Stop Trying to Manage Your Time

Here’s a simpler blueprint you can follow. No green smoothies or cold showers. I promise

👋 Hey, it's Zohvib. Welcome to Filtered – where I share the productivity strategies that actually move the needle (tested with real professionals, not productivity gurus). If you're not a subscriber, here's what you missed this month:

• How to Get Sh*t Done

• The Disaster of Trying To Do Everything

• How I Make Difficult Decisions (without overthinking)

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I'm going to say something that might sound heretical coming from a productivity newsletter; Stop trying to manage your time.

I know, I know. You've got calendars color-coded like a rainbow, you've tried the Pomodoro Technique, time-blocking, and probably seventeen different apps that promise to turn you into a productivity machine.

Yet here you are, still feeling like you're running on a hamster wheel that's spinning faster every day.

After two decades of helping executives, entrepreneurs, and overwhelmed professionals reclaim their lives, I've discovered something that might shock you…

The problem isn't that you're bad at time management. The problem is that time management itself is fundamentally broken.

Today, I'm going to share what actually works – and it's probably nothing like what you've been taught.

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Why traditional time management doesn't work

Time is the ultimate equalizer.

We all get exactly 24 hours a day, 1,440 minutes, 86,400 seconds. It doesn't matter if you're Elon Musk or someone just starting their career – the clock ticks at the same pace for everyone.

So if time is fixed, why are we trying to "manage" it?

Here's the uncomfortable truth…

Traditional time management treats you like a machine.

It assumes that if you just organize your schedule better, batch your tasks more efficiently, and squeeze more activities into each hour, you'll magically become more productive.

But you're not a machine. You're a human being with energy that fluctuates, attention that wanes, and creativity that comes in waves.

I've watched brilliant people burn out trying to follow rigid time-blocking systems.

I've seen entrepreneurs schedule their days down to 15-minute increments, only to feel more frazzled than ever. The problem isn't their execution – it's the entire premise.

Have you ever had a day where you accomplished more in two focused hours than you did in the previous two weeks of "busy" work?

That's not about time management – that's about energy management.

Your attention isn't a renewable resource that resets every morning. Your creativity doesn't operate on a schedule. Your decision-making ability deteriorates throughout the day. Yet most time management systems completely ignore these realities.

The more we focus on managing time, the more time-anxious we become.

We start seeing every minute as something to be optimized, every break as wasted time, every spontaneous moment as a failure of planning.

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What to do instead?

Instead of managing time, start managing your energy.

Energy management is about aligning your most important work with your peak performance states. It's about understanding your natural rhythms and working with them, not against them.

Here's how this shift changes everything:

From scheduling tasks to scheduling energy types. Instead of saying "I'll write the proposal from 2-4 PM," you say "I'll tackle my most creative work when my mind is sharpest" (which might be 6 AM for some people, 10 PM for others).

From cramming more in to doing less better. Energy management forces you to be selective. You can't sustain peak energy for 12 hours straight, so you have to choose what really matters.

From fighting your nature to leveraging it. Are you a morning person trying to force yourself into late-night productivity sessions?

Energy management says…

Stop the madness and work with your biological clock.

I learned this the hard way. For years, I tried to be productive from 9 AM to 6 PM because that's what "professional" looked like.

I scheduled important calls during my 3 PM energy crash and wondered why I felt drained. I forced creative work during my analytical hours and questioned my abilities.

Everything changed when I started tracking my energy patterns instead of just my time. I discovered I had three distinct energy types throughout the day:

1. Creative mornings

2. Analytical midday

3. Strategic evenings

When I aligned my work with these natural rhythms, my productivity didn't just improve – it multiplied.

The goal isn't to fill every hour with activity. It's to match your energy to your priorities and protect your peak states like the precious resource they are.

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Your 6-step energy blueprint

Ready to make the switch?

Here's your practical roadmap to energy management:

Step 1: Track your energy patterns for one week. Don't track what you do – track how you feel.

Every two hours, rate your energy from 1-10 and note what type of work feels easiest (creative, analytical, administrative, social). You'll start seeing patterns by day three.

Step 2: Identify your energy types. Most people have 2-4 distinct energy states:

• Peak focus (complex, important work)

• Creative flow (brainstorming, writing, design)

• Administrative mode (email, scheduling, organizing)

• Social energy (meetings, calls, collaboration)

Step 3: Protect your golden hours. Your peak energy state – usually 2-4 hours total per day – is sacred. This is when you tackle your most important, challenging work. No meetings, no email, no distractions.

Guard this time like your career depends on it (because it does).

Step 4: Batch by energy, not by task type. Instead of "morning meetings, afternoon deep work," try:

• High-energy strategic work

• Medium-energy collaborative work

• Low-energy administrative work

Match the energy requirement to your current state.

Step 5: Build in energy recovery. This isn't about taking breaks – it's about strategic recovery.

A 10-minute walk between cognitively demanding tasks. A brief meditation before switching from solo work to social interaction. Micro-recoveries that reset your energy state.

Step 6: Design your environment for each energy type. Your peak focus work might need complete silence and a clear desk.

Your creative work might thrive with background music and visual inspiration.

Your administrative work might be fine with distractions. One environment can't optimize for all energy states.

Here's what this looks like in practice:

Instead of scheduling "write quarterly report 9-11 AM," you schedule it during your next peak creative energy window, whenever that occurs.

Instead of back-to-back meetings all afternoon, you group social interactions during your high social energy period and protect your focused energy for complex problem-solving.

The magic happens when you stop fighting your natural rhythms and start orchestrating them.

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The uncomfortable truth about busyness

Here's the question that changed how I think about productivity..

Are you genuinely busy with important work, or are you busy avoiding the work that scares you?

Most people use busyness as a sophisticated form of procrastination. We fill our days with meetings that could be emails, emails that could be deleted, and tasks that feel productive but don't move the needle.

It's easier to be busy with safe, familiar work than to tackle the uncertain, challenging projects that could actually change our trajectory.

I call this "productive procrastination" – and it's epidemic.

Signs you might be busy avoiding:

• You're exhausted but can't point to significant accomplishments

• You're constantly putting out fires but never preventing them

• You say yes to every meeting but no to your most important projects

• You feel busy all day but behind on what really matters

• You're more comfortable with urgent tasks than important ones

The antidote isn't better time management – it's honest self-reflection about what you're avoiding and why.

Energy management forces this conversation because you can't sustain high energy while avoiding important work.

Your body knows the difference between meaningful effort and busy work. Meaningful work energizes you even when it's challenging. Busy work drains you even when it's easy.

Next time you feel overwhelmed by your endless task list, ask yourself…

What's the one thing I'm avoiding that, if I did it, would make everything else easier or irrelevant?

Then use your next peak energy window to tackle that exact thing.

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My biggest energy management mistake (and how I fixed it)

I spent three years perfecting energy management theory. I could map my energy patterns, identify my peak windows, and preach the gospel of working with your natural rhythms.

But I was still using Google Calendar and Apple Notes to implement it.

Imagine trying to paint a masterpiece with a house brush. That's what using time management tools for energy management feels like. They fight you at every turn.

The breakthrough came when I stopped trying to hack my existing tools and found one built for how I actually wanted to work.

Every morning, instead of staring at an intimidating calendar full of back-to-back meetings, I now start with a simple question…

"What three things deserve my best energy today?"

Then I drag them from my scattered inboxes and place them exactly where they belong – during my peak windows, with proper recovery time between cognitive sprints.

My clients kept asking what I was using. Dario Amodei, CEO of Claude ai, tried it and texted me:

"Holy shit. I just had my most productive week in two years." (He's normally more professional, but energy management will do that to you.)

The tool?

Sunsama.

But here's why it actually works where others fail:

It doesn't try to optimize your time – it helps you protect your energy. Instead of cramming more into your day, it forces you to be selective about what gets your peak attention.

Most productivity tools make you busier. This one makes you intentional.

Want to see what energy-first planning feels like?

They have a free trial that'll show you the difference in about ten minutes.

Try it here – but fair warning: once you experience planning around your energy instead of just your time, going back feels barbaric.

All the best!

-Zohvib

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Want more like this? Forward this newsletter to someone who's stuck in the time management trap. They'll thank you for it.

New here? Welcome to Filtered, where we cut through productivity BS and focus on what actually works. You can catch up on previous issues here.