Time Management Was for Your 20s. Now It’s About Protecting Your Energy.

You’ve been told to wake up earlier, hustle harder, and squeeze more into your calendar. But an hour at 9 a.m. isn’t the same as an hour at 3 p.m., and treating it like it is will burn you out.

Ever get excited about a rare free afternoon on your calendar, only to realize you’re too wiped out to actually use it? Most of us don’t actually struggle with time, but with not having enough energy.

Think about it:

• You can block off three hours for a project, but if you’re mentally fried, those hours are useless.

• You can schedule your workouts for 6 a.m., but if your body runs better in the afternoons, you’ll just snooze the alarm.

• You can plan “quality time” with family, but if you’re distracted and drained, you’re not really present.

You don’t need more hours in your day. You need more you in your hours.

The core principles of “time management” assume all hours are equal. You’re told to break your day into neat blocks on a calendar.

Prioritize your “most important” tasks and tackle them first.

Squeeze more into the margins… early mornings, late nights, weekends.

Wake up earlier. Use your calendar better. Grind through the to-do list.

You might also like:

The Anti-Hustle Checklist: 7 Real Strategies for Remote Work Without Burnout

But our time isn’t a flat, neutral resource. An hour at 9 a.m. when your brain is sharp isn’t the same as an hour at 3 p.m. after three Zoom calls and a heavy lunch.

What’s more, we’re just getting too old for this ish. Our bodies, our brains, our bandwidth simply don’t run like they did at 25, and pretending they do is what leads to burnout.

So if you want to “make time” to start a side hustle, explore your remote career options, and otherwise take tangible action to get one step closer to a location-independent life, stop trying to “manage time” and instead, work on maximizing the energy you’ve actually got.

This shift is helping me go from “burned-out freelancer” to “balanced nomad.” Now, I’m not perfect at it, and we’re definitely not there yet. But I see enough value in this approach that I know energy management isn’t fluffy or woo. It’s a practical strategy that makes everything else easier.

And once you start treating your energy like the limited, precious resource it is, you realize there are smarter ways to budget it, protect it, and even grow it.

If time management was the old game, energy management is the new one—and it changes everything. That’s what full subscribers are digging into today: practical, real-world ways to stop wasting energy and start multiplying it.

Let’s do it.

How to Actually Manage Your Energy (And Not Just Juggle Your Time)