Want to build a bigger, more profitable business?
One of the most powerful concepts you should know about is something I call “Energy/Impact Optimisation.”
It means creating a bigger impact – with less time, energy, and effort.
You’ve only got 24 hours a day, and it’s especially important to be efficient when you’re an entrepreneur.
It’s the difference between you becoming a master of your business, or your business becoming the master of you.
Too many people fall victim to “Hustle 24/7”… instead of leveraging their energy and time.
And that’s a recipe for burning yourself out – when it can be easier and more fulfilling.
Today, I want you to understand the Energy/Impact Optimisation that can supercharge your output and business growth.
No pain, no gain?
When you are leading and growing a business, two things matter:
- Your performance and the progress you are making.
- Your wellbeing, and how energised or stressed out you feel.
The problem is that too often we see these two things – performance and wellbeing – as trade-offs.
We say things like “No pain, no gain,” implying that in order to gain and perform, you need to experience pain.
Or you hear people say, “Stress gives me my performance edge,” suggesting that feeling stressed is necessary to enhance performance.
Such beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies.
You don’t want to push for higher performance at the cost of your wellbeing.
You want to maximise your performance and your wellbeing simultaneously.
The most effective performance hack: optimise your mental and emotional wellbeing.
Virpi Tervonen
3 Elements of Energy/Impact Optimisation
There are 3 simple elements to optimise your performance and wellbeing.
- Activity Inventory: How you spend your time.
- Energy Inventory: How you use your energy.
- Impact Inventory: How you create high performance.
Step 1: Activity Inventory
We can’t maximise our performance unless we have clarity about our activities.
I do an activity inventory twice a year.
Here’s how I do it:
For a week, I list all things I do in my business and categorise them into groups.
I mark the time I spent on each activity group. I use my best estimate instead of tracking the exact hours and minutes.
My goal with the Activity Inventory is to ensure that I am clear about my current reality.
The clearer I am about how I spend my time working, the better I can maximise my performance and wellbeing.
Here’s an example of an Activity Inventory.
The list shows the main activity groups relevant to a client, and her weekly hours spent on those activities.
Step 2: Energy Inventory
After creating my Inventory Activity list, it’s time to do Energy Inventory.
Based on how I feel about the activities on my list, I mark them with green, yellow, or red colour.
Green is for activities that I love to do, yellow is for “ok” activities, and red is for those that are a drag for me.
The purpose of the Energy Inventory is to be aware of how you feel.
It is crucial when maximising your performance and wellbeing.
Studies show that we have a limited amount of energy and willpower for a day.
Every time you think or engage in an activity, you use a portion of willpower for the ignition and energy for fuelling the function.
The more willpower you need to start doing an activity, the quicker you run out of it.
The more energy-draining activities you do, the quicker you transition from a high performing, creative state to barely being able to perform technical tasks, and finally, to an unproductive, reactive state.
The more an activity stimulates and interests you, the longer you’ll be able to maintain your high-performance state, resulting in producing more with higher quality.
Use your energy levels as a guide. It works much better, in my opinion, than thinking about what you are good at.
Sometimes we excel at performing an activity. But if it drains our energy, it’s hard to sustain performance without it negatively affecting our wellbeing.
Here’s how our example entrepreneur ranked her activities based on energy.
Activities marked with green are the ones that energise her, while yellow represents “ok” activities. The activities marked with red caused her the most stress, anxiety and frustration, thus draining her energy.
Together, the Activity and Energy Inventory can give you eye-opening insights as to why you might feel exhausted and unmotivated.
Step 3: Impact Inventory
Lastly, I use the Energy/Impact Matrix tool to optimise both my performance and wellness as I work on materialising my goals.
The matrix is a simple yet powerful tool.
Before using the tool, it is important to be clear about the impact you are creating.
Are you investing your time, effort, and energy to materialise your 3-year vision? Or is it a 3-month project? What are the success criteria?
Having clarity about the impact you are creating is essential to get the most out of the Energy/Impact Matrix.
Energy/Impact Matrix
By using the Energy/Impact Matrix, you can map your activities into the four quadrants.
How you map your activities depends on your goal and what energises or drains you.
Some activities you do generate greater benefits and have a higher impact in moving you towards your desired outcome. On the other hand, some low impact activities may take the same amount of time but deliver fewer benefits and generate less impact.
Regardless of the activity’s impact, it can be energising or draining to you.
When you map activities from your Activity Inventory list in the Energy/Impact Matrix, draw the size of the circle proportional to the amount of time you spent on it.
Here’s how our example entrepreneur mapped her activities on the matrix.
Without understanding our example entrepreneur’s business, a couple of things are obvious when looking at her Energy/Impact Matrix.
Firstly, she spends a lot of her time on energy-draining activities. Her situation is not sustainable. She might even be close to burnout.
Secondly, she is wasting a lot of time on low impact activities.
There is room for improvement to increase her impact and how energised she is feeling.
This is how the Energy/Impact Matrix reveals potent opportunities to maximise your performance and wellbeing.
The more you focus on activities that stimulate and excite you, the more likely you are to be efficient and feel energised.
By expanding activities that energise you and scaling down activities that drain you, you can step up your performance with less effort, time and energy.
Simultaneously, you enhance your wellbeing.
Furthermore, when you implement this method across your team, the more likely you are going to have a high-performing team with fewer medical leave days.
The more you and your team members can focus on activities that align with your natural talents, competence, and interests, the more motivated they are to do their work well.
That’s the power of optimising your energy and impact.
But remember, you need 3 things to win with this:
- Energy: You (and your team) can maximise performance and wellbeing simultaneously by focusing on activities that energise you.
- Direction: Be clear about the direction you want your business to move. Enthusiastically paddling in circles creates little progress.
- Relevancy: Ensure that the activities and tasks that you put your time, effort, and energy into are relevant to your vision, project, and goals.
In Summary
Energy/Impact Optimisation is all about working smarter, not harder.
It’s about using your energy strategically to keep your business moving forward without relying on brute force and risking burnout.
- Activity Inventory: How you spend your time.
- Energy Inventory: How you use your energy.
- Impact Inventory: How you create high performance.
Get all three of these things right, and you’ll feel better about yourself and create more progress with higher efficiency.
→ This week’s action step: Take a look at your current activities and energy level. Are there opportunities to maximise your performance and wellbeing? Commit to listing your activities for a week and map them into the Energy/Impact Matrix to see if you could win more by leveraging your energy better.
That’s all for today.
See you next week.