I'm BUSY! Nicely busy....
Chris Croft
★ Writer and Keynote Speaker, Project Management and Time Management, Negotiation Skills ~ UK-based. Top 10 video trainer in the world - LinkedIn Learning and Udemy.
"How are things?"
"Busy!"
...that's what we always say - as if it's a good thing, (containing a little bit of boasting about how successful our business is, with a hint to the martyr in there too).
But IS IT GOOD TO BE BUSY??
Imagine you could cope with 100 things a week, and you've got 150 coming in. That's over-stressed, and probably letting people down, = definitely bad.
What if you have 110 coming in. That's a little bit too busy, but just about coping. Somewhere between OK and bad, we might say?
If you only have 90 coming in that's a waste of your potential to deliver, and only 50 coming in would be boredom.
But if you have 100 coming in, that's spot on! Perfectly balanced. Nicely busy.
......Or is it...?
I would like to suggest that being nicely busy is NOT good enough, it’s NOT OK!
Yes it's true that:
but that’s not good enough!
Because:
You don't have any headroom. You don’t have spare time, space to be creative, to relax, to start new things, to even consider new things, to learn,to develop, and to have fun.
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I would suggest that you should be at 70 or 80 coming in when you can handle 100, so you have that space for new ideas and new projects to plop into. Room for serendipity, and space to take new things on if they come along and are interesting enough.
So if you're at 100, or (heaven forbid) 110 or 150, you need the time management skills of saying no, negotiating, delegating, and being less fussy, to get your incoming work down to 80. Even if you’re not TOO busy, even if you’re not overwhelmed, and even if you’re not failing, you could be better, and maybe it's time to say no to a bit more!
onwards and upwards
CC
PS I have time management courses on LinkedIn Learning and on Udemy
Optimist | Health & Life Coach | Lead Cybersecurity Analyst | INFJ
1 年I found a lot of your leadership courses on Udemy and really think you do a fantastic job of not only pointing out essential skills, but also giving realistic examples of how to use them. Thank you for continuing to put out nuggets of wisdom like this one.
Human Resources Management/ Change for Better Workplaces
1 年I loved the Time Management course Chris, it was an eye opening to me ?? many thanks
Vice President, Global Quality Assurance at JSR Micro, Inc.
1 年I used to tell new hires at Intel that they needed to set a reasonable work schedule, say 50-60 hours a week. I told them that if they let 80 hours a week be their baseline, what would they do when there was an emergency? You've got to save some burst capacity in any job.
Executive Presentation Coach | Fun & Engaging Speech Rehearsal & Media Interview Prep
1 年Every so often, my schedule gets a bit crunched. That's my go-to phrase anyway! (Either that, or I'm on a deadline.)
COO and product co-founder at Cloud Design Box. Very keen to talk to Education partners, especially MSPs looking to add something special to their portfolio for schools and MATs.
1 年Chris, it's been a while since I said thank you - so, thank you! We're having a big push on praise - peer to peer as well as manager downwards, and it feels great! And that's been driven by your inspirational leadership course.