Wearing Busy Like a Badge

It is the middle of any given work day. You are walking hurriedly down the (select one):

a)    Hallway

b)    Parking garage

c)     Street

d)    Other

You bump into a (please select again):                                                                               

a)    Coworker

b)    Friend

c)     Neighbor

d)    Arch Rival

Here is a fairly silly example of the conversation that ensues:

“Hey, how are you? How have you been? What are you up to these days?” 

“Well let me tell you, I feel like a one-legged man in a butt kicking contest. How is the world treating you?”

“Like a baby treats a diaper!”

You get the idea. We love, love, LOVE to talk about how busy we are. Chances are, our acquaintance will chime right in, no one wants to appear like this is all a cool breeze. And isn’t there more than a little part of us that wears this heavy workload like a badge of honor? The job, the family, the house, etc. Responsibilities galore! Whoa is me! If this chance encounter is with a work colleague, you may even start in on the number of hours you put in each day or each week. How long it’s been since you had a real vacation. “Why, if I ever calculated my actual hourly wage...”

I have been in this conversation. Hell, I have initiated it hundreds of times. In the weeds. Up to your eyeballs. Drowning. Each time we breathe new life into a subject we should have buried with a long-handled shovel long ago. There is a strange sense of pride or accomplishment in being busy, in giving time that you don’t really have. I think it makes us feel important, validates our value to the company or the family or the community. How boring this would sound to the poor, unsuspecting recipient, except they are likely just as guilty of beating the same dead horse.

For anyone working in an operations capacity in the modern age, we love to talk about ‘lean’. That’s our key buzzword, along with the boatload of terminology that comes with it. We want to simplify, take the ‘links out of the chain’. It is our mantra, our guiding principal. 

Well, my suggestion is to take this ridiculously over-used, recycled business philosophy and try it on in our personal lives. Let's work on ‘leaning up’ the things that really matter. Tell your boss ‘no’ once in a while (carefully, at the right moment). Have your kids use foot power or pedal power to make it to whatever is the practice du jour. Encourage your clan to embrace a little down time, for cryin’ out loud. Do they have to play three sports, join endless clubs, and run a marathon for fear of not getting into a decent college? Are you a successful juggler with 157 simultaneous raw eggs in the air?

Here is my two-bit advice, for what it’s worth: Take every bit of vacation you are mathematically owed! Don’t ever give back a single minute! Simplify the crap out of your home; get rid of all of the ‘stuff’ that keeps you so damned busy. Excessive electronics, grown up toys, extra real estate? All just more junk to take care of, more to weigh you down, to ride roughshod on your free time. Hey, when it’s all said and done, will folks gather round that shiny walnut casket with the brushed nickel accents, lean forward and say, “He/She sure did accumulate a lot of cool stuff. He/She sure was an awesome person of business”. Ugh. Plan some big changes now and get down to it! You’ve got this!   

Look, we can encourage the crap out of each other to live more simply, more happily, to take the long way home once in a while, like a big 'ole life choices support group. So crank up the radio and sing blissfully out of tune! Smell the proverbial roses! Trust me, I am a ‘busy addict’, same as you! But I can change (I think?), you can too! Grab your favorite beverage, melt into your favorite comfy chair, get out that Outlook calendar, and get intimate with your delete button!  

Good luck on your lean journey, Grasshopper. This could be the start down the path of true enlightenment.