P/PC Balance in Business and Life: How to Not Burn Out

Our lives are controlled by the decisions we make. Although there are factors that we should still keep in mind to achieve the goals we desire, as well as sustain them. There should be a P/PC balance between the results of our efforts and the manner in which we produce them.

The P/PC balance refers to production and production capabilities. It comes from a book written by Covey titled 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The P/PC Balance is a pattern of effectiveness which is everywhere in natural law. The P/PC Balance goes out of balance when a person poorly manages their time, energy, and resources well. When this happens, the P/PC Balance gets thrown off.

P/PC Balance (Production / Production Capabilities)

As mentioned, an important part of a person’s life is the way they balance out the outcome of their work and the work they exert into keeping it stable.

If someone were to simply focus on the results without paying attention to their capability to continue producing the same results, they will soon lose the ability to achieve what they expect. Likewise, if they were to continuously improve the production without the intention to make anything from it, can ruin the quality of the possible future outcomes.

These rely on P/PC balance in order to remain effective, as well as producing good things.

The Story of the Goose with the Golden Egg

P/PC balance is simpler explained in the famous Aesop’s fable of the Goose and the Golden Egg.

To summarize, the story is about a poor farmer who finds his goose laying golden eggs one day but the goose is only able to produce one golden egg a day. This brought riches to the farmer, but at a very slow rate.

He wanted his wealth to grow faster and was convinced the goose had golden eggs inside it. Later he cuts the goose open to find there are no golden eggs, but now he no longer can receive it either.

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In the story, the production output (P) plays the role of the golden eggs while the production capability (PC) is portrayed as the goose. By killing the goose, he lost the ability to gain.

This shows that rashly moving forward due to desire and greed has its consequences.

While it’s good to keep track of what is being produced, maintaining the progress of what produces these results matters just as much.

Areas of Your Life to Apply the P/PC Balance

There are three main aspects in life that involve P/PC balance:

Physical

This refers to the physical assets a person owns. It could be a computer, a stove, a machine, the body, and the like.

These items are made to produce something as a result, such as a blender making a drink. To maintain its production, it should be fixed and checked regularly to keep them in good condition.

If the items were to break, these assets will no longer have any use.

Finance

People aim to earn money rather than learn how to gain it.

Money is the production, but without the right knowledge, the effort to make the money will not be effective especially if the only goal is to receive it.

A person should first acquire the knowledge on how to make money, which will become the production capability. This includes keeping the progress to maintain the amount of production.

Human

Human assets mainly pertain to the relationships one has with the people around them.

There will be different beliefs and knowledge. How someone approaches them considering this will determine how well they will get along with the other person.

For example, a couple focusing on the physical maintenance of their relationship will result to a fall out due to lack of communication.

P/PC Balance in Your Relationships

Parenting and P/PC Balance

Keeping a balance between production and production capability can greatly affect the relationship a parent has with their child.

A child, as the goose, will produce good marks in school. This outcome is positive for the parents, and will allow the child to reach better in the future.

Although the child may be committed to providing good scores, if they focus only on their ability to make them, they may not be able to have a solid foundation when it’s time to get a job.

On the other hand, if the parents focus only on the results, the situation may worsen and lead to scolding just to get the expected outcome. Doing so would weaken the child’s abilities, and possibly be the reason they no longer do good in class.

Marriage and P/PC Balance

People who are in love can easily get carried away by the events that happen around them. Without realizing it, the love they once had eventually fades.

When a couple focuses on the things that happen in their relationship too much, they lose sight of each other as time passes by. They no longer try to strengthen their bond because of the belief that they have a strong relationship already; which is not the best mindset to have.

It’s important to think of one another, but if this goes overboard it may also cause negative things. If they fail to manage the house and sustain their needs, they will eventually lose their relationship regardless of how much they love each other.

Leadership and P/PC Balance

A leader has a lot of responsibilities as part of a team. This leads to having them decide what is best for everyone at all times.

While this is a good mindset, a leader who focuses only on how to reach the goal is neglecting the health of the other members. It would affect the results of the game and ruin the quality of their play.

It would do no good either to focus only on the goal itself, without putting in the effort to make it happen. If a leader were to think having faith in the team is all there is to get what they want, there’s the high chance that they would lose. Having faith is good, but their skills should be trained enough as well.

P/PC Balance in Your Finances

Work Life Balance

When working, one shouldn’t remain stuck on the same position for the rest of their lives.

They should improve the more they work. This not only enhances their abilities but gives them greater rewards as well.

If they were to focus on making these changes only for the sake of a higher position with a higher paycheck, they tend to neglect their development. Because of the quality of their work, they may easily be replaced by someone who works more efficiently.

Growing is good in work life. Although focusing only on learning without accomplishing things in the work area would cause a person to lose their function in the company.

Running a Business In Balance

It’s not easy to run a business especially without having priorities properly set.

In this field, both the customers and employees should be satisfied with what they receive.

Focusing too much on the production capability of the business may bring future bankruptcy due to the excessive amounts of money being spent on products without a stable audience.

Although if they only focus on the profit, the quality of the products may lower therefore causing the customers to look elsewhere.

Paying attention to the employees is good as well. They reflect the efficiency of the business because they have encounters with the customers. If they are happy with their positions, they provide better work.

Investing on Real Estate In Balance

With such a large cash flow, it would often be tempting to keep all the money rather than reinvest for the sake of maintenance of the property. But this would cause the property to weaken and eventually become undesirable.

Taking care of the property by upgrading it and keeping it in check regularly is one way to take care of the goose’s welfare, therefore allowing it continue producing golden eggs.

Although focusing only on the property owned without buying properties that make money will cause a person to lack money to cover expenses. One cannot simply have a property for the sake of it and expect money to simply follow.

P/PC Balance in Your Emotional Health

Emotional health is an important aspect in one’s life. It often dictates how one would react and make decisions.

To maintain P/PC balance emotionally, one should be able to control their emotions based on situations at hand.

If a person solely focuses on having good emotions, experiencing negative feelings will cause a great impact on them.

They expect only good things without finding a way to switch the bad emotions into something better.

Additionally, if they focus only on how to control situations without paying attention to the results it creates, they would be distorting their feelings therefore being in panic or so if things don’t flow the way they expect.

P/PC Balance in Your Physical Health

Short-term results are often looked down on when it comes to physical health.

Small things such as getting enough exercise, eating healthier, getting enough hours of sleep, taking time to recover from injuries or illnesses, and even having a regular check-up all bring a great outcome in the future.

While they aren’t big deals now, over the long-run they will allow a person to live a better life physically. They could have less illnesses, as well as live longer because of a stronger system.

This, although, should not be overdone. Putting too much focus on health will cause a person to wear out and have nothing to keep them going in the future.

It’s always great to be healthy, but one should remember to keep other physical aspects in check such as their work efficiency and the like.

Their health should grow alongside their ability to produce for themselves.

How to Apply the P/PC Balance to Your Life

Knowing how much one needs of something helps in figuring out how to balance out production and production capability. A person should be able to make proper judgments given what’s laid out in front of them.

For example, if they were to focus on productivity only, they would feel worn out putting their health in bad shape; whether due to lack of sleep or rest, or stress that affects the people around them.

Being productive gives the best results, but not if the cost is one’s personal being.

Likewise, if someone were to only focus on how much they can learn, they could come out without producing a thing at all.

Constantly learning class lessons in advance without putting it to good use is pointless. The information one takes should be used accordingly.

Imbalance between production and production capability will lead to having a troublesome life.

How Not to Focus Too Much on the P (Production)

To focus less on too much production, one should consider the capacity of what produces them.

If an oven can only bake 10 breads an hour, a baker should not try to fit 20 more doughs onto the sheet.

This would ruin the quality of the product. Instead, the baker should opt to buy another oven to use or make more bread prior to the shop’s opening hours.

Accepting how much production can be made will allow a person to focus on maintaining and improving the production capability in order to keep the results the same.

How Not to Focus Too Much on the PC (Production Capability)

Focusing too much on production capability often results to nothing.

Learning new things in class every day for the sake of knowing them is not enough to bring forth the best results.

Say if a student continues to learn about planets despite the topics not being a part of their science class, they would not be able to put the information to use.

They simply put effort into getting new information that they may or may not even need.

Just the right amount of production capability helps regulate the production made, rather than constantly growing the PC without producing the results that should come with it.