From Busy to Productive: Intentional Practices for Managing Your Time With Martine Ellis
So much of the conversation surrounding productivity focuses on squeezing as much as possible from our working hours. Educator, Coach, and Doodler, Martine Ellis provides a refreshing take on how we use our time with an emphasis on wellbeing—a stark contrast to the productivity hacks that fuel pseudo-productivity and constant busyness. Taking breaks, protecting personal and creative time, and paying attention to her energy levels are central tenants to how she plans and manages her time.
In short, as Martine says, "to do well, you need to be well."
We had the chance to talk with Martine about how she approaches energy management, time-blocking, and daily rituals, all designed to fuel productivity and creativity without burning out.
Work with your energy levels
The concept of time management is well understood. Martine, however, emphasizes the benefits of planning based on your available energy, not just available hours. To do so, she emphasizes the importance of understanding and managing energy levels.
Her approach involves carefully planning tasks based on her energy peaks and dips. This means scheduling her most cognitively demanding work during energy peaks, and using energy dips to tackle less challenging tasks. For Martine, who experiences peak energy in the morning, she starts her day with her most demanding tasks, like planning and creating content for her course. This allows her to align her natural energy with her workflow, maximizing both focus and creativity.
She also takes a holistic view of her week, knowing that energy doesn't just fluctuate throughout the day, but also day-to-day. She looks at her calendar to assess if some days are particularly loaded to identify when a less demanding day should be scheduled for recovery.
Planning in this way accounts for variability in energy levels—knowing when you're most focused and creative can help you avoid the frustration of pushing through low-energy periods with high-effort tasks.
Recognize your circadian rhythm
Similar to Martine, you may also have a strong energy peak in the morning. But it's important to note, everyone experiences their own unique energy patterns, with highs and lows throughout the day. Your circadian rhythm plays a large role in when you experience your peaks and troughs. When you're aware of these patterns, it's easy to plan important activities at the right time for maximum efficiency.
If you don't have a strong sense of your energy patterns, we recommend tracking your energy for a week or two to identify patterns.
Time block rituals for deep work
Rituals
All of us want a smoother workday, and Martine’s routine may hold the key. Her emphasis on simple rituals helps her seamlessly transition in and out of work.
These rituals are small, give a small dopamine bump, and help her move from one stage to another, without becoming a chore. For those who have struggled to stick with startup and shutdown routines, Martine is quick to remind us that it doesn’t need to be anything fancy or time consuming.
Startup and shutdown rituals
Martine’s daily routine includes both a startup and shutdown ritual. They aren't complicated, just enough to signal when it’s time to focus and when it’s time to unwind, such as looking at her calendar paired with a cup of coffee in the morning or a dog walk after work.
Her top recommendation is to make the rituals as tiny as possible, or as she likes to think of them, "a minimum viable thing you can do". For example, just checking the calendar after the morning coffee to see what’s coming up. Then, start adding more little things that you think would set you up well for the day and build on top of it. With so many people working from home, these rituals can be important ways to mark the start and end to our days, where commutes previously helped set these boundaries.
It doesn’t have to be in the calendar to exist, but it can already be present as your habit rather than something new and aspirational that promises to change your life. For instance, Martine checks her task manager and writes a journal entry, which takes her about 5 minutes in the morning.
Is there anything you can do to make your rituals more fun?
—Martine Ellis
Your shutdown ritual is equally important, and if possible, Martine recommends to get a little dopamine hit at this point. Her own routine does just that. With journaling about what went well that day and what she would do a little differently, as well as ticking off the tasks she completed or rescheduling outstanding ones to the next day.
Weekly review
Martine also practices a weekly review. This too, she emphasizes, doesn't need to be complicated. A quick look at your project progress and priorities for the week will set the tone for the week ahead.
One way Martine keeps her weekly review smooth and efficient is by using templates. She starts by reviewing the notes she took throughout the week and assessing what needs attention coming up. Then, Martine uses the Plus-Minus-Next model to dig deeper into her activities, reflecting on these questions:
- Plus: What worked?
- Minus: What didn’t?
- Next: What’s next?
She then does a quick review of her annual goals, marking progress towards each, and reminding herself what the goals are.
Tending to the weekly review often reminds Martine there’s a do-over next week, which puts a positive spin on a week that might not have gone as well as she hoped.
Tips to create your routine from Martine:
- Start with a minimum viable routine.
- From there, build on it.
- Reflect on your week to stay accountable to your goals.
- Find the right time for your weekly reviews and weekly planning.
Practical time blocking tips for time management from Martine Ellis
Time blocking protects dedicated time for important tasks while also eliminating the need to constantly figure out what to do next.
Martine uses time-blocking as a tool on a need-to-basis when a big volume of different events swarm her calendar, and she needs time dedicated to deep work. She shared some of her proven tips:
How to organize your time
First things first, each of us has several life zones. Whether you’re a business owner, employee, freelancer, or student, you can think about how your time is split across key areas.
Martine divides her time into three main zones: personal, business, and work. She uses Morgen as her unified calendar to track everything across zones. She has a calendar for each one and assigns a different color to each in Morgen. By color-coding by zones, Martine can quickly glance at Morgen to see how her time is distributed and easily identify if any zone requires more focus than the others.
How to schedule your tasks
At this point, it’s crucial to consider your energy levels throughout the day. If you’re the most energized in the morning, that’s the best time to schedule your most important tasks. Martine’s approach emphasizes aligning your schedule with your natural energy peaks to maximize productivity.
Estimating task times
In order to set time blocks, it’s good to have a time estimate of how long certain tasks would take. Most people tend to underestimate how long activities may take. Martine plans with this in mind. When she works on a course module, for instance, she sets up a 3-hour block, accounting for a few micro-breaks in that time. If she’s not finished, she adds another time block the next day to finish it.
On the other hand, she sets time bounds for short administrative tasks, to avoid them creeping over time and displacing more important work.
I will allow more complex work that requires more cognitive load to spill over into a block the following day. Because I know that it needs more thought to enhance the quality.
—Martine
Scheduling personal time
Martine doesn’t block her personal time in her calendar. But she is disciplined in ensuring work time doesn't take over. Her routines are designed for long-term success without burnout, and that includes carving out time for creative work. Drawing doodles in the evening is a new way for her to unwind and be creative.
If she doesn’t tap into her creativity during the day, she finds herself craving it. These quiet moments of creativity are essential for maintaining balance amid the demands of work and life.
Context switching
For Martine, one of the most draining aspects of her day is context switching. A constant back-and-forth between projects from different life zones makes it tough to stay focused and can be an energy drain.
Context switching refers to the act of moving between unrelated tasks quickly, forcing one's brain to reboot each time, making it harder to maintain concentration and momentum. It disrupts deep work and increases the likelihood of distractions.
Martine structures her week based on her life zones to group complementary tasks. In this way, she minimizes jumping between personal, business, and work tasks. This allows dedicated time to one context at a time, minimizing the mental load of switching between tasks.
Do the 3 P's - Plan, Prepare, Put in the work
Sticking to time-blocking in the beginning might be challenging, and it’s something Martine recognizes as well.
She sees a possible point of failure being a lack of adding in time to prepare. Most of us plan an activity or project, and then try to jump straight into the task. We often omit a crucial step of preparing for the work. This might include pulling together the needed resources, having tools set to go, etc. Martine suggests blocking 15 minutes for preparation before diving into the large task. This brief buffer allows one to mentally and physically prepare, have the proper setup and resources ready, and then start feeling ready.
How would this look in action?
When Martine needs to write a course module, she first schedules it in her calendar as a part of her planning. Next, she opens all relevant documents and reviews her course outline to refresh her memory on the learning outcomes she needs to cover, as a part of her planning. Finally, she dives into the writing itself, putting in the focused effort to complete the task.
Martine’s way of time-blocking with Morgen
- Define your life zones.
- Create a calendar per life zone and assign a different color to each in Morgen.
- Dedicate and protect time to focus on your different life zones.
- Note how your energy levels fluctuate during the day.
- Create a time block or move specific tasks in Morgen when your energy levels peak.
To wrap up
Martine offers a refreshing break from mainstream productivity conversations, where sustainable productivity takes precedence over hacks and hustle. Here are the top recommendations we took from our conversation with Martine that can be applied in anyone's workflows:
Key Takeaways:
Energy management is key
Align tasks with your natural energy peaks and dips throughout the day. Recognize your individual patterns and plan demanding tasks during energy highs to prevent burnout and boost productivity. Martine schedules her most cognitive-demanding work during her energy peaks, ensuring she taps into her natural focus and creativity at the right time.
Create rituals
Martine’s approach includes simple startup and shutdown rituals, like having a coffee and taking her dog for a walk, to signal the start and end of work. Weekly review takes the spot to stay aligned with the goals and adjust priorities. Create your own rituals to ease transitions and maintain focus throughout the day.
Time blocking for deep work
Use time blocking to protect focused work time. Martine recommends structuring your day around different life zones, using tools like Morgen to visualize and allocate time for important tasks.
Avoid context switching
Constantly shifting between projects from different life zones is mentally draining. Minimizing context switching by dedicating specific blocks of time to one zone at a time, reduces cognitive load and increases focus.
Sustainable practices for long-term success
Martine's system revolves around building routines that prioritize wellbeing and creativity. Though she doesn't schedule how she spends her personal time, she carves out space for activities like drawing doodles, which scratch her creative itch and maintain a balance between work and life.
Plan, prepare, put in the work
Try to experiment with a brief preparation period before diving into work to ensure resources and focus are in place. Martine takes this step to remind herself of what needs to be done in connection with the task, prepare necessary materials, and reduce distractions.
To keep up with what’s next for Martine, read her blog, or enjoy her doodles, here are her socials:
For more reading on Martine, time-blocking, or energy levels check these articles:
