HOW BUSY ARE YOU?

Have you ever met people, who – on the first, polite “How are you?” –?inundated you with an obligatory “Oh, you know, super busy” “Oh, I cannot see out of work”, and then with the detailed description of their misery.

I always felt uncomfortable in these situations, because, on one hand, I would have been ashamed to say, “I’m super busy too”. This would have meant that I have a serious issue organising myself. Neither did I feel being too busy, as I could organise my work and I also enjoyed it. And when I didn’t anymore, I took the responsibility for making it better.

There can be many reasons, though, behind the expression of “I’m extremely busy”

Most of all, this is a relative term: it means one thing to one person and something completely different to another one. It is also strongly connected with the expectations of the individuals: how they see their ideal working day. It also depends on your efficiency, on your organisational skills and not the least on those of your up-line or of the person you receive your tasks from. These attributes again, are very different from person to person.

This is why, “I’m so very busy” is kind of a meaningless sentence – it does not tell me anything about your objective workload.

I believe, it is ideal to fill the 8-hour work-time with sensible, interesting, work-related tasks. It is natural that we cannot concentrate 8 hours with constant intensity on our tasks, yet, research and HR estimates put the average of non-work related activity between one and a half to two hours on an eight hour working day (source ).

Why Are We So Busy Then?

Why do we still insist on proving, on validating ourselves by keeping repeating how busy we are? Dorie Clark, in her book The Long Game explains it by our deriving hidden benefits from our relentless, short-term “execution mode.”

“Individuals who possess the characteristics that employers or clients value (e.g., competence and ambition) are expected to be in high demand and short supply on the job market. Thus, by telling others that we are busy and working all the time, we are implicitly suggesting that we are sought after, which enhances our perceived status.” (source )

In other words, being “crazy busy” — and making sure others know it — may, consciously or subconsciously, be important to our self-esteem. And though we long for the time to do long-term thinking, possessing it may signal we’re just a little less essential than we thought we were.

Busyness can also serve as anaesthetic.

There’s great comfort in feeling that you know what to do. When we’re busy and focused on execution, there’s no time to ask questions that might have discomforting answers. Is this the right path? Is this what I really want to do? Am I living my life the way I want to?

Often, we identify a path of what worked before, or what should work, and we stick to it at all costs, even if it makes us miserable.

?Changing Perspective

You often meet those stereotypical, freaked-out types of colleagues, who keep repeating ‘Oh my God, I’m so busy!’ In fact, instead of impressing us, they just seem out of control — not in control of their life, even less of their work.

And then, we sometimes meet a few super-successful people who you would expect to be truly busy, seeing their achievements. But they are calm, collected, unbothered, and give you their full attention. They seem to have everything under control. Wouldn’t you rather choose to be like that?

Changing our perspective on whom we admire is a powerful first step.

At a young age, as a manager, I was always very proud to enter the business class of a plane in full costume and white shirt, on high heels, taking my laptop with me and keeping on working and working. This way, everybody could see that I was an important businesswoman. Then, it didn’t take long to dawn on me that the real successful businessmen and women are in the same business class or first, but they don’t need the status symbol of the most uncomfortable costumes and shoes, they are in jeans or tracksuits, and they watch a movie rather use the time to relax and sleep. They didn’t need to demonstrate or prove their importance to anybody. They ignored the external world and used their time efficiently. I decided that I’d rather be like that.

It takes strength, however, to go against the prevailing culture. If everybody keeps repeating how busy they are, your silence may suggest that you have less work on your desk. Interestingly enough, people will rarely conclude that you are more efficient or just don’t like complaining.

Standing up for yourself will need internal strength, because we have to face uncomfortable questions about who we are and what we really want, and external strength, because we have to deal with bosses and colleagues and clients who are still used to measuring productivity through face time and volume and are ready to favourize the louder complainers in the evaluation season.

?Are You Really Busy?

Face yourself and ask the question: are you really so busy as you say it?

I will not deal with the case, when you only keep your peers entertained by describing in painful details, how busy you are – this case could be easily overcome by concentrating more on the task, less on the promotion of your busyness.

If your day is in effect overloaded with work-related tasks, it is important to separate the tasks you truly and honestly enjoy and get into flow, when executing them, from those that make you suffer.

Many of us have experienced working 10-12 or even more hours a day and not even noticing, we are so much engaged in our tasks. And we also know those work conditions, when even two hours seem unbearably long.

What Shall We do?

Look at your day: what kind of tasks take most of your time? If it’s the later one, which make you suffer, it is time to change. You might search for excuses – people rarely jump into the unknown happily and voluntarily – but face it: how long will you try to make yourself believe that it will be better? How long are you giving yourself (and your company, your upline, your colleagues) newer and newer deadlines, for your work to become satisfying and enjoyable?

Let’s admit, there is a slight chance that conditions would slightly improve on the longer run: but realistically, will they ever be good enough for you to spend most of your life there?

Look at other options. Unfortunately, nobody can guarantee you that another company, a new job will be much better. But really, how much worse can it be?

When you decide to change, no need to straight jump into fast and big decisions. Remember, the three key terms to implement sustainable change are: small steps, persistence and fun.

Search for tasks that you love doing – you will always need to face some necessary side activities that you don’t enjoy, but until they are negligible in volume, they will have little effect on the whole experience.

?Love What You Do

If you are among those, who enjoy your work, it is unlikely that we hear you complaining about your busyness and burdens too often.?I’m sure you are managing well and flourishing in what you are doing.

The greatest gift for me by choosing the private business is owning my time. I have realized that I have never been so busy in my life as in the past year, when I took my decisions and tasks into my own hands. But it’s also the first time that I deal with things I am truly interested in and love doing. I decide what I do in every minute of the day. I have the feeling that I’m having fun most of the time.

My coaching instructor used to say that the most difficult thing for him was to accept that he can be paid for activities that do not make you suffer. That you are allowed to earn money with activities you truly enjoy.

It is time to think over if you truly enjoy your work.

If you have any doubts, what is it that you would really enjoy doing?