Better's Blinkist

What’s in it for me? Live your life in accordance with your purpose.

In order to perform to our best, i.e., at full engagement, we need to focus not on squeezing more into our limited hours but finding ways to do more with the time we have. To accomplish this, we need to shift our focus to managing our energy, not our time.

9 September, 2019 10:40 Share

In order to increase performance, we need to focus on managing our energy rather than our time.

try maximizing your energy (and therefore your productivity) by working less and taking lots of breaks. These breaks give you a chance to recharge your energy levels, thus allowing you to stay productive for more time. By focusing on managing our energy level rather than trying to cram 48 hours into a single day, we not only become more efficient, but also have energy left for our private lives.

9 September, 2019 10:41 Share

We can reach full engagement by maximizing all four of our energy levels.

In order to perform at our peak and feel our very best, we must maximize each of these energy levels, especially the physical and emotional ones. In fact, physical and emotional energy are our most fundamental sources of energy: without either, we would simply be too exhausted and deflated to accomplish anything.

9 September, 2019 10:42 Share

In order to maintain energy levels we need to train our energetic muscles and give them time to recover.

recovery is an integral part of sustaining high levels of energy and thus high performance. Indeed, all organisms must recharge their batteries by following life-sustaining rhythms, i.e., patterns of behavior that help them stay alive and kicking. For humans, this includes the need to rest every 90 to 120 minutes.

9 September, 2019 10:43 Share

To reach your full potential, you must develop and maintain good physical energy.

Our physical energy capacity is dependent upon how we eat, sleep and recover. Since the fundamental source of our physical energy comes from food, we should therefore look for foods that maximize our energy capacity, such as nuts, leafy green vegetables and yogurt. These foods provide the slow release of energy to our bodies, thus providing us with more sustainable energy. Drinking enough water is equally as important – in fact, muscles dehydrated by only 3 percent lose around 10 percent of their strength!

9 September, 2019 10:43 Share

In order to maintain positive emotional energy levels, never neglect what you enjoy or your physical health.

prioritizing work over play can have powerful negative consequences

9 September, 2019 10:44 Share

Training your mental energy helps you stay focused and creative at the same time.

At work, we overwork our left hemisphere by constantly carrying out mundane tasks while neglecting the visually stimulated right hemisphere. However, once we relax or do something enjoyable, our left hemisphere has a chance to rest while we work our right hemisphere. If we want to unlock our creative potential, we need to give both hemispheres a workout without over-exerting either, and thereby employ all our creative capacity.

9 September, 2019 10:46 Share

Creativity requires the work of the brain’s two hemispheres: the left hemisphere is used for logical, linear thinking, and the right is more visual and can see "the big picture."

9 September, 2019 10:46 Share

Spiritual energy is the source for motivation, derived from committing to others as well as ourselves.

Looking back to the smoker: although kicking the habit can be excruciating under normal circumstances, smokers who become pregnant find it much easier to quit. Why? Because they have the health of their child to think about. In other words, they have a source of motivation (or spiritual energy) that compels them to act more positively outside of their own self-interest.

9 September, 2019 10:47 Share

To live at full engagement, you must find a positive and intrinsically motivating purpose.

This was exemplified in one study where children were observed while playing as a way to assess what they most enjoyed doing. Surprisingly, when they were rewarded each time they engaged in their preferred activity, their interest in that activity suddenly – and rapidly – diminished.

9 September, 2019 10:47 Share

We have to connect to our deepest values to fuel the energy which gives our lives purpose.

Another strategy is to reflect on someone you deeply respect and ask yourself: What are the qualities you most admire about him or her? Those can be your values. Our values should ultimately serve as guideposts for every action we take and decision we make. When our values don’t guide our choices, the values themselves are meaningless.

9 September, 2019 10:48 Share

You should therefore aim to achieve spiritual alignment, i.e., the point at which you truly "walk the walk" and your values are evident in every aspect of your life. One way to help us towards this goal is to remind ourselves of our values every day by formulating them as a vision statement that tells us how to invest our energy such that we serve our values.

9 September, 2019 10:48 Share

Rituals are powerful tools to effectively manage energy capacity.

But rituals don’t only conserve energy: designing positive rituals helps us to live in accordance with our values and perform at our very best. But how can we form these rituals? One way is to use a technique called priming: every time you’re tempted by something "bad," do something "good" instead.

9 September, 2019 10:50 Share