Business owners will commonly talk to their business coach about them not having the time or the energy to work on their businesses.  There are competing goals and distractions that will result in them not doing what they say they want to do.  They feel exhausted and do not have the energy to pursue what they truly aspire to create.

In these circumstances, I take the business owner through the following exercise to review how they are spending their time within the business:

Step 1:  Take an A4 piece of paper and divide into three columns

Step 2:  Head the columns as follows:

            Energy Giver – Being where the business owner is energised

            Neutral – Being where the business owner is ambivalent as to the energy status

            Energy Taker – Being where the business owner is demotivated

Step 3: The business owner allocates each of the tasks they undertake into one of these three columns

Step 4: The business owner to select three of the tasks listed in the Energy Taker column, which in their view are the greatest energy takers

Step 5:  Develop and implement a plan to transfer responsibility for those three tasks to another person in the business.

Step 6:  Keep working on removing tasks from the Energy Taker column.

By undertaking this exercise the business owner will be managing the energy they bring to the business by ensuring they are concentrating on those tasks where they bring the best energy and value to the business.