The Force of a Power Hour
By Tana M. Mann Easton, Lead Efficiency Engineer
When I was on maternity leave with my son, I knew that I needed to make self-care a priority. I, like most new mothers, had heard the stories of new moms not taking time to shower or do anything for themselves with a new baby in the house and feeling burned out as a result. I knew that I would definitely burn out if I didn’t make time to take care of myself. And I know that when I feel burnt out that I’m not as patient or loving as I would want and need to be for my new baby.
Sleep became a strong priority in my life. I knew that if I didn’t sleep enough then I wouldn’t have the necessary energy to be the kind of parent I wanted to be. I also knew myself enough to realize that I would need time to exercise, take a shower, get dressed, and tidy up my environment in order to offer my best self to my baby for the day. I could have tried to fit exercise and my self and house cleaning into the course of the day while me and my son were alone, but I felt like that would cause my focus to be bifurcated. All day long I would be with my son, but I would constantly be wishing he would fall asleep or be content long enough for me to do my personal tasks. And I knew that if I couldn’t find those pockets of time or if I was in the middle of my activities and he needed me that I would be frustrated. So I decided that I needed to take care of my self-care needs before my spouse went to work for the day. I didn’t want to take a long time to complete everything because I didn’t want to cut into my spouse’s or my sleep time, so I set out to see how quickly I could accomplish the tasks that I needed. As it turns out, a power hour is what was required.
So for a set hour every morning, my husband was in charge of our son. And I would start my power hour. I would pop out of bed and immediately put on some exercise clothing. I would then exercise in my home for 25 minutes. I’d then go directly to our bathroom to shower and get dressed for about 10 minutes. After that I would tidy up the house for about 10 minutes, which usually included unloading the dishwasher and other little odds and ends to reset my environment. And then I would pump undistracted for 15 minutes. After that fast-paced hour, I knew that I was personally ready for the day. I had already taken care of what I needed for myself, and I was able to be more fully present with my son for the remainder of the day.
Those maternity leave power hours taught me how much I can accomplish in a small amount of time if I’m really intentional. I still utilize that knowledge and power hours. If I have a list of tasks that I keep putting off because I don’t want to do them (changing burnt out lightbulbs, tightening screws that have loosened on door handles, cleaning that cobweb in a hard-to-reach corner, electronically depositing checks, filing, etc), I’ll often tackle as many of those tasks as a I can on a Friday afternoon as part of a power hour. In my brain it becomes a game to see how many of those neglected tasks I can check off the list. After all, it’s only an hour, and I know from experience that I can push myself and focus for at least an hour.
For me it’s fascinating and fun to treat my tasks as a game sometimes and to see how much I can do in a given amount of time. Sometimes I accomplish more than I thought I could and sometimes less. But there can always be another power hour at a later time or date to finish anything that was left undone. I highly recommend playing with time and seeing how much you can accomplish in constrained periods every so often. You might find days where you actually accomplish everything you mean to do for the day before the sun is even up.
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Powerfully Yours,
Focus to Evolve Team