When works slows down, and you have less demand on your time and energy than you’re used to, do you find yourself feeling restless and immediately anxious? Do you also start scrambling for something, anything, to occupy you? To. Feel. Better. The difficulty seems to be in the gap, the one between urgency and inspiration.

Unless you are aware of what motivates and drives you – whether it’s fear of failing, guilt about your freedom to work as you want, or a tendency towards overachieving or distractibility – you may very well find yourself working much more than you need to and struggling to build a business and live the life you really want for yourself.

What, you might wonder, does a rubber band have to do with productivity? It's similar to the yo-yo effect, but instead of describing fluctuations in results it describes the expansion and contraction of your productive capacity. It describes tension: not enough, too much and just right.

Long ago early birds and worm catchers set the tone for when one “should” be up and ready for work, at your station, ready, set go! And if you don’t, there is some misguided idea that you won’t be as successful in business.

When you're the one responsible for just about everything required to build and run your business, you're naturally limited by energy, time and ability. If you can't let go (it's your baby after all), if you can't trust others to do what is needed (in the way you want things done, or when you need them done), you will reach an upper limit. There is more than one way to delegate. Learn how.

What to do before you’ve reached the limits of your personal capacity.