When you’re deciding whether to wear jeans to work, you weigh the advantages of being comfortable throughout the day with the disadvantages of looking less professional. When you decide whether to take a sick day, you weigh the advantages of taking a day off to get better against the disadvantages of falling behind at work. Whether you realize it or not, you are taking into account the opportunity cost of each of these decisions.

Opportunity cost is the value of the thing you’re giving up in order to make a certain decision. This economic idea is based on scarcity. You only have so much time, and using it to do something inherently means you can’t use it for something else. Opportunity cost is the value of the thing you’re giving up. In business, that cost is often monetary. And that’s why opportunity cost should always influence your business decisions and planning.

For example, you may have to choose between laying off personnel and charging more for your products. Firing employees would hurt morale but help your budget without disappointing customers. Charging your customers more will increase your income without hurting employee morale. Choosing either option means you lose the advantages of the other, so you must determine the value of each alternative.

This principle can be applied to every aspect of business. If you buy a stock for $2,000 and lose half of your investment, you initially think that decision cost you $1,000. However, you could have used that same $2,000 to buy a stock that tripled in value. In that way, the investment cost you $6,000 in opportunity cost, bringing total cost to $7,000. This concept helps you see your decisions more clearly and can help you determine which choices are best for you and your business.

Sometimes opportunity costs are monetary, and sometimes they are more difficult to define. But they will always affect your decisions, and learning to properly identify and understand opportunity cost will help you make better decisions now and help you succeed in the future.

The best workers are always looking for a competitive edge. Some come in early to get a jumpstart on the day. Others work on weekends to get ahead for the coming week. Maybe you attend seminars or subscribe to publications in your niche to help you learn and get ahead of the competition.

But there’s one less obvious thing you can do to get ahead that others might overlook. Eating a healthy diet can make you more productive. While your colleagues are drinking their morning coffee and grabbing potato chips for an afternoon snack, your better food choices can help you be more productive.

Caffeine, sugar and fat are definitely sources of energy, but that energy is often short-lived and followed by a crash after the effects wear off. Foods that are high in protein, natural sugars and healthy oils offer lasting energy and won’t leave you feeling tired. Instead of donuts and soda, try oatmeal for breakfast. Drink natural fruit juices to keep your energy up and trade your AlmondJoy for plain almonds. These healthier foods will help you feel full and give you sustainable energy over time.

Maintaining a healthy diet can also decrease your risk of certain long-term diseases, like diabetes and heart disease. You increase future productivity by doing what you can to prevent these diseases now. Long-term sicknesses require much care and usually result in a lot of missed work time. In this way, a healthy diet drastically increases productivity over time.

Long-term benefits aren’t much of a selling point when you’re feeling snacky, but eating a healthy diet can keep you from frequently feeling hungry as well. Stay on top of your hunger by bringing healthy snacks to work. If you’re hungry, you’ll settle for whatever is available, no matter how unhealthy it is. If you bring your own snacks you will be less tempted to choose unhealthy ones as the afternoon wears on.

Image by Clearly Ambiguous

Sometimes doing the same thing over and over again works; just look at the Hershey’s Chocolate Bar or General Mills’ original Cheerios, which have remained unchanged for decades. But in most businesses, variety, change, and progress are necessary for improvement and success. So by establishing a culture that embraces creativity, you’ll be able to stay at the cutting-edge of the industry.

Here are some ways to make sure you do just that:

• Don’t make a habit of shooting down people’s ideas. It’s easy to find reasons not to listen to somebody, so make an effort to listen to what others have to say.
• If someone tries something new and different – or perhaps even risky – and fails, handle the situation appropriately. A harsh overreaction will discourage future creativity.
• Allow an appropriate amount of flexibility. This depends on the industry, of course; but allowing employees to try new things, decorate their office spaces, etc. will help promote creativity.
• Realize that it’s okay to take the gut feelings of you and others into account. The analytical side is important, but sometimes decisions come down to what feels right.
• Host (or send employees to) seminars and conferences that focus on the need for creativity in the workplace.
• When you have brainstorming sessions, make them enjoyable. Prime the pump by playing a quick game, having employees tell a story or two, and get the creative juices flowing.
• Openly reward those who do push the envelope and think outside the box.

Encouraging everyone within your company – from top to bottom – to adopt a culture of creativity can have a huge impact on your bottom line. And not only will it help your business grow, but it will create an enjoyable workplace where employees will want to thrive. So do what you can to promote creativity in the workplace, even if it’s something you just do on your own. Creativity can be contagious.

Image by Andrew*

When you’ve got a lot on your plate, it’s easy to put your physical wellbeing on the backburner. When you’re exhausted from working long hours to build your business, getting to the gym is usually the last thing on your mind. But staying healthy doesn’t necessarily take a gym membership or even fancy running shoes. There are plenty of simple things you can do to make sure your business isn’t causing your physical health to suffer.

• Eat – We’ve all had those days or nights where we’re working so hard that we forget to eat. Or, if we do eat, we’re having a handful of potato chips and a soda. Don’t allow yourself to go all day without eating, and when you do eat make yourself a real meal. When it comes to snacks, choose the healthy ones – fruits, vegetables, etc.
• Sleep – You may not be able to get eight hours each night, but you should try to get as much as you can. Your body needs to be able to rest and rejuvenate. And you may even find that after some sleep you’ll actually be able to accomplish more than you would in the comatose, groggy state of exhaustion.
• Take Breaks – It’s very easy to be so focused on your work that hours and hours will go by without realizing it. Set a timer, probably for between 60 and 90 minutes. When that timer goes off – even if you’re in the middle of something – stand up, walk away from your computer, and take a 10 or 15 minute break.
• Exercise – It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Schedule 30 minutes each day to walk up and down a flight of stairs, or just go for a walk around your neighborhood. Get the blood pumping and your cardiovascular system working.

You can’t allow your business to get in the way of your physical health. Life is busy, but do the little things to make sure you’re alive long enough to enjoy the fruits of your labors.

The type of people that start businesses are usually the kind of people that like to be in control. They want to control the quality of their products, how the money is budgeted, the way they market, how they sell, and all of the logistics in between. Not only is all of this work impossible for one person to do, it’s impossible for one person to be good at. And, chances are, it’s impossible for all of them to be enjoyable to any one person.

I, for one, can’t stand selling. I will never hold a job as a cold-calling salesperson, despite the good pay, because I would probably want to jump off a cliff after a week calling strangers on the phone. If you want to keep your business running for a long time, you need to make it enjoyable for yourself. Pick out the tasks that you excel at or enjoy at and delegate or outsource what you don’t.