How to Get Your Best Work Done Without Working Harder

Thanks to HomeServe for sponsoring this episode. I found out the hard way that owning a home is amazing until it's not. One minute you're sipping coffee and the next you're an ankle deep in water from a burst pipe. Repairs don't care about timing and they definitely don't care about your budget. Regular homeowners insurance usually covers like the really big stuff, but not so much the day-to-day wear and tear like plumbing failures, HVAC breakdowns, electrical issues, that sort of thing. You're often on your own for those and that's where HomeServe comes in. It's like a subscription for your home. For as little as $4.99 a month, they've got your back. So help protect your home systems and your wallet with HomeServe against covered repairs. That's homeServe.com. It's not available everywhere and most plans range between $4.99 to $11.99 a month for your first year. Terms apply on covered repairs. Welcome to the Proctivity Show podcast where we believe that you can get the important things done without having to sacrifice your health, family and things done that too. My name is Tam Fam. I'm the founder and CEO of Asian Inficiency where we help people become more productive at work and in life and today is another wisdom Wednesday episode where you'll get actual proctivity advice in less than 10 minutes. Now today's topic is all about peak positioning. It's one of the 25 skills we teach as part of our 25X proctivity system and the skill is geared for people who are a little bit more intermediate to advance. So what is peak positioning? How can it benefit you? And what is something that you can do about it today? I'll call for all of that here right now. So let me ask you this. Are you a morning person or a night owl? When I ask that question, most people will intuitively know the answer. Personally, I'm more of a morning person myself and my younger brothers are both night owls. I also have friends who are somewhere in between. Now there isn't a right or wrong answer. It doesn't matter what you said, but what does matter? Is the self-awareness behind the answer. If you aren't able to answer this question, that's okay too. This episode today will give you some direction because the concept of peak positioning is important to maximize your productivity. Now as you know, at AE, we teach the T-frame work, which stands for time, energy, and attention. We want to maximize all three pillars to become superhuman productive. Now what a focus on energy today because when you lack energy, it's hard to be productive. You could have a beautiful supercar in your garage, but if it doesn't have any fuel, it simply won't go anywhere. It doesn't matter how much horsepower it has or how excited the driver might be. If it doesn't have any fuel, it simply won't move. Now the same is true for you. When you have little to no energy, it's hard to get started on task and be productive. It doesn't matter how skill drawer and getting things done or some other productivity method when you have no gas in the tank. Peak positioning, today's topic is about maximizing your energy. You see, we have a predictable pattern within a 24 hour cycle. Everyone will sleep for a few hours, wake up, be alert, feel fatigued, be alert again, and wind down to get ready for sleep, and then the cycle repeats again every single day. Now this is called your circadian rhythm. It's a 24 hour cycle that's very predictable and it's the same for almost all of us and we all have it. It's a biologically hard wired pattern in our brain that tells the body when cells should be active and when they should be inactive. Think of it as a clock that dictates your energy cycles every day and it's predictable. The timing is unique to you, but the pattern is the same for everyone. After waking up, we need roughly 90 minutes to feel alert. This is true for everyone. It's not like you can immediately get into flow right after you open up your eyes in the morning. It takes a little bit of time for your body to get ready. Then we have a morning peak where you feel most alert and have lots of energy. It doesn't matter what time you wake up, whether it's 5am or at noon, after 90 minutes of waking up, that's when you first start feeling your first peak and burst of energy and unfocus. And after that peak, which can be two or three hours long, you get to into that little bit of a dip of energy. Most of us have probably experienced as already where we feel what they call an afternoon law. This is also hard wired into your brain. Eating a big carb heavy meal doesn't help either for lunch, but even if you don't do that, you'll feel this afternoon law, which can be anywhere between one to three hours long. And after that law, you get another burst of energy for about two to three hours. And then we had the wind down phase. And after that, your body naturally wants to start slowing down and get ready for bed so that it can go to sleep. HomeServe has helped homeowners like you for over 20 years, with a trusted national network of 2600 local contractors. Now my wife and I have owned homes for 23 years now. And there have been so many times that looking back, I think, "Ugh, I wish I knew about home served back then." There was this one winter where our furnace died and we were without heat at the worst time. It was so annoying and expensive. I could have just contacted HomeServe back then. It's not available everywhere and most plans range between 499 to 1199 a month for your first year. Now everyone goes through this pattern. Our times might vary when we hit these peaks, but the pattern is the same for everyone. I might wake up at 5 and you might wake up at 9 o'clock and that's okay. One is not better than the other, but the pattern we go through is the same for everybody. So going back to peak positioning, we want to align our most important task around the times when we feel most energized. When we can map our tasks that requires the most energy and focus with the times when we feel most alert, that's when we can get our best and most creative work done. For example, I tend to wake up at 7.30 a.m. Following the pattern I just told you earlier takes me about roughly 90 minutes to feel alert and then I have a few hours of peak energy. Now for me, I know that between 9 and noon is when I feel most energized. So that's also when I schedule my most important focus work. And between 1 and 4 o'clock, that's usually when I have a little bit of a lot. So I tend to do other things that require less focus and intense work. That's often when I will do workouts, mobility and body work or maybe I'll run some errands. And then between 6 and 8, I have another burst of energy. And by this time, I've stopped working for the company. So I tend to work on my personal projects during that time if I have any, or I'll just be social with friends. And then around 9 is when my body wants to wind down and get ready for sleep. So I'm usually sleep by like 10.30 or 11. And then the cycle repeats again the next day and a day after that and a day after that and then for the rest of my life. So what I've done is I've met my day to match those peaks and valleys accordingly. And that's what we call peak positioning. And I encourage you to do the same. So you might be running, how can you know what your cycle looks like? Well, there are a couple of ways. My favorite way is using an app called the Rise Science. That's spelled as R-I-S-E and then the word Science. It's a sleep tracking app that tracks your sleep using your phone and it can give you an accurate schedule of when you will feel those peaks and valleys in your day. Now if you don't want to use an app, that's okay too. Here's a simple formula. Figure out what your time is that you usually wake up at. Add about roughly 90 minutes to that and that's the start of your first peak of energy. Step number three, your peak energy will be roughly three hours at most. So if you wake up at 7.30, your peak starts at roughly 90 minutes later, which is 9.00M. So your peak is anywhere between 9 and 12. And then after that, step number four comes your valley. This is roughly four hours long from your peak. So if your peak starts or ends around 12, your dip of energy is anywhere between 12 and 4. Okay. And then step number five, after your valley, you have another burst of energy for roughly three hours. So my example, my dip ends around 4.00M. So my second peak is anywhere between 4 and 7. And then after that, it's time to wind out. Now because their circadian rhythm is so predictable, this rough formula will be consistent for everyone. I do recommend the app R-I-S-E and over the manual method because everyone's timing is unique. There are also other factors that affect how long certain peaks and valleys are. The battery, you sleep the longer your peaks tend to be. But if your sleep is terrible, your peaks might not only be an hour long each time, but you also feel more of a lull the rest of the day. So I want to encourage you to figure out what parts of the day you feel most energized and match your most important tasks around them. And that is peak positioning. Thanks for listening to the productivity show, and we'll see you next time.