PDF Summary:At Your Best, by Carey Nieuwhof

No matter how hard we try to build our dream lives, we often find ourselves in a nightmare of endless stress and frustration. In At Your Best, leadership consultant Carey Nieuwhof explains how to escape this trap by working with your natural cycles of high and low energy to maximize your productivity and minimize stress. The key to success, he says, is simple: Do what you’re best at, and do it when you’re “at your best.”

In this guide, we’ll discuss how managing your time, energy, and priorities can lead to a positive feedback loop of achievement and happiness. Then, we’ll explain how you can effectively manage your priorities, and why doing so is really about managing the people around you. Our commentary will compare Nieuwhof’s ideas against those from books such as The Effective Executive and Feel-Good Productivity. We’ll also provide some concrete actionables to help you start reclaiming your time, energy, and focus.

(continued)...

Find Your Peak Performance Window

Nieuwhof says everyone has three to five hours each day when they’re at their best: energetic, clear-headed, and focused. The key to his entire system is to find those hours when your energy is highest, and use them to the fullest.

Everyone’s high energy hours are different. To find yours, pay attention to your productivity levels and mood throughout the day, and look for patterns over time. For instance, you might find that you start your day with a huge burst of energy and then grow tired a few hours later. Conversely, you may realize that you tend to be sluggish in the morning and you don’t hit your stride until after lunch.

Nieuwhof also suggests asking your colleagues, family, or close friends for their insights. Because others see your performance and temperament from different perspectives, they’re likely to notice things that you miss.

(Shortform note: One tool that can help you find your natural cycle of sleep and wakefulness—including your hours of peak alertness—is the Munich Chronotype Questionnaire (MCTQ). Developed by professor Till Roenneberg and his colleagues, the MCTQ determines your chronotype based on your actual sleep patterns on both work days and free days. The questionnaire gathers information about variables including your bedtime, how long it takes you to fall asleep, when you wake up, and whether you use an alarm clock. This information also allows it to estimate your level of “social jetlag”: the mismatch between your biological clock and your actual schedule.)

Make the Most of Your Peak Hours

Once you’ve found your peak performance times, the next step is to fill them with activities that need—or deserve—your absolute best. Nieuwhof says appropriate tasks for these high-energy windows should have three key elements:

1) They come naturally. Use your peak performance windows to do the things you’re best at—the tasks where you can produce quality results almost effortlessly. The combination of your natural gifts and your natural energy will result in incredible productivity.

2) You’re passionate about them. Do activities that excite and energize you. Don’t sabotage your high-energy periods with tasks that frustrate you and leave you drained.

3) They’re genuinely important. Finally, you should use your peak hours for activities that get you closer to your life goals, both professional and personal. So, a high-energy period is a perfect time to handle an important work project, but it’s equally valuable as an opportunity to work on a personal project or to call a loved one and strengthen your relationship.

(Shortform note: Nieuwhof’s advice here closely mirrors what self-help authors Héctor García and Francesc Miralles discuss in Ikigai, but they add an additional criterion to consider. García and Miralles say that your ikigai—your life’s purpose—must be something you’re naturally good at, something you’re passionate about, and something the world needs (genuinely important), but also something you can make money doing. Therefore, they might disagree with Nieuwhof about devoting your peak hours to personal projects or relationships, and would instead urge you to use that time for something profitable.)

Nieuwhof also recommends that you reserve at least thirty minutes of high-energy time each day to further develop a skill that you’re already talented at. Your natural gifts might mean you can perform at an average or above-average level without practice. However, if you invest a bit of time each day into studying and perfecting that skill, you’ll be able to truly perform at your best.

(Shortform note: Practicing a skill you’re naturally good at produces greater benefits than practicing in an attempt to compensate for a lack of talent. In The Sports Gene, David Epstein discusses a study from the early 1900s where adults practiced multiplying three-digit numbers, and researchers tracked their improvement. The study found that the adults who were more skilled at the beginning of the study also improved more quickly—practice widened the gap instead of narrowing it. Therefore, building upon your natural talents doesn’t just help you do your best; it raises your skill in that area to a level that few other people can match.)

Finally, you don’t need to devote every moment of your high-energy windows to work and practice. Nieuwhof says you can actually improve your performance by taking breaks from work during your peak hours. Doing so gives your subconscious mind a chance to process information and generate new insights. Therefore, if you’re stuck on a difficult problem, you’re likely to have a breakthrough if you do something relaxing, such as going for a walk, meditating, or taking a hot shower.

(Shortform note: In Feel-Good Productivity, entrepreneur Ali Abdaal explains that taking regular breaks helps you stay focused and energized, but he urges you to make the most of your break periods: Do something fun, or find something that makes you feel energized and uplifted, rather than just doing something that distracts you and fills the time. For example, try reading an inspiring article or taking a power nap instead of scrolling through social media.)

How to Use Your Lower-Energy Periods

The core of Nieuwhof’s system is to use your high energy periods to do your best work, but what about the rest of your day? The author also provides guidance about how to make the most of your moderate-energy and low-energy periods.

Nieuwhof says that during periods of moderate energy, you’ll be capable of good work but not your best work. Routine tasks and moderately important activities fit well here. Meetings, most kinds of correspondence, and casual get-togethers are good examples of moderate energy tasks.

Finally, you’ll have periods of low energy when your creativity and patience are so depleted that even basic tasks can feel burdensome. However, low-energy windows aren’t useless—you can still handle simple tasks, or things you’ve done often enough that they don’t require a great deal of thought. For instance, you might use this time to go through your emails (not to answer any, just to flag important messages and delete junk). Alternatively, you could do basic work like data entry or compiling information into a weekly report.

(Shortform note: Nieuwhof’s system is about making the most of all your time, even those times when you feel tired or unmotivated. However, no matter how effectively you use your medium- and low-energy periods, there’s a biological limit to how much you can do. That limit varies from person to person, but research has provided a couple of useful benchmarks: Working more than 45 hours per week is harmful to physical and mental health in numerous ways, and the maximum productive hours for the average person is around 55 per week. Trying to be productive for more than 55 hours simply doesn’t work for most people, as they’re too exhausted to accomplish anything more.)

Manage Your Priorities

We’ve discussed how to effectively manage your time and energy, two of the three elements of Nieuwhof’s system. Managing the third element, priorities, is really about managing people. After all, if you didn’t have other people interrupting you and making demands on your time, you’d have no problem sticking to your own priorities.

In this final section, we’ll discuss how and why other people hijack your priorities so frequently. We’ll then explain how you can protect your priorities—and your relationships—by learning how to turn people down in a way that’s both respectful and firm.

(Shortform note: This framing treats other people primarily as obstacles to be managed, which may reinforce an individualistic ideal where you prioritize productivity and achieve it by insulating yourself from others. In The Second Mountain, cultural commentator David Brooks suggests that this overlooks the benefits of relationalism—an approach to life that centers care, commitment, collaboration, and responsiveness to others. A relationalist would say that other people’s demands aren’t distractions from meaningful work; they’re the work itself.)

Protect Your Priorities

Nieuwhof says the fundamental issue is that people want you to address their priorities, not your own. As a result, they see no problem with trying to take over your schedule and making demands that don’t align with your personal goals.

In most cases, this behavior isn’t malicious or even intentional. It’s perfectly natural for people to value what’s important to them over what’s important to you. Once you recognize this pattern, you’ll be better prepared to deal with it and, hopefully, to remain patient with people who most likely don’t mean any harm.

(Shortform note: Nieuwhof says people usually aren’t being malicious when they try to hijack your time and energy, but how do you know when it is malicious? In Red Flags, Green Flags, psychologist Ali Fenwick discusses various warning signs that these requests have become truly toxic. In personal relationships, watch out for people who try to trick or coerce you into doing what they want, rather than simply asking. In professional relationships, beware of people who don’t respect your boundaries—for instance, bosses who demand constant availability, or who use manipulative language like “we’re a family here” to blur the line between your personal life and your job.)

Nieuwhof adds that technology has made the problem of people interfering with your priorities dramatically worse. Smartphones and social media have created constant accessibility, so the barrage of requests never stops. Therefore, he urges you to carefully manage your technology use in order to minimize distractions.

For instance, when you don’t need your phone or laptop, leave them someplace where you can’t see them and won’t be tempted to use them. Furthermore—since there are times when you can’t be without your phone—consider removing unnecessary programs such as social media apps and games.

(Shortform note: In Atomic Habits, self-help author James Clear says that instead of avoiding distractions such as your phone, you can use them as a source of motivation. He recommends temptation bundling: pairing a difficult task with a tempting activity so you’re more incentivized to do the challenging task. To brainstorm temptation bundles, make one column of things you enjoy doing and another of things you should be doing more often. Once that’s done, go through the two lists to see which activities can be done together. For example, you might allow yourself to use social media on your phone, but only while you’re pedaling on an exercise bike. )

How to Say No

Nieuwhof asserts that you must set firm boundaries to protect your priorities and say “no” to people who try to cross them. However, because you’ll need to say no so often, to so many people, it’s important to have systematic approaches that protect your priorities from chronic hijacking without making the other person upset or resentful. First, show empathy for the other person’s situation and express your genuine desire to help. Next, be clear and firm as you decline their request. If possible, suggest another option, such as another person who might be able to help or some useful resources they can access. Finally, thank them for thinking of you.

Furthermore, you can save yourself a lot of time and mental energy by establishing entire categories of requests that you will always say no to. For instance, you might decide that you’ll never go to any event at a bar—you can then make that decision just once, instead of having to think about it every time someone invites you to meet them for a drink.

(Shortform note: These categorical denials could be seen as a type of implementation intention: an “if-then” statement that predicts a certain situation and primes you to respond appropriately. Because you plan your response ahead of time, you don’t need to rely so much on reasoning and willpower to make the best decision when that situation arises. So, in the previous example, the implementation intention would be: “If someone invites me to a bar, then I will say no.”)

Practice Rejection

Nieuwhof’s advice to say “no” to people who try to take up your time—to reject them—can be difficult to put into practice. In The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F∗ck, Mark Manson says that people fear rejection (both being rejected and having to reject others) because it’s unpleasant no matter which side you’re on. However, Manson argues that rejection is an important skill that everyone should practice. If you say “yes” to everyone and everything, you’ll end up stuck in situations that make you unhappy, and unhappiness is what you were trying to avoid in the first place.

This also ties into Nieuwhof‘s points about technology. Modern culture, especially modern workplaces, often set the unhealthy expectation that anyone can contact you at any time for anything, usually via email, telephone, or other messaging systems. Nieuwhof is urging you to reject those expectations and the people who set them; instead, set clear rules regarding when and why you’ll give people your time.