Recognizing your Drainers and Energizers: 3 ways to increase your productivity.

Are there some tasks in your day-to-day role, which seem to suck the life out of you?

Conversely, are there other tasks which invigorate you?

In any role there will responsibilities which fall into the “Drainers” and “Energizers” categories.  Whether a task qualifies as a drainer or energizer will depend entirely on the individual. 

This is the reason why we have different functions in business.  Aside from differing skill sets, there are clusters of people who will find roles and responsibilities more draining or energizing than others.  Grouping these individuals into teams allow them to play to their strengths and produce the best results for that business.

You can also apply this principle to manage your own energy and impact.

In this article I will explore 3 ways to improve your productivity by understanding your drainers and energizers.

1. Identify your Draining and Energizing tasks

Self-awareness of your drainers and energizers is the first step to improving your productivity.

To do this, make a list of all your day-to-day tasks and decide whether each one is a driver or an energizer.

For example, when I was a Sales Leader, audit claims, SKU level forecasting and Finance Reviews were tasks that sapped me of my energy.  However, customer meetings, analysing rate of sale performance, building in-store plans and managing the P&L galvanised me.

2. Understand which of these tasks have the highest and lowest impact.

Once you have categorised each of your responsibilities as either a drainer or an energizer, next assess whether these tasks have a high or low impact to your performance.

You may be familiar with the Urgent/ Non-Urgent/ Important/ Not-Important matrix before.  The idea here is to try to map out your tasks in the same way but on a matrix which includes Drainers/ Energizers/ Low Impact/ High Impact quadrants.

This should give you a slightly different perspective to the Urgent/ Important matrix, since I’m confident that there will be urgent/ important or high-impact responsibilities (for example SKU level forecasting) which drain your energy.  The question is: how do you approach these energy-sapping, yet high impact tasks?

3. Allocate your resources appropriately.

After mapping out your responsibilities in the four quadrants, you should then look to allocate your available resources in the best way to improve your productivity.

The tasks which fall into the “Drainer-Low Impact” quadrant should be delegated as quickly as possible.  Either find someone else in your team who can do take on these responsibilities or seek to outsource it to another department. 

A good example of this was when I was managing the top Grocery account for a Hot Beverages company.  I was able to outsource the investigation into audit claims to a Finance Manager, who would then direct me to find historical evidence for her.  She also communicated directly with Tesco’s audit team, which alleviated much mental burden for me. 

Tasks which fall into the “Energizing-Low Impact” quadrant should be performed in moderation.  For an Account Manager, energizing yet low impact jobs could include immediately replying to non-important internal emails or editing Powerpoint slides to make them look more attractive.

If you spend too much time doing these tasks, you will be able to generate the maximum impact in your role.  Instead use these jobs as short breaks throughout the day to charge up your mental battery.

“Energizing-High Impact” tasks are optimal, and you should be looking to allocate 75% of your time in this quadrant.  This is how you deliver your peak performance and add the greatest value to your business.  I believe that FMCG businesses instruct their Account Managers and Sales Leaders to spend as much time meeting their customers for this very reason.

More time spent meeting your Buyers will strengthen the relationship and it is also quicker to resolve issues face-to-face than over email or the phone.  More often than not I felt energized from meeting my customers, even if those appointments involved tough negotiations. 

So, what about the aforementioned tasks which fall into the “Drainer-High Impact” quadrant? These jobs may include SKU level forecasting or Finance reviews.  You may not be able to delegate these tasks and so it is best to develop a strategy to tackle them.

I like to approach these tasks by firstly charging up my brain with a few minutes “PQ reps”.  I’ve mentioned PQ reps before, and they are defined by Positive Intelligence™ as an intense focus on physical sensations like breath and touch.  When you do PQ reps you stimulate the right-hand region of your brain which prepares you for concentrated action. 

I would then make sure that I dedicate at least 90-minutes at the start of my day to complete those draining yet high impact tasks.  The author Brian Tracy refers to this as “eating the frog”, which in this case would be the biggest and ugliest action on your “To Do” list.  Completing this type of work as early as possible, will give you momentum and set a positive tone for the rest of your day or week.  It will also eliminate the lingering voice in your mind constantly nagging you to stop avoiding the important work!

How building Mental Fitness can help to increase your productivity.

Building your Mental Fitness is very useful in helping you confront those draining, yet critical responsibilities.  When you recognise how your Saboteurs prevent you from delivering your peak performance, you can intercept them and choose positive action.

However, the development of these mental muscles takes at least 6-weeks of intense work.  If you are interested in this game-changing program then take the Positive Intelligence Saboteur Assessment https://www.positiveintelligence.com/saboteurs/ and then book a free 30-minute coaching call with me at https://www.expcoaching.co.uk/ to find out more!