Trading in Our Busyness for One Big Thing

By Susan Harycki

As children my friends and I teased each other about not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time.?In early adulthood most of us became enamored with building the capacity to multitask—juggling a multitude of balls at work, at home, and in our personal worlds.?It was an adrenaline rush and source of pride to fill all the hours of our day with what we perceived to be continuous accomplishment.

And then I started to notice something.?Something that continues to alarm me.

When I greet people and ask them how they are, they’ve stopped saying, “really good” or even “fine.”?The answer has most often become, “busy, really busy!”

Even as I noticed it in others, it started to scare me when I, too, found myself answering others with those same words—particularly when I said them with a flash of smug satisfaction.

And now?

At the same time that people describe being “really busy,” our love affair with multi-tasking seems to be losing its luster.?The emerging story is shifting to the importance of work-life balance—or living whole lives.?I think many are finally coming to terms with the truth within the joke that multi-tasking means “screwing up a lot of things simultaneously.”?And not just in our personal lives.

Increasingly, and said in a thousand different ways, I hear people today wanting to be able to focus on?one?thing—and it’s a?big?thing.

People want lives that feel purposeful, healthy, and whole in a world that feels safe, healthy, and whole.

Some get to this?one big thing?because they’re tired of being in survival mode, others because they’ve gotten to the top from a power, wealth, and accomplishment perspective only to have to face how this has negatively impacted their own lives and the world.?Some get there because they’ve had a near death experience and have zeroed in on what matters most in life. For others it is a deeply rooted value—or a recognition that our own lives and worlds of work cannot flourish unless the world around us is also flourishing.

Each of us at?Genii?Earth?has arrived at this?one big thing?via our own paths. Like people everywhere, we want a world that works too—and we want this at a time when a lot about the world isn’t working.??We want it at a time when there is a shared global urgency to solve what we call earth-sized challenges.?We want it at a time when our clients and businesses everywhere are scrambling to navigate an unprecedented rate of speed, level of ambiguity, volatility, and complexity—as well as information overload.?We want it at a time when anxiety is on the rise, suicide rates are climbing, and the potential for global war again looms.

For us to be at work on this?one big thing?we need something quite different than busyness, multi-tasking, and prioritizing all the things urgently calling for our immediate attention.

We call this something different “futuring.”

For us,?futuring?is a high-value way of living, leading, and working in the present moment while simultaneously giving rise to a more desirable and workable future.

Futuring?involves a continuous dance of discernment and creation—intentionally conserving what is already here that continues to serve people and planet while also weaving into existence what is more desirable for us, our children, our communities, our organizations, and life itself.

We are choosing to bring the language of?futuring?more fully into existence—and to give it nuanced meaning—to help people connect.

• Connect with the reality that today’s actions are generating our personal and collective futures.
• Connect with others who are committed to living their greatest lives while using their genius and work lives to build a workable .

What is that?one big thing?for you?

Will you join us—and the many people working to live their greatest lives while creating a more desirable and workable world—to bring your?one big thing?into existence?

Will you join with us in developing the language and spirit of?futuring—in identifying and developing?futuring?capabilities that transform our greatest intentions into reality?

Find more on Genii Earth's website: geniiearth.com