When People Ask You How You Are Doing, Stop Replying with “Busy”

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With work and school back in full swing this week for many, our schedules will be filling up fast. The next time someone asks you "How are you?", you are very likely to respond with what's become somewhat of a conversational crutch. “ Busy.”

This exchange is ubiquitous in both our personal and professional lives. It’s as if busyness carries a certain status symbol. Here is the problem though. Being” busy” doesn’t make us happier; and it doesn’t make us more productive. It just means we are filling all of our available time and, for many people, we may be doing things that don’t really matter the most to us.

Years ago, in one of our quarterly offsite meetings, a leadership team member told our facilitator, “I just don’t have enough time!” The facilitator looked at her, then at all of us, and said, “As a leader, ‘not enough time’ is an excuse you all must take out of your vocabulary. If you are waiting for all this free time to come, it’s never going to happen. It’s about what you prioritize and how you use your time. Effective leaders know how to prioritize what’s most important.”

His words have stuck with me to this day. Even though I still find the phrasing, “I’ve been busy!” on the tip of my tongue when someone asks me how I’ve been, I make a conscious effort not to say it and try to respond to their question with a more meaningful and personal answer. I also try and remind my team at Acceleration Partners to do the same.

Instead of hopelessly waiting to be given the gift of more free time, consider some of the ways high-achievers stay focused, create free time and achieve fulfilling, long-term goals. 

1. Know Your Core Purpose and Core Values

This is a topic I talk about extensively in my upcoming book, Elevate, with respect to building your Spiritual Capacity. When you can clearly articulate your values and what you want most, it becomes much easier to make a decision with your time and energy. Doing what you love doesn’t feel like busywork. If you’re feeling overburdened by your workload, it’s worth considering if what you’re doing is serving your purpose and values.

2. Align Priorities to Your Purpose/Values

Once you know your values and what you want most, you then need to align your priorities and goals to those values, this is the concept of Intellectual Capacity. I created a tool that can help with this called “The Whole Life Dashboard”, which allows you to stay aligned on an annual/quarterly/weekly/daily basis.

3. Separate Urgent from Important

Most people struggle with this difference and spend more time on urgent tasks, rather than important ones. Here’s a quick primer on how to understand the distinction between urgent and important things and to dedicate more time to what’s most important to you.

4. Use Time Blocking and Don’t Book 100% Of Your Time

This is another core principle of Intellectual Capacity. I am a big believer in the concept of time blocking your schedule, which requires putting everything you want to do in your calendar and allocated time in blocks for each activity weeks or months in advance. Don’t just schedule your work commitments—block off time for exercise, family time, vacation and thinking/resting time as well.

Your schedule must reflect your priorities—you need to drive it, otherwise, your calendar will just fill up with other people’s priorities.

5. Find the 80/20

The Pareto principle, or 80/20 rule, states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Conversely, this also means that many people end up spending 80% of their time on things that only bring 20% of their desired outcomes. This is why working smart is always better than just working hard—if you’re spending most of your time doing things that don’t make a major impact, consider how you can use your time more effectively. 

6. Create a Stop Doing List

We are always adding to our to-do lists without every taking anything off. Each year, I create a stop doing list to make sure I don’t get overloaded--here are some tips and examples.

7. Be Selective About Whom You Give Energy To

You need to be around people who fulfill you and give you energy, not people who drag you down. Surrounding yourself with the right people will help you feel less busy. People you feel worse after spending time around are energy vampires, and you need to actively prune them from your life.

8. Be Accountable for Your Time/Schedule 

We all get 24 hours in the day, no more and no less. When we accept this fact, we start to make better decisions and fewer excuses and realize why it is that some people accomplish more with the same amount of time.

Management guru Peter Drucker has said that effective leaders record, manage and consolidate their time. Turns out, most people aren’t very accurate in recollecting how they spent their time in a given day or week.

When an important task isn’t getting done, it’s important to acknowledge and admit that you have chosen to spend your time on less important tasks (i.e. posting on Facebook and Instagram). Instead of saying “I didn’t have enough time,” try saying “I chose to do X today instead of Y” or “I’m getting distracted” or “I’m focusing on the wrong things.”

This honesty and accountability will help you use your time more wisely, accomplish more and be less “busy.”

And maybe next time somebody asks how you are, you can respond with “I’m great, how are you?"

If you enjoyed this article, here are a few other ways to stay in touch.

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Robert Glazer is the founder and CEO of Acceleration Partners, an award-winning performance marketing agency ranked #4 on Glassdoor’s best places to work. Robert was also named twice to Glassdoor’s list of Top CEO of Small and Medium Companies in the US, ranking #2 and was recently named one of Conscious Company’s top 22 conscious business leaders. He is also a member of Marshall Goldsmith's 100 Coaches initiative.