Nurturing your business

BUSINESS BITS
Aileen Santos

Learn better energy management skills beyond mastering your to-do list

When you know how to manage your key business resources--your money, time and energy--your business has more chances of succeeding.

Once you've learned to leverage your money by knowing which actions bring in the biggest returns for the least amount of effort, you'll want to pay attention to your time and your energy.

Of course you've already heard about time management. You might even have taken seminars, or bought books, or used expensive paper and electronic planners to manage your time better. But have you ever paid attention to how you manage your energy? Some signs of poor energy management include the following:

• You feel tired at the beginning of your workday...and you haven't even started working yet.Despite having a well-managed planner and prioritized to-do list, just looking through them makes you feel more overwhelmed than organized.
  
• You have some time available to spend with your family, but you just feel too tired to do anything.
• At work or in your business, you find yourself blowing up or panicking over every minor detail.
• Whenever someone asks you about your work or business, you sigh or groan and tell them about how stressed you are.

So how do you manage your energy better? Become aware of your own specific energy drainers and energy boosters. Energy Drainers are the people, habits, thoughts, and things that make you feel, well, drained right after you engage in them, and leave you feeling unenthusiastic about the rest of your day. The key is to minimize contact with them as much as possible.

• Sometimes people who helpful to you in other ways may not be as helpful when it comes to business. Most likely it's because they simply have a different mindset about entrepreneurship or making money. You feel drained because it affects you when they express their fears about the things they don't know.
• Certain food and physical activity can drain your energy too. Find out if you are more focused and productive after a heavy rice meal, or when you force yourself to stay at a desk for eight straight hours. On the other hand, maybe you actually think better when you have small frequent meals, and if you take short walking breaks at different intervals throughout the day.
• Specific thoughts running around in your head can drain you, too. The irony is that you might think they push you to do better, but in reality they only make you feel like putting off your to-do items and dragging your feet. Find out which of your thoughts have this kind of effect, and modify them into energy-boosting ones.
• Energy Boosters are the people, habits, thoughts, and things that increase your energy when you come in contact with them, and after such encounters you find yourself more passionate about your business and more energetic about getting things done.
• Have you ever felt more energized to face the challenges in your business after being in contact with other entrepreneurs? A good reason for this is that their positive, take-action energy rubs off on you and can also increase your own, making you feel more enthusiastic (and optimistic) about doing the business tasks ahead of you.
• Many entrepreneurs tell me they get their best money-making ideas while in the shower or while they're engaged in their hobbies. The bottom line is: a relaxed mind is actually a more focused mind; and a focused mind is what grows your business.
• Exercise is another energy booster but many entrepreneurs pass up on this because "it takes time away from the business." But think of your time investment this way: if 30 minutes of engaging in the right kind of exercise gives you two more hours of focused energy throughout the day, then exercise actually gives you the ability to produce more money-making output in less time!
  

Put another way, "better energy management habits" is simply the same as "better mental and physical health habits." As your business takes off and brings you an abundance of money, you know you will enjoy it best when you also have an abundance of health to use it.