What Managers and Teams Can Do Differently
Individual habits matter. But culture eats strategy for breakfast, as the saying goes.
- Stop scheduling meetings at 2 p.m. and calling it “collaboration.” That’s the trough. Nobody’s brain is there.
- Normalize breaks. If leaders visibly step away, everyone else feels permission to do the same.
- Audit recurring meetings. Half of them exist because someone was lonely in 2019.
- Measure output, not hours. A rested employee in four focused hours outproduces a fried one in eight.
Honestly, the companies winning the talent war right now are the ones treating energy as a strategic asset. Not a wellness perk. An asset.
The Bottom Line on Energy Management
Ultradian rhythm scheduling isn’t about doing less. It’s about doing the right things at the right times — and then genuinely resting so you can do it again tomorrow.
Your biology isn’t an obstacle to great work. It’s the operating manual. Read it. Follow it. And watch what happens when your team stops fighting their own nervous systems and starts working with them.
2. Block 90-minute focus windows
Protect them like you’d protect a client meeting. Turn off Slack. Close the tabs. One task per window.
3. Take real breaks
Scrolling Instagram is not a break. Your brain needs something restorative — a short walk, stretching, staring out a window, a chat with a colleague about literally anything other than work.
4. Schedule shallow work for shallow energy
Email, expense reports, calendar Tetris — save them for the trough. You’ll stop wasting prime cognitive real estate on tasks a moderately smart houseplant could handle.
What Managers and Teams Can Do Differently
Individual habits matter. But culture eats strategy for breakfast, as the saying goes.
- Stop scheduling meetings at 2 p.m. and calling it “collaboration.” That’s the trough. Nobody’s brain is there.
- Normalize breaks. If leaders visibly step away, everyone else feels permission to do the same.
- Audit recurring meetings. Half of them exist because someone was lonely in 2019.
- Measure output, not hours. A rested employee in four focused hours outproduces a fried one in eight.
Honestly, the companies winning the talent war right now are the ones treating energy as a strategic asset. Not a wellness perk. An asset.
The Bottom Line on Energy Management
Ultradian rhythm scheduling isn’t about doing less. It’s about doing the right things at the right times — and then genuinely resting so you can do it again tomorrow.
Your biology isn’t an obstacle to great work. It’s the operating manual. Read it. Follow it. And watch what happens when your team stops fighting their own nervous systems and starts working with them.
2. Block 90-minute focus windows
Protect them like you’d protect a client meeting. Turn off Slack. Close the tabs. One task per window.
3. Take real breaks
Scrolling Instagram is not a break. Your brain needs something restorative — a short walk, stretching, staring out a window, a chat with a colleague about literally anything other than work.
4. Schedule shallow work for shallow energy
Email, expense reports, calendar Tetris — save them for the trough. You’ll stop wasting prime cognitive real estate on tasks a moderately smart houseplant could handle.
What Managers and Teams Can Do Differently
Individual habits matter. But culture eats strategy for breakfast, as the saying goes.
- Stop scheduling meetings at 2 p.m. and calling it “collaboration.” That’s the trough. Nobody’s brain is there.
- Normalize breaks. If leaders visibly step away, everyone else feels permission to do the same.
- Audit recurring meetings. Half of them exist because someone was lonely in 2019.
- Measure output, not hours. A rested employee in four focused hours outproduces a fried one in eight.
Honestly, the companies winning the talent war right now are the ones treating energy as a strategic asset. Not a wellness perk. An asset.
The Bottom Line on Energy Management
Ultradian rhythm scheduling isn’t about doing less. It’s about doing the right things at the right times — and then genuinely resting so you can do it again tomorrow.
Your biology isn’t an obstacle to great work. It’s the operating manual. Read it. Follow it. And watch what happens when your team stops fighting their own nervous systems and starts working with them.
Let’s be honest — most productivity advice treats people like machines. Charge for eight hours straight, push through the afternoon slump with caffeine, repeat. But your brain isn’t a lithium battery. It’s more like… a tide. It rises, it falls, it rises again. And if you ignore that rhythm long enough, you end up drained, distracted, and secretly scrolling LinkedIn instead of doing the work you actually care about.
That’s where employee energy management comes in. And at the heart of it sits a concept that’s quietly reshaping how smart teams schedule their days: ultradian rhythm scheduling.
What Are Ultradian Rhythms, Anyway?
You’ve heard of circadian rhythms — the 24-hour body clock that tells you when to sleep and when to wake. Ultradian rhythms are the shorter cycles nested inside that. They typically run in 90 to 120-minute waves of high alertness followed by a natural dip.
Think of it like breathing. You inhale (focus builds), you hold briefly (peak performance), then you exhale (energy drops). Try to hold your breath for four hours and see how that goes. Exactly.
Researchers like Peretz Lavie and later productivity thinkers such as Tony Schwartz have pointed out that ignoring these dips doesn’t make them disappear. It just means you push through them with willpower — and willpower, well, it’s a finite resource.
Why the Traditional 9-to-5 Fights Your Brain
The standard workday assumes energy is linear. It isn’t. Most people hit their sharpest cognitive peak mid-morning, crash hard after lunch, get a second (smaller) wind mid-afternoon, then fade toward evening.
When companies schedule back-to-back meetings from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., they’re essentially asking employees to sprint a marathon. Sure, some people cope. But coping isn’t the same as thriving.
Common pain points I keep hearing from managers and HR folks:
- Afternoon meetings where nobody remembers the decisions made
- Employees doing “busy work” during peak hours and real thinking at 9 p.m.
- Burnout creeping in despite “wellness initiatives” that amount to free granola bars
None of that is a motivation problem. It’s a scheduling problem.
The Case for Ultradian Rhythm Scheduling at Work
Here’s the deal: ultradian rhythm scheduling means structuring the workday around those natural 90-minute focus cycles, followed by genuine recovery breaks of 15–20 minutes.
It’s not a gimmick. It’s basically the Pomodoro Technique’s wiser, biology-literate cousin.
A simple ultradian-friendly day might look like this:
| Time Block | Activity Type | Energy State |
|---|---|---|
| 8:30–10:00 | Deep work (writing, coding, strategy) | Peak focus |
| 10:00–10:20 | Break — walk, water, no screens | Recovery |
| 10:20–11:50 | Collaborative work, meetings | High social energy |
| 11:50–1:00 | Lunch + genuine rest | Trough |
| 1:00–2:30 | Admin, email, lighter tasks | Low focus |
| 2:30–2:50 | Break | Recovery |
| 2:50–4:20 | Creative problem-solving | Second wind |
Notice something? The hardest thinking happens when energy is naturally high. The mindless stuff happens when it isn’t. That’s not laziness — that’s intelligence.
What the Research Actually Says
I won’t pretend this is settled science with a thousand replicated studies. It isn’t. But the evidence we do have is compelling.
Studies on time-on-task fatigue show that sustained attention degrades measurably after 60–90 minutes. DeskTime’s analysis of top performers found the most productive workers tended to focus for about 52 minutes, then break for 17. And research from the University of Illinois suggests the brain needs downtime to consolidate learning — not as a reward, but as part of the process.
In other words: rest isn’t the opposite of productivity. It’s a component of it.
How to Actually Implement This (Without Blowing Up Your Calendar)
You don’t need permission from the CEO to start. You can begin small, and honestly, that’s usually how lasting change happens.
1. Track your personal energy for one week
Jot down your focus level every hour — say, 1 to 5. After five days, patterns emerge. Maybe you’re a morning person. Maybe you peak at 4 p.m. (yes, those people exist).
2. Block 90-minute focus windows
Protect them like you’d protect a client meeting. Turn off Slack. Close the tabs. One task per window.
3. Take real breaks
Scrolling Instagram is not a break. Your brain needs something restorative — a short walk, stretching, staring out a window, a chat with a colleague about literally anything other than work.
4. Schedule shallow work for shallow energy
Email, expense reports, calendar Tetris — save them for the trough. You’ll stop wasting prime cognitive real estate on tasks a moderately smart houseplant could handle.
What Managers and Teams Can Do Differently
Individual habits matter. But culture eats strategy for breakfast, as the saying goes.
- Stop scheduling meetings at 2 p.m. and calling it “collaboration.” That’s the trough. Nobody’s brain is there.
- Normalize breaks. If leaders visibly step away, everyone else feels permission to do the same.
- Audit recurring meetings. Half of them exist because someone was lonely in 2019.
- Measure output, not hours. A rested employee in four focused hours outproduces a fried one in eight.
Honestly, the companies winning the talent war right now are the ones treating energy as a strategic asset. Not a wellness perk. An asset.
The Bottom Line on Energy Management
Ultradian rhythm scheduling isn’t about doing less. It’s about doing the right things at the right times — and then genuinely resting so you can do it again tomorrow.
Your biology isn’t an obstacle to great work. It’s the operating manual. Read it. Follow it. And watch what happens when your team stops fighting their own nervous systems and starts working with them.
