The cult of busy-ness and how being busy isn't a badge to wear with pride

Hands up if you get irritated when you ask someone how they're doing and their response is always, "I'm incredibly busy. I've got soooooo much on"?

In many societies and cultures, it's important to be able to show how busy you are. There seems to be some kudos given to those who work long hours, who sacrifice time with family and friends, and who seem to be doing lots of work. Busy, busy, busy.

But are they focusing on the right things? And are they saying how busy they are to protect themselves from some kind of judgement?

Helping executives become more productive (not busy) is one of the things I do through coaching. I thought it would be helpful to share with you some tips and research to help change your focus from getting pulled down the rabbit hole of 'busy work' to one where you're intentional about the most important thing you need to achieve.

Plan your days around right time, right place and right mindset

If you work in an open plan office and you're trying to write an important report then give yourself a chance by going somewhere quiet to work, alone.

A study led by Gloria Mark, in 2008, found interruptions and the subsequent recovery time consumed about 28% of a person's working day. The study found that each person spent, on average, only 11 minutes on any given project before being interrupted. It then took the average person 25 minutes to return to the original task. Therefore, when you're going to do a deep piece of work, give yourself a chance by planning in advance somewhere quiet to work, without email and phone. This is something I used to do when working in an open plan office. I would tell one of my team where I could be found, in the event of an emergency, but other than that I'd turn off my email and phone and go to a quiet space to get a report written.

"There's an optimum time to do different tasks, such as 'deep thinking'" - Daniel Pink

This isn't just about location, however. There are certain times that are better than others to do specific types of work. For example, I'm more of a morning person, so I know that if I have some writing or research to do, then I need to plan to do that early in the day, rather than at the end.

A framework that can help you be more intentional about how you plan is the 3-A Framework, which I discovered in Caroline Webb's book, How to have a good day. This is a framework I've shared with hundreds of managers in the past year, many of whom have said what a difference it's made. You could use this framework to plan your month, week and day.

• AIM - ask yourself, "What outcome(s) do I need to achieve?" "What would success look like at the end of today/this week/this month?"

An example: I need to ensure that I finish writing up all of my team's performance appraisals and send to HR.

• ATTITUDE - ask yourself, "In order to successfully achieve my outcome(s), how do I need to behave? What kind of mindset do I need to have?"

An example: In order to finish my performance appraisals, I need to have a balanced mindset. When I am tired, I tend to focus more on negatives and become overly critical. I'm at my freshest in the mornings, so I will book out an hour each morning to work on the appraisals.

• ATTENTION - ask yourself, "What do I need to keep an eye on?"

An example: I know that when I'm struggling with something I allow myself to get distracted by social media. Therefore, I need to keep an eye on me picking up my phone in the middle of writing appraisals. In fact, to avoid temptation, I'll leave my phone in a different place, away from me.

Give yourself less time to do things

Parkinson's Law states that work expands to fill time voids. In other words, when we have time on our hands, we'll fill it. And when we overfill our days, we can leave feeling dissatisfied because we didn't get everything done on our unrealistic to-do lists.

"…getting things done generally leaves us feeling very good about our day." - Caroline Webb

A 1967 study dug further into Parkinson's Law. College students were asked to complete a fixed set of very simple maths problems. Some people were given an 'excess time' condition and others were given just the 'right' amount of time to solve the problems.Those in the excess time condition took significantly longer to complete the problems. The researchers suggest that that the students who had more time than they needed expended less effort and felt less urgency to complete their tasks quickly.

"One of the most common ways for the modern person to maintain self-deception is to keep busy all the time" - Daniel Putnam

A more recent study, published in 2019, found people facing upcoming appointments, meetings, tasks, etc., perceive they have less time than they actually do. The research, involving 2,300 people, over a two-year period looked at how people in various situations budgeted scheduled and unscheduled windows of time. When up against such an upcoming appointment, people tended to procrastinate on a long-time task, such as writing a report and reverted to working on shorter-time tasks, such as making a work call. Or they’d focus on the simplest of work, like answering emails—or sorting out their calendars!

Clarify what's really important from what's not

"The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive." - Cal Newport

One of the tools I teach others to use is the Eisenhower Matrix, also known as the Urgent-Important Matrix. Without a doubt, for me anyway, this is the tool that has stuck as it's one I've used for over 15 years. It particularly came into it's own when I was holding down three management roles (one my own, two where I was covering gaps). Being able to focus on what was really important to get done that day, rather than get pulled into other people's noise, was the thing that kept me sane and also helped me remain super productive.

I now use the Eisenhower Matrix to help me manage all the demands on my time - consulting and coaching work, marketing my business, caring for my ill mum, being a university lecturer and dissertation supervisor, starting my doctorate etc. It would be so easy to focus on the easy stuff all the time but that is busy-work and not high impact work. If you've not tried the Eisenhower Matrix, give it a go.

Avoid multi-tasking

In the 1920s, Bluma Zeigarnik came up with the Zeigarnik Effect, which states that incomplete or interrupted tasks weight on our mind much more than completed tasks. When we constantly switch between tasks, not only does this add to our stress and feelings of 'busy-ness' but we're less likely to perform well.

A 2006 study, led by Rene Marois, found that people doing two tasks simultaneously took up to 30% longer and made twice as many errors as those who completed the same tasks in sequence.

And a recent Stanford University study reviewed over 10 year's of research on the relationship between media multitasking and various aspects of cognition, including working memory and attention. The researchers found that people who frequently use several types of media at once, or "heavy media multitaskers", performed significantly worse on simple memory tasks.

One way to manage multi-tasking is to try out the Ivy Lee Method. Lee was a businessman who people sought out to help them be more productive. The Ivy Lee Method is as follows:

1. The night before, write out a maximum of the six most-important tasks for the following day. This is where using the Eisenhower Matrix in conjunction can be helpful. Don’t write more than six. Fewer than six is fine. I often stick to three.
2. Number those tasks in order of importance. Number one must be done before you leave for the day. Block out time in your diary for your first task.
3. Start your work day with item number one. Work until you finished item one. Don’t skip to item two until item one is done. Physically cross-out each item as you finish it. This is important as it triggers the reward centers of your brain.
4. Keep working sequentially through tasks in the same way and move any not completed to the next day's list.
5. Repeat this process each working day.

Take a break

"Cramming your day so full that you have no time for thought or rejuvenation just makes you tired and irritable. And no-one credits fatigue and bad mood for their world-class performance." Brendon Burchard

In 1989, Steven Hobfoll came up the Conservation of Resources Theory. This suggests that a person's energy and mental agility can be restored by investing resources in things like taking time for a walk or meeting with a friend for coffee. The theory suggests that a resource is anything a person values, such as time, or which protects and build something of value, such as creative ability.

Tom Peters, in his book The Excellence Dividend, uses the analogy of Formula 1 racing. The cars have regular pit-stops during a race. Without these, the cars are likely to get damaged and under-perform. People are no different. We need regular pit-stops too. None of us can keep racing at over 100mph without ever stopping, certainly not without paying a very high price!

This is backed up by recent research. In 2018 over 100 people, in Germany, responded to daily surveys which tracked their emotion, mood and performance. The researchers found that the extent to which people felt recovered after a lunch break had a positive impact on their ability to complete tasks in the afternoon. Not only did lunch breaks help people feel more energised but it also helped increase engagement levels.

And a 2019 study by the University of Swansea showed how as little as an hour a week of outdoor learning has significant positive benefits for children and also boosted teachers' job satisfaction. In other words, getting outside in the fresh air during the working day can make a positive difference to our productivity.

Decline more meetings than you accept

"A poorly conducted and unnecessary meeting is indeed a form of time theft, a theft that can be prevented." - Steve Rogelberg

In 2018, the LSE, Columbia and Harvard Universities conducted a joint project to examine how CEOs spend their time. In one of the studies, involving more than 90 CEOs of top Italian firms and nearly 360 corporate leaders in India, the researchers found that 60% of CEOs' working hours and 56% of corporate leaders' working hours were spent in meetings. Oh, and these figures didn't include conference calls!

I know from working with lots of managers and leaders that diaries are often rammed with back-to-back meetings. And in some instances, this can lead to the person not even having time to go to the loo, let alone have something to eat! When I do an audit of calendars, more often than not, we're able to reduce the number of meetings in someone's diary by at least 50%. This is then time that can be used on the really important stuff, as well as giving the person some much-needed balance.

I hope you found this article helpful. What are your top tips for being less busy and more productive?

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You may also be interested in my previous LinkedIn article Think being compassionate makes you a pushover? Think again.

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