IT’s about managing your ENERGY, not your TIME.

Time management is so 20th Century

Happy 2011!

Seems like an opportune time to bring up managing your life skills, what with the tradition of New Year’s resolutions that people rarely keep.

I came across an article by Sandy Klim in AAA magazine last month that I want to repost here as I found it to be a good illustration of how to plan one’s day in such a way that will give you a sense of priorities and meaningful accomplishments all without stressing out.

It goes something like this:

To plan your day, imagine a large empty pickle jar.

1. Take three or four large rocks and add them to the jar.
2. Now take a small handful of pebbles and toss them in, jiggling it a bit to make them fit.
3. Next, add a handful of sand.
4. Now fill the remaining space in the jar with water.

There’s a lot of stuff in your jar. But it’s not just the objects, it’s the order and volume of each item. If you were to put the water and sand in first,and then your pebbles, very few of the large rockes would fit. Or if you tried to just put in 10 large rocks, they’d break the jar.

Such is the case with planning your day. Identify three or four high priority items that must get done (the rocks), plus a number of smaller, lower priority tasks such as emails, follow-ups, etc. (the pebbles), as well as everyday routine stuff (the sand). And remember that your jar should contain room for family and personal time (the water).

I will end this by saying, the new paradigm (which will be surpassed by yet another new revelation) is that you can’t manage your time, but rather you should manage your energy.

Whether you’re looking to put systems into place that give you more freedom and flexibility in your business or would like to take a year to travel the world, this book is brimming with resources and ideas to help you do just that. If you’re going to add one more book to your must-read list for 2010, this is it.

Author Tim Ferris is my hero for three simple reasons:

1. He has learned the art of delegating almost everything that is work-related and generously shares how he does it in this book and on his blog.
2. He believes that life is meant to be lived richly before retirement. In fact, why retire if you are doing things that you really love in the first place?
3. He doesn’t sweat the small stuff. Mistakes are going to happen (especially when you are outsourcing) and he just rolls with it.

To Tim, it’s all a learning experience and another life adventure. When bad stuff happens, you learn from it and just course correct. If you’re looking to design a lifestyle on your own terms, then this book is an absolute must-read.

Adventurous souls apply here: The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content.