Mid Week Gyan - The Busyness Trap

While reading Harvard Business Review, I came across an Interesting article on The Busyness Trap. While reading the article it made be thinking on the overall philosophy of Woking Culture. We have grown up in such an environment where hard work is directly linked with no. of hours spent irrespective of the quality.

Being busy is a trap because it masks itself as important. It conceals itself as productive. But if we’re honest, busyness is really an excuse to do shallow work and avoid being vulnerable.

Busyness is fueled by a scarcity mindset. When there is not enough to go around, we race from here to there. Grasping for a sense of accomplishment and meaning. All the while, the tread on our tires have been made bare from our endless effort. And there is no time to stop.

The opposite of busyness is presence.

How you ca avoid the Trap -

1. Cultivate an opportunity mindset

Having an opportunity mindset means we see possibility, hope, and open doors. Fostering this hope-filled kind of mindset keeps the busy mind at bay. When we see open-doors and possibility, there is less to strive for, less to rush towards, less to compete for.

2. Surround yourself with people who accept you

Nothing makes us busier than the attempt to prove ourselves to others. Getting a break from the tiresome work of trying to please people and impress people is essential.

3. Create presence-triggers

We all have triggers that can set us off on a negative nose-dive. Some of my triggers are when people roll their eyes at me, or look at their phone when I am in the middle of sharing something vulnerable, or when someone gives me advice I never asked for. So we have to create positive triggers that bring us back. Without these triggers, our subconscious will create other triggers of stress and fear and anxiety, which feeds the busy soul.

4. Reduce your worst busyness behavior in small increments.

If you average four hours a day on the phone, try to reduce that time by 15 minutes; if you average 100,000 air miles annually, try to cut back to 80,000 miles.

You don’t have to go from manically busy to a state of Buddha-like contemplation, nor should you. As a driven, ambitious professional, you’re not going to be happy or productive if you aren’t engaged in meaningful work tasks. The goal here is to escape the busyness trap, and you can do so if you just learn to manage the behaviors that make you frantic rather than eliminate them

Maybe busyness has more to do with the state of our souls and less with the environment we occupy.

Are you busy?

Steer clear of the trap. Cultivate an opportunity mindset, surround yourself with people who accept you, create presence-triggers.

Maybe the breezy seashore isn’t as far off after all.