Latest / New Manager Conversations with Fexingo: First 90 Days, Managing Former Peers, and Leadership Basics / How New Managers Can Manage Their Energy Not Just Their Time
Transcript
- Lucas: So I was talking to a new manager at a mid-sized SaaS company — maybe 300 employees — and she said something that stopped me. Luna: What'd she say? Lucas: She said: 'I've got my calendar locked down. Every hour has a purpose. But by two PM I'm useless. I'm just going through the motions in my 1-1s, nodding, not really listening.' And I thought — we talk so much about time management for new managers. But energy management barely gets a mention. Luna: That's such a good point. I've seen that in my own work. You can have the perfect block schedule, but if your tank is empty, those blocks just become placeholders. Lucas: Exactly. And for a new manager, the stakes are higher. You're making maybe 30 to 50 micro-decisions a day — Should I approve this? How do I phrase that feedback? Do I escalate this or let them figure it out? Each one drains a little battery. By mid-afternoon, your judgment is worse, your patience is thinner, and you're more likely to snap or just say 'sure' to something you'll regret. Luna: There's research on this, right? Decision fatigue isn't just a metaphor. Lucas: It's very real. Daniel Pink talks about it in his book 'When'. He shows that judges' parole decisions get harsher as the day goes on — not because they're mean, but because their cognitive resources are depleted. Same thing happens to managers. The quality of your feedback, your coaching, your judgment — it degrades unless you match tasks to your energy curve. Luna: So what's the fix? Should she just reshuffle her day? Lucas: Partially, yeah. But first she has to know her energy curve. Most people have a peak focus window in the morning — roughly 90 to 120 minutes after waking. That's when you want high-cognitive-load tasks: coaching, giving feedback, strategic thinking. Then a post-lunch dip. Then a secondary lift in late afternoon for most people. Luna: But for a new manager, mornings are often eaten up by status meetings or urgent fires. How do you protect that peak window? Lucas: That's the hard part. One tactic I've seen work is the 'energy audit'. For one week, every 90 minutes, you note your energy level on a scale of 1 to 5 and what you were doing. At the end of the week, you look for patterns. This manager I mentioned — she realized she was scheduling her most draining 1-1s — the ones with a struggling direct report — right after lunch. No wonder she was checked out. Luna: So she moved those to the morning, I'm guessing? Lucas: She did. And she started batching low-cognitive-load tasks — approving expense reports, reviewing dashboards, answering routine Slack messages — into her post-lunch dip. She didn't fight her biology. She worked with it. And she said within two weeks, her afternoon 1-1s felt less like a chore. Luna: That makes a lot of sense. But I wonder — what about the manager who can't control their schedule because they're in a reactive culture? Like, Slack blowing up all day, the CEO expects instant answers. Lucas: Right. That's a real constraint. And I'm not going to say 'just set boundaries' as if that's easy. But there are small hacks. One is to schedule a 'focus block' on your calendar with a clear label — 'Coaching prep' or 'Strategic thinking' — and treat it as non-negotiable for two hours a week. That's it. Just two hours. Research from the Harvard Business Review suggests that even modest protected time reduces turnover risk in new managers by a significant margin. Luna: Because it reduces the feeling of being constantly reactive, I bet. Lucas: Exactly. When you never have time to think, you feel like you're drowning. And new managers are already prone to impostor syndrome — Ep 126, if you missed it. So protecting two hours for reflection isn't indulgent. It's survival. Luna: I also think about the team dynamic. If a manager is visibly depleted, the team picks up on that. They might hesitate to bring problems forward. Lucas: That's a great point. Your energy sets the tone. If you're always rushed and brittle, you're teaching your team that being busy equals being valuable. But if you model sustainable pacing — taking a real lunch, stepping away for a walk — you give them permission to do the same. And that builds a healthier culture. Luna: Yeah, leading by example on energy management is probably more powerful than anything you say in a team meeting about work-life balance. Lucas: Totally. And look — we talk a lot on this show about practical tools for new managers. And I want to be honest about something. This show, and our whole network, stays ad-free because of listeners who chip in. A small group of people support us through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. And that's what makes it possible for us to keep digging into these topics without any sponsor pressure. Luna: Yeah, it really does. And we're grateful for that. It lets us be completely honest about what works and what doesn't. Lucas: So if this episode has helped you think about your own energy, or if you've used any of our past episodes to navigate a tricky situation, consider joining that group. No pressure at all. It just keeps the show going. Luna: Okay — back to the energy audit. I want to dig into how you actually do it without it becoming another chore. Lucas: Sure. The simplest version: set a repeating alarm on your phone for every 90 minutes. When it goes off, take ten seconds to write down three things. First, your energy level — one to five. Second, what you were doing. Third, one word for your mood — frustrated, focused, bored, whatever. At the end of the week, look for patterns. Luna: And then what? You just shift tasks around? Lucas: That's the first step. But you might also discover that certain people or certain types of meetings drain you more than others. For instance, maybe you find that your 1-1 with the senior engineer who always challenges your decisions — that leaves you at a 2 energy level for an hour afterward. That's a signal. Maybe you need to schedule something energizing after that meeting, or reframe how you approach it. Luna: Or prepare differently going in, so it's less draining. Lucas: Exactly. The audit gives you data. Then you can experiment. One manager I worked with realized that her most draining activity wasn't a person — it was context-switching. She'd check Slack between every task. So she started batching Slack check-ins to three times a day, and her afternoon energy jumped significantly. Luna: That's a concrete win. I think a lot of new managers feel like they can't do that because they need to be responsive. But honestly, most messages can wait 45 minutes. Lucas: They can. And if something is truly urgent, people will call. Or they'll send a second message. The world doesn't end. Luna: So what about the ends of the day? Are there energy management tactics for winding down? Lucas: Definitely. One thing that helps is scheduling a 'shutdown ritual' — a five-minute routine at the end of the day where you write down your top three priorities for tomorrow, close all tabs, and physically leave your workspace. That mental separation is huge for preventing carryover stress. Luna: And for morning prep, I've heard of managers reviewing their calendar the night before and mentally rehearsing the energy demand of each meeting. Lucas: That's a smart habit. You can even color-code your calendar by energy demand — red for high-cognitive-load, yellow for moderate, green for low-effort. Then you can see at a glance if you've stacked too many reds in a row. Luna: I like that. It's visual. And it makes the invisible visible. Lucas: Right. And that's really the goal here — making energy management as intentional as time management. Because you can't buy more energy. You can only allocate it wisely. Luna: So final thought: if a new manager only does one thing from this episode, what should it be? Lucas: Do the energy audit for one week. That's it. No massive overhaul. Just gather data. Then make one small change based on what you learn. Maybe you move one draining 1-1 to the morning. Maybe you batch email. That one change can snowball into a completely different experience of your day. Luna: I think that's a great takeaway. And I'm curious — for those who try it, let us know how it goes. We might do a follow-up episode with listener stories. Lucas: I'd love that. For now, good luck with your energy audit. And thanks for listening — we'll see you next time.