Have you ever seen a very accomplished person start “dropping the ball” on the basics of their job? Ever wonder, “What happened to them?” 

Quite often, these people are in a state called “capacity overload”. They’ve gone beyond their “to-do” capability level – the amount of stuff that they can really get done. This is particularly costly when it’s the entrepreneur, on whose talents the business relies. Many businesses have been lost to capacity overload, and others have gone through severe set-backs.

The common cause of this for entrepreneurs is when they do not manage their environment. People do well when times are good. But do they have the capacity to handle things when times are stormy?  How do you manage your affairs to minimize the disruptions that diminish your capacity?  How do you manage the risks to your ability to get it done?

Foundation Items

In business, one key is to handle and maintain your "foundation" issues and items.  Foundation items are those things in our lives that are invisible as long as they are working, but take an inordinate effort to deal with when things go wrong. 

One example is your computer system.  Anyone who has had their computer crash without the hard drive backed up is painfully aware of the cost of this event, both in time and in heart-ache.  Computer crashes occur, and the drain in energy of the crashee is inversely proportional to how recently the back-up occurred, if at all!.  To lose lot’s of work, important customer files as well as company product and financial information has a dramatic, negative effect.  Yet proper system maintenance reduces the incidence of crashes, and timely back-ups will certainly reduce the consequences.

Other examples include cars and baby-sitting.  Have you ever had a mechanical breakdown on the freeway?  Ever had a babysitter not show up or call in sick?  These are a few of the many things we routinely take for granted.  They’re invisible when they are working, but they take what feels like far too much energy when things don’t go as planned.

What are your foundation items?  Identify them and maintain them while they still work.  And be sure to build in a "Plan  B" (and C and D if need be) just in case something does go wrong.

Losing Your Personal Time and Space

Another cause of diminished capacity is a lack of personal time.  Entrepreneurs are notorious for spreading themselves too thin while helping, supporting and providing for others. 

Newsflash:  Your first commitment to your customers, your suppliers, your staff, and your family (yes even your family!) is to stay balanced enough to meet all those other commitments in life.  Your capacity levels to handle everything are directly proportional to your physical and mental state of health and clarity.

For some people, this means going for a work-out, for others it could mean eating ice cream while walking in the park on a sunny afternoon.  It’s not what you do, so much as whether it actually rejuvenates you.

New business owners often lose their personal time and space.  Entrepreneurs are paid for results, not for their time or how much they do.  The fresher you are… the stronger the results, and often in a smaller amount of time.  Mistakes due to tiredness cost a lot of time.  How much more effective might you be if you carved out a little more time for you?

What do you do to keep adequate personal space?  Is it enough for you?  If your answer includes some element of, "It’s all that is available to me" then you probably need to increase the time available to rejuvenate you.  You often have more control than you give yourselves credit for.

Personal Money

It seems that very little drains capacity levels more than stress over money.  People spend a great deal of time and energy worrying about their money.  And short-cuts are often taken when funds are tight… short-cuts that often create problems down the road.

Taking the wrong customers is a good example of this.  If your car is broken down and you are eating corn flakes for dinner with water (milk is expensive…) then you are far more likely to take a new customer that you know will cause you anguish and grief later.  Being forced into choices will strain your capacity levels in the future.

As an alternative, what if you had a money reserve?  Would you take on a problematic customer if your bills were all paid and you had a bunch of extra money in the bank?  Might there be a little more freedom available?  "Yes that’s nice, but how do you build these types and levels of reserves?"

The time to start sorting this out is now.  Not when you have more money, or when you get that next big deal, but now.  Many financial planners have talked about setting aside 10% of your income to build a buffer or a reserve.  Others will argue that it is better to pay down debt (at a higher interest rate) than saving money.  However, there is a problem with the "debt repayment at all costs" logic.  It ignores our humanity and our needs. 

Some people pour all of their efforts into paying down debt, sometimes over a long period of time (many months to many years).  After all this effort to pay off debt, they feel they deserve a reward (and they do!  It is hard to maintain the discipline to pay off large debt loads).  So what do they do?  They go into debt again.  And the cycle continues. . . . .

What if you got into the habit of saving some money, even as you chipped away at the debt?  It may take you longer to pay down the debt, but after you are done, you have money stored up, and a solid habit as well.  If you wanted to treat yourself at this point, you wouldn’t need to go into debt to do it.

As an aside, here is how to become a millionaire.  Start by putting $50,000 in the bank (cash money, not borrowed).  The first step to putting $50,000 in the bank is to put $10,000 in the bank.  The first step to putting $10,000 in the bank is to put $1,000 in the bank.  This breaks down to $83.33 per month.  If $83.33 per month is too much, then how about $10 per month?  If $10 per month is too much, stop worrying about how to become a millionaire and get to work on your business.  For the rest of us, why not start today?

Developing the habit is the first and most important step.  By handling your personal money, you are freed up to use your creativity to deal more effectively with the business, leaving fewer potential problems to challenge your ability to get it done.

List of Incompletes

If you want to identify what specifically is diminishing your capacity, look to see where your energy is going.  To do this, simply list all the things you wanted to have already done that you have not completed yet. 

1. Just include those items for which you have fallen behind. 
2. Cross off those items that you know you will not do. 
3. Next delegate the items that you can delegate. 
4. Finally, start working through this list (starting with a few easy ones first, to get your confidence back up). 

As you work through this list, you will find that you gain your energy back, which in turn, may assist you in replenishing your capacity levels, and your confidence as well.

Summary

By addressing and maintaining foundation items before they are a problem, by giving yourselves the personal space you need to be effective, and by building a money reserve, you manage the risk to your capacity to get it done.  You reduce the chances of and the impact of capacity overload.

This will, in turn have a positive impact on business profitability and satisfaction in life.