Sandy MacKenzie discusses how awareness of one's emotional energy can pay dividends when it comes to managing time and increasing productivity.
Suppose we ask you about your best tip to manage your time and be more productive. You'd most likely share your routine that you follow or highlight a specific thing you to, to help you work smarter. You might start listing tactics like "do the hardest task early in the day" or "note that you start working earlier to avoid distractions." However, we are almost sure you wouldn't say, "I manage my emotions well."
Daniel Goleman popularized the concept of "emotional intelligence" in his 1995 book on the topic. However, the term first appeared in a 1964 paper written by Michael Beldoch.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, emotional intelligence is the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions and handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically. "Emotional intelligence is the key to both personal and professional success."
I am sure you are wondering what emotional intelligence has to do with time management. Well, so much of time management revolves around how you manage your energy. When we think of our energy, we often focus on our physical energy. While our physical energy is essential, our mental energy is also critical in giving us the motivation and clarity to work smarter and accomplish more.
If you're looking for a new way of look at how to manage your time more effectively, consider how well you are doing in these four areas of emotional intelligence:
Self-Awareness
The focus here is recognizing and understanding your moods, emotions, and how your energy flows. To accomplish this, you need to become aware of your circadian rhythm. It helps control your daily schedule for sleep and wakefulness. This rhythm is tied to your 24-hour body clock, and most living things have one. Your circadian rhythm is influenced by outside things like light and dark and other factors. Your brain receives signals based on your environment and activates certain hormones, alters your body temperature, and regulates your metabolism to keep you alert or draw you to sleep.
Have you noticed how different tasks impact your energy and desire to work on the next item in your day? You should plan your day by aligning activities that drain your energy or reenergizing you with circadian rhythm when possible.
Self-Management
Ever looked at the next item on your to-do list and felt deflated or anxious? How did you address the instinct to work on something else? Self-management is all about recognizing disruptive impulses and controlling them. So instead of checking your email every time you get a notification to avoid an uninspiring or difficult task, you could schedule checking your emails and social media at specific times in your day. This will reduce your distractions and help you accomplish the task at hand.
Social Awareness
Social Awareness to all about empathy. How good are you at recognizing the emotions of other people? Do you adjust your communication style to match the person you speak to? The best way to achieve this is to stop and determine the personality type of the individual(s) you are speaking with and their emotional drivers and state. This will allow you to build a greater connection to influence to achieve your desired outcome.
Relationship Management
For sales leaders and managers who want to work smarter to maximize their time, this area of emotional intelligence is critical—your ability to surpass your sales goals comes down to securing the full engagement of every member of your team. To achieve this level of engagement, you have to be able to communicate with them in a way that connects with each and every one of them on both a mental and emotional level.
Increasing Productivity = Better Understanding Individual Personalities
So if you're looking to significantly improve your and your teams productivity, stop trying to figure out how to find more time in your day. Start spending more time improving your emotional intelligence by learning how to determine someone’s personality type and reflecting on synchronizing your body clock (circadian clock) with you work. This way, you'll be able to identify specific times that’s best for you to do a specific activity.
If you are interested in learning more about understanding how to improve your time management system using emotional intelligence check out Salecology’s new course on Getting Sh!t Done:
Sandy MacKenzie is a Partner, Chief Askologist and Senior Salecologist with the Askology/Salecology Group. He is a global coach, trainer and consultant on the psychology of asking/selling.
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