An Antidote To Unproductive 'Busyness'

This is a relatively long article... if you feel too busy to read it that's a good sign you should definitely make time to read it ??.

In British culture we have a love of busyness. To an extent it's good that we're so willing to work hard the benefits of which show in our history. Although there's a lot of contentiousness in our history it can't be argued that for a tiny island what we've achieved is impressive. Wealthy families from all over the world fork out eye watering amounts of money to send their kids to our private schools and soldiers from around the world are sent to learn in our military.

But there comes a point where are willingness to work hard becomes.. unhelpful. I believe, that due to a variety of reasons including technological advancement, we're at that point now. The point in this article isn't to convince you to stop working hard. Any achievement of merit will require hard work. Instead the point of this article is to help you see that the hard work ethos that's been ingrained into you since a young age isn't always helpful and is almost certainly limiting the efficiency and enjoyment you could experience at work.

Talking about your hard work attitude being ingrained think about a kids average week at school in the UK. This may have changed in recent years but when I was a kid we did 1-2 hours of PE (Physical Education) a week and started getting home work from the age of five. So from the age of five you're being subconsciously taught that physical health is a low value activity and that you have to take work home with you to be successful.... and we wonder why we have so much burnout!

It's worth repeating that a willingness to be busy and work hard is not a bad thing. Quite the opposite. When you are willing to be busy and work hard you're going to get stuff done, get recognised in your career and progress. If you take pleasure from working hard then hard work is within your personal core values. Doing so is something your proud of and it makes you feel good... until it doesn't.

So when does hard work become unproductive?

In my opinion (i'm taught you should write assertively but almost everything is an opinion right?... even this statement) there are two major shifts that lead to busyness becoming ineffective and you should understand both. One is the point in your career at which you are in, the other is the technological changes that are happening at an increasing pace in society. One of my missions in life is to help committed hard working people thrive (and avoid burnout). I've always been a hard worker. It's usually worked well for me but it's also led to many challenges as well as me getting completely burnt out and depressed whilst owning my first business. I want to help you have all of the positives of being a hard worker whilst avoiding as many of the negatives as possible. Telling someone who has hard work in their values to work less when they are neglecting their health, feeling stressed at work or not spending enough time with their family is like telling a fish to stop hanging out in water. Hard is a part of who you are, and that's a good thing for you, your business and society. We don't want to get rid of the hard work component of you, we want to harness it so you get all of the benefits without the crappy negatives.

For that to happen it's a good use of your time to learn about the two shifts that lead becoming ineffective so you can adjust accordingly.

Shift 1 - The Point In Your Career

You're a hard worker (if you're not you're probably not enjoying the article) which means you're going to do well in your career or business. You're going to achieve more than the average person and make it look effortless. Because of this you're going to get promoted into management and leadership positions or self promote yourself to these positions through business ownership. Win. But it's once you reach the leadership positions that your hard work attitude starts to do something it hasn't done before, it starts to work against you. This is when you've reached what I call the struggle zone, highlighted in the image below.

In the image it highlights 'promotion to manager' but this applicable to any move from operator to leader such as becoming a business owner. Think about it, what serves you well in your life and career before you reach management or leadership positions?

• Working hard
• Saying yes to as much as possible
• Doing things to the highest of standards
• Getting on with everyone

But when you reach leadership or management positions what is required of you changes. You are no longer required to complete as many tasks to the highest of standards as possible. Now you are responsible for getting results. To get those results you will likely need to leverage other people and use a strategic approach. What's NOT going to help you get results is EXACTLY what's been working well for you up to this point. But of course nobody tells you that. So what happens for most new managers, leaders and business owners is - unsurprisingly - we carry on doing what we have always done and what has always worked well for us. It's like we're great runners but all of the sudden we have to cross a lake. If you try to run through the lake you're going to drown, or, as is shown on the above image, you're going to descend into the burnout phase. If you're telling yourself it was easier before when you were in a more junior position, this is trajectory of the path you are on. And if you're telling yourself you're not cut out for leadership or management I call BS. I don't believe there's such a thing as a person who isn't cut for leadership or management, just people that fail to adapt. Anybody can be a fantastic leader, you just have to give yourself permission - and a kick up the arse - to adapt. If you're in that position I hope this article acts as a metaphorical kick up the arse.

So, once you've accepted you need to adapt a new style you can start to move out of the struggle phase and into the thrive phase. The thrive phase is essentially where you get better results with less effort, the holy grail. One of the hardest lessons for hard workers to learn is that good leadership management is ultimately about achieving - and getting paid - more by doing less. This isn't because good leaders exploit other people - that's the British hard work part of you questioning its reality - but because leadership is ultimately about unlocking the potential in others. You can't unlock or harness the potential in others if you're busy being busy. What leads to success in leadership and management is almost the opposite of what's served you well to date:

• Working smart
• Mastering prioritisation and deciding what NOT to do
• Setting deadlines and accepting that done is better than perfect
• Holding people accountable

Have a little scroll up and compare that list to the previous one. Worlds apart. I don't want to undervalue the quality of work that I do with business owners, leaders and managers but in essence a lot of it is simply repeating this message until they get it.

Now... let's assume that you're nodding your head as reading this mentally noting that it all makes sense. I've worked with enough of you - and I am you - to know that most of you will, after closing this article, go back to being busy without changing a thing. The issue is it's an emotional not logical problem. Emotionally you like being busy, emotionally you are comfortable being busy and emotionally you fear that if you stop being busy you're going to get found out as an imposter or the world is going to fall apart around you.

That's why I created the Better Happy Proactivity Planner . Print it off, fill it out and stick to it for 12 months. About 3 months in the love for busyness part of your mind will start to realise that being effective gets better results.

Shift 2 - Changing Society

I'll cover this shift in less detail but it's important so stick with me, we're almost there.

Although you could say at any point in human history 'the times in which we live are unique' that point is particularly true to us, reading this article right now. You see for most of human history change happened but it happened slowly. Around 10000 years ago we figured out agriculture which led to some pretty big changes (such as the beginning of society as we know it). From that moment there have been a lot of changes but it's really in the last 100ish years that change has started happening at a meteoric rate. It's crazy to think that less than 100 years ago in the UK there was mass unemployment and poverty. Technology is changing things rapidly. I could go into more detail - and be more specific with dates - but the detail isn't important, what's important is that you and I understand that we live in a time of rapid change.

What does that have to do with busyness? It's simple really. When things are changing rapidly the risk of you, your team or business being busy fools increases rapidly. I'd be willing to bet that there is some task you or your team are spending a lot of time on weekly that could be reduced or eliminated with a piece of software you haven't had the time to discover.

When technology and change was slow the businesses that could do the established tasks most productively won the game. Or in simpler terms well organised busyness won the game. Today innovation, collaboration and effectiveness are what wins the game. If you're too busy being busy to take a step back, review what you're doing, collaborate with your team and think innovatively you're going to get left behind. You're going to get to the end of your weeks shattered just trying to keep the ship afloat by using buckets to get the excess water off whilst the other team are in the pub enjoying a team social because they brought a robot that repairs the holes. It's a silly example but the point is relevant.

People are scared of technology and thing like AI. Maybe we're right to fear AI, I don't know. What I do know is that during the first wave of machines replacing factory workers the luddites fought aggressively against it often destroying machines in order to protect human jobs. What happened was the machines took people out of manual repetitive jobs and, here's the kicker, created more jobs. I understand that AI is scary and new but perhaps, just perhaps, it's going to create an age where humans no longer have to work hard but instead work smart. What happens when we don't have to work hard?... Maybe we can learn to enjoy our lives, look after our health, adventure and use that hard work focus of ours to address meaningful problems around the world.

P.s. I love working hard just as much as you do, just recognise when it's not serving you and give yourself permission to adapt.