperative learning and collaboration has focused students more than ever on communication and idea sharing.

To conquer your day, wake up early

When I was growing up, there was one advertisement that would consistently grab your attention. In it, U.S. Army personnel were up super early, engaged in all sorts of high-energy training and action tasks. The tagline was, “we do more by 9 AM than most people do all day.”

While I never joined the Armed Forces, intuitively my little brain knew that they were on to something.

That’s because if you want to get more done, you need to start your day early.

Would You Do It For Free?

I recently attended an entrepreneurship gathering sponsored by a local university. The program allowed each attendee to speak for a few minutes about their company and services. The last speaker was a videographer and web marketer. He spoke with great passion about finding a voice and telling a great story, important components in today’s evolving marketplace. But the line that resonated most with me was his comment about why we are all doing what we’re doing.

Most people in that room had left an established, more guaranteed position in order to venture off into entrepreneurship and follow their dreams. This speaker spoke to a common chord within each of us when he said, “You all love what you do so much that you would do it for free.” That is, of course, if not for the fact that we must put food on the table.

Go all in on your tasks

Now that we’ve focused on removing distractions and blocking out time, the next step is to go all in on specific tasks (“single-tasking”) and avoid multitasking like the plague.

Multitasking refers to when we try to achieve multiple things simultaneously, such as returning calls or listening to messages while reviewing and editing reports. It has become widely popular as we perceive that doing more things at one time is better than doing fewer things.

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