Your Infinite Potential: Be Less Busy Being Busy

At a recent company meeting I found myself respondng to the question, 'How are you?' with the answer, 'busy'. I did this without really thinking about it. This prompted me to do a brief experiment and I found that 'busy' is the stock answer for a lot of the people I questioned. 'Busy' has become the new 'Fine'.

Why

We are all so busy but WHY? Are we busy because we really have too much to do? Or are we busy because we are disorganised and can’t prioritise? Or are we busy because it is a status to strive for that makes us feel useful and fulfilled?

Our expectation as a culture is to drive forward hard and fast, so we can be productive and feel valuable and accomplished. As individuals we want to fit as much into life as possible. However, eventually the hustle catches up with us and all we have to show for our busyness is stress and exhaustion.

I am not denying that at certain times we can become unreasonably busy – you may be short-staffed, just back from leave with a backlog of work or have several deadlines looming at the same time. But this should not be the way we live week after week or month after month.

Being busy is a habit. I mistakenly thought that when I stepped down as Chairman of a swimming club, or when I became an empty nester I would be less busy. But the habits of a lifetime are not easily modified and soon enough I had replaced redundant activities with new pursuits and was as busy as ever – with new busyness – a new job, new responsibilities and different issues to contend with. If we are used to a hectic lifestyle it is difficult to make time for just relaxing and taking time for ourselves. We feel guilty if we do!

However, we could be more productive and get more meaningful things accomplished by being less busy.

Weekends are often as busy as the working week – with obligations, recreational activities, family commitments, cooking more elaborate meals, socialising and so on. We can be so rushed that we are ready for a day off and its only Monday! We may not have set aside even 10 minutes for ourselves. Time to truly relax – not vegging in front of the TV or surfing the internet.

One reason we may feel so busy is the way we apportion our time. A recent study by the communications regulator Ofcom found that over a typical 24-hour period we spend more time on media devices than we do asleep (eight hours and 41 minutes versus eight hours and 21 minutes). It also found the average Briton spends four hours a day watching television. Checking social media as become essential parts of our day.

Implications

Life is not meant to be in lived in a constant state of busy. What are we compromising? The implications of all this busyness are significant and can lead to:

• not getting anything really worthwhile done
• confusting important with urgent
• being out of control of our lives
• less time for ourselves, our family and our friends
• looking for the next achievement without fully enjoying what we have already accomplished
• less happiness
• more stress and anxiety

How can we try to be less busy?

Being busy is a choice.

Our schedules are determined by us. We need to accept that not being busy is ok. Being overwhelmingly busy may actually be limiting you in reaching for your potential and for real growth. Being busy with the wrong activities costs you the time you could be spending on other more meaningful things. Or on doing nothing at all, which is also important from time to time.

The first thing to think about is why you are constantly too busy. If you work out the underlying root cause, it will be easier to find the right strategy for you to overcome busyness.

• Are you a people pleaser? Someone who doesn’t want to let anyone down. You are approachable and people feel comfortable asking you for help.
• Does stillness feel awkward? You feel guilty if you are doing nothing. The truth is, idle time can boost your creativity, memory, and productivity, actually saving you time. Creative and innovative ideas are often found in the space between moments, not during actual activity itself.
• Can you let go? Is your calendar filled with things you feel you have to do or things that are no longer a priority?
• Do you feel more productive if you are busy? Research suggests that the more hours someone works, the more they get done—until a threshold is reached, which is on average 40 weekly hours. At this point, productivity per hour levels off, burnout levels rise, and your personal life, exercise routine, and general health and well-being suffer. 
• Are you competitive about being busy?

Here are a few strategies – pick something that might work for you:

Revisit your priorities and make choices. Become more intentional with your priorities and pursuits in life. Determine again what are the most significant contributions you can offer this world. And schedule your time around those first. Busyness is, at its core, about misplaced priorities. Learn to say no if it doesn’t fit in. Carve out some quiet time to remember what is important and what are the essential activities to accomplish.

Try the five-item to-do list (my favourite) One major problem with your endlessly expanding to-do list is that it fuels the fantasy of one day getting it all finished; adding one more item to the list feels effortless, so it’s dangerously easy to overcommit. The productivity coach Mark Forster proposes a radical alternative: instead of an open-ended list, use one capped at just five items, so you’re forced to complete (or consciously abandon) a task before adding another.

Cultivate space in your daily routine. Space is where the good stuff happens. Space in your daily routine for solitude allows creativity and strategy to emerge. It allows you to notice inspiration and answers. Find space in your morning to sit quietly before starting your day. Make time for mindfulness or yoga, using apps such as Headspace, or Calm or Yogaglo. Begin right away cultivating little moments of space and margin in your otherwise busy day. Recognise the value of rest and schedule it in.

Stop the glorification of busy. Busy, in and of itself, is not a badge of honour. In fact, directed at the wrong pursuits, it is actually a limiting factor to our full potential. It is okay to not be busy. Repeat this with me: It is okay to not be busy.

Get real about time – In general, things ake longer than we think. Ensure you are realistic in you plans and don’t over commit.

Next

Being constantly busy implies you lack control of your life.

Busy does not need to define you. Unbusy is possible. It’s okay to be happy with a calm life. What are the small things you can start to do to make time for what is most important.

Diane is Head of People Development at Newton Europe

This is the 9th in the Series: Your Infinite Potential:

1. Your Infinite Potential: Living to the Max
2. Your Infinite Potential: Prune for New Growth
3. Your Infinite Potential: The Power of Morning Ritual
4. Your Infinite Potential: Lies Outside Your Comfort Zone
5. Your Infinite Potential: Making the Most of Your Time
6. Your Infinite Potential: Are you Holding You Back?
7. Your Infinite Potential: Through Helping Others
8. Your Infinite Potential: Stay Curious