The Cult Of Busyness

Shameless plug for Juliet's business - if you run a team that is unproductive, drowning in busyness and suffering from creative malaise...please, invest in her Digital Learning tool for your team!

Several years ago, I attended an industry conference. The agenda was full of the typical stuff you expect you expect at an industry conference, no matter the industry. Yawn. (To be fair to that conference specifically, the same speakers tend to make the round over and over again and I had likely heard the message three times already). There was something different on the agenda though! There was a topic that resonated with me at the time...the topic of figuring out how to manage my cell phone and calendar instead of them managing me.

The featured speaker was Juliet Funt talking about her company, White Space At Work. Her father was the creator of “Candid Camera” and I lurved that show as a kid. Who didn’t? She was probably going to show some funny clips from the show. She did. I assumed she had a great sense of humor. Uh, yeah! And I thought the content would be interesting. It was that and so much more. 

Juliet spoke about the physical reaction we have to our phones; the visceral need to check our email and the little rush of endorphins we get when we finally give in. She talked about how we really never check out of work. We aren't present for our loved ones. We aren't present for ourselves.

She talked about the challenge in large organizations around calendars and meetings and busy work and that none of them really move the business forward. (Feel free to add content or context or just outright correct me, Juliet. I wore my big girl panties today.) 

To see her in action, watch any of the Whitespace at Work videos but I highly recommend The Thieves of Productivity.

What really resonated with me is the concept of Busyness. At the time I was running a large sales team across North America. I worked for a global company that had, at the core of its culture, rigid processes and an overabundance of meetings. I found myself going to the office at 6 a.m. just to find a few minutes of quiet before the onslaught of meetings and conference calls. I stayed until 6:30 or 7:00 to catch up on the crushing weight of emails that came in over the course of the day. I worked evenings and weekends trying to catch up. I felt compelled to answer and file every email. I fell farther and farther behind every week.

The irony is that at the same time I was telling my sales team to focus on a few priorities and do them well. I pushed everyone to sell more and sell faster and yet we were all locked into a dizzying array of daily check ins, Salesforce updates and recaps and spreadsheets. The business was soft and fears heightened by the company's penchant for headcount reduction. We did what we were trained to do. We scheduled more meetings and set up additional conference calls and requested more spreadsheet recaps.

A few months later, I needed to hunker down and write the strategy for the next Fiscal Year. I needed to figure out how to get the division out of its sales slump. Doing what we were doing was not going to work. I started blocking off significant amounts of time to research and read, catch up with others in the industry to see if they were experiencing similar headwinds and, generally and genuinely, think about the way forward.

I closed my office door, put the phone on DND and closed email so I could concentrate. I sat in coffee shops all over town because getting out of the office helped me think. Instead of using a spreadsheet and Power Point, I got out blank copy paper and good old-fashioned #2 pencils sharpened to a fine point. I let my brain explore the options without penalty for going down odd paths. I conducted a few experiments I learned during my Creativity in Business class with Dr. Lisa Gundry while getting my MBA. It was exhilarating! I could "see" the path and articulate what we needed to do. I just needed to quiet my mind, give myself permission to let the emails pile up (even though institutionally that was career suicide) and daydream a bit *gasp* about the future.

Here are few things I do now as a result of that presentation by Juliet:

• I block off Fridays – no calls, no meetings – so I have time to read, think, catch up with my team or clients or even take off a little bit early. Some Fridays I am better than others. 
• I give myself permission to read on the plane. Might as well because I can't get my laptop open when the person in front of my slams their chair back.
• I try to schedule calls in 15 minute increments.
• I schedule time before and after meetings that require prep or follow up work.
• I stopped meticulously filing every email. I have a file for 2017. If I want to keep it, it goes there. Period. Search filters in Outlook help me find it if I need it.

When I find myself getting worn out, bogged down and unproductive, I can usually blame a slide back into old behaviors. I know that I need to take control of my calendar because it has been controlling me. Baby steps. 

Side note: This article popped up in my LinkedIn feed today. How ironic!

How do you avoid Busyness from sucking the life out of you and your team?

And Juliet - THANK YOU!!!!