Escape the ‘busy trap' - with 5 simple tools

Escape the ‘busy’ trap with 5 simple tools

The most common challenge I help my clients with is - ‘how to escape the ‘busy trap’; how to transition from a life that is time poor, to a life that allows them to do more of what they love.?

If you are tired of being busy, rushing around from task to task, and ending the day feeling frustrated; this article is for you. If you frequently feel overwhelmed, yet don’t find time to do the things you really want to do, this article is for you. If you want to escape the busy trap…, keep reading….?

Below are a handful of the tools I have developed for my clients over the years - they are disciplines that when applied, work. They are tried and tested - everything I share below, I do myself. I have spent my whole working life (nearly 20 years) trying to figure this out, refining it, and now I am sharing what has worked for me, and what works for my clients everyday.?

What’s interesting is, knowing these secrets is not enough. You have to apply them. They are disciplines, not ideas. I promise you, if you apply these 5 simple tools everyday, your productivity will go through the roof, you will spend more time doing things you love, and you will get tasks done in record time. You will escape the busy trap.?

Here are my top 5 (See also suggested practice for each).

#1 - Slow down?

This may sound counterintuitive, but it is the #1 thing you can do to improve your productivity. Most of us spend our days doing things that have little impact on the outcomes we are trying to create - answering emails, sitting in meetings we don’t need to be in, switching between activities, getting distracted by social media or WhatsApp, and/or responding to other people’s requests.?

When we slow down, we create space to discern what is important, what activities will move the needle on our biggest projects; thus giving us space to be more intentional and execute on our plans. We create opportunities to reconnect to the outcomes we are chasing.??

The space we create allows us to reassess the importance of some of the other tasks that are distracting us. Here, we have an opportunity to remove, reassign, or reschedule activities that are not aligned to our goals.?

Without this space, we can waste whole days or afternoons feeling busy, but not moving any closer to our goals.?

Suggested practice:?

1. Spend 5-10 minutes in the morning reconnecting to your medium and long term goals. Remind yourself of the daily, weekly, monthly tasks that you MUST do if you want to hit your goals. Do this everyday.? (If you don’t know what your goals are, and haven’t broken them down into weekly, monthly, and daily tasks - email me for my ebook on goal setting).?
2. Make your daily tasks your priority for the day, and schedule your weekly and monthly tasks in your calendar.? Make your daily tasks non-negotiable - they should be the ONLY items on your ‘To Do’ list.?
3. Have a secondary ‘To Do later’ list that you can look at once you have completed your priority items. Everything else can wait. The ‘To do later’ list items are typically tasks someone else has asked you to do, they are often things you can delegate. They are other people’s priorities, not yours. Remember that.?
4. ‘Clear the space’ - as you switch from one task to another, or get ready for your next meeting - take 2-5 minutes to reset. Take a few deep breaths, ideally with eyes closed - and refocus your attention on the next task. What are your objectives for the next activity? Is the next task moving you closer to your goals? If you are going into a meeting - what do you want to get out of it, how much time do you have? Communicate this at the beginning of the meeting.?

#2 - Embrace the reality of trade offs?

‘We can do anything, but we can’t do everything’. David Allen

Embracing the reality of trade offs - this has been hugely impactful in my life; and is something I wish I understood in my early career.?

We can do anything we want, but we can’t do everything.?

There are opportunities everywhere, exciting projects, interesting people, new shiny objects - but we can’t have it all. Well, we can - but we will produce little quality whilst we spread ourselves so thin.?

Everytime we say ‘yes’ to something, we are saying ‘no’ to something else.?

Do we answer that email, or make that sales call??

Do we attend the meeting, or work on our big project??

Do we check our social media, or return a call from a family member??

We have to decide what is most important, and do that.?

This is difficult to do in-the-moment because new projects and opportunities always seem more interesting than ones we have been working on for months or years.?

Embracing the reality of trade offs is actually quite liberating; it brings back a sense of control. An understanding that if we want to do more of ‘x’, we will have to do less of ‘y’.?

We just have to decide what is more important - and what will move us closer to our goals.?

Suggested practice:?

1. Make a list of the key behaviours that determine your success at work, in your relationships, in your health, and any other areas of your life that are important to you (money, hobbies, children, friends).?
2. Against each heading above, describe how they compete against each other, and compliment each other. How does spending more time with your family detract from work, how does spending more time at work detract from your relationships. How does looking after your health increase your energy at work, improve your relationship with your spouse, make you a better role model for your children. Cover all bases.?
3. Decide what is most important for you. Rank them.?
4. Block time out for the most important tasks under each heading. Do them consistently.??
5. Understand if you go over your time block, something needs to give. Don’t let the reality of the trade off impact your energy. Either stop, or move on at the end of the time block. Your energy is precious.?

#3 - Create & use deep work blocks?

Focused effort is a super power. However, it doesn’t come easily to many of us - myself included.?

One thing at a time. It is that simple. Our minds are not designed to multitask - in fact, when we multitask our cognitive ability is significantly reduced. A recent study suggests our decision making ability can drop from the level of a Harvard grad to that of an 8 year old when asked to concentrate on more than one task at a time.?

To counter this, I use deep work blocks; 90 minutes of uninterrupted focus time. I get more work done in 2 x 90 minute deep work blocks than I do if I spend 8 hours chained to my desk.?

It is time efficient, and it works.

The key to making them work is eliminating all distractions - see below.

Suggested practice:?

1. Block out at least one 90 minute period of your day to work on your most important task
2. Remove all distractions - no email, no phone, no notifications - find a quiet space, where no one will distract you.?
3. Make sure you have water on your desk, and have been to the bathroom so you don’t need to get up.?
4. Focus on one thing in that 90 minute block - ideally the most important thing. Don’t switch tasks. If you finish the task within 90 minutes, reward yourself with a break, and get some time back. This will also encourage you to work more deeply.?

#4 - Learn to say no gracefully?

Saying ‘NO’ gracefully is one of the key skills of the modern era. We are bombarded with requests, opportunities, and invitations - and we can’t say yes to all of them. In fact, saying ‘yes’ to someone else’s request is often saying ‘no’ to working on our own priorities. Be careful what you say ‘yes’ to.?

Often we say ‘yes’, when we mean ‘no’. We often say yes because it is uncomfortable to say ‘no’. We don't want to disappoint or offend the person making the request, so we say ‘yes’.?

Let’s reframe this.?

• Saying ‘yes’ to someone else’s priorities is saying ‘no’ to your own.
• Saying ‘no’ tells people you are clear on your priorities.?
• Saying ‘no’ doesn’t offend, it builds respect - it communicates discipline and commitment to your goals?
• The more you say ‘no’, the less people will ask you for things that are not important.?

Suggested practice:?

1. Next time someone asks you to do something - pause…, smile, remind yourself of your priorities, and then say ‘no thank you’
2. If you choose to, you can thank them for the offer, but explain that you are focused on some other priorities.

#5 - Turn reactivity into proactivity

One of the biggest lessons I have had over the last 10 years is understanding how our internal thoughts, moods, and emotions can impact our actions.?

If we are not aware of this, our thoughts & emotions can really derail us.?

Reactive people will respond to thoughts & emotions alongside all of the other incoming distractions we have discussed earlier in this article. They will work hard on good days, but do very little on others. Their moods just become yet another distraction.?

Proactive people still have distracting thoughts & emotions, but they are connected to a deeper sense of purpose, they know what they want - and they don’t allow thoughts & emotions to take them off course.?

A couple of questions for you.

Do you want your success at anything to be dictated by how you feel on a given day??

Do you want your reactions to your partner/children to be influenced by the mood that you are in?

If the answer to these questions is no, you need to connect to something bigger. You connect to purpose.?

You need to understand what you want, and why you want it.?

Suggested practice:?

1. For each of the important areas of your life (revisit section 2), describe what you want, and why you want it; what will be different if you achieve it. Describe in detail - how would you feel, how life would be different, really connect to it.?
2. Write these down and revisit them everyday.?
3. When a mood strikes or difficult emotions arise - we have a choice - we can let them dictate our actions, or we can ‘pause’ - we can observe the mood or emotion as a temporary feeling, and let it pass. Emotions are physiological responses in our body - they are our body's way of reacting to our external environment. What is interesting is these biological responses are conditioned, however they are not always useful.?
4. Pausing before we react gives us an opportunity to choose our response more mindfully. To be unswayed by the intensity of the emotion we are feeling in our body, reconnect to our goals/our mission - and choose a course of action that is in alignment.??

If you found this useful, please like and share with your network. And pop me a message at [email protected] if you would like my core value ebook, or goal setting guide.?