The Concept Of ‘Busy’
A common challenge for many of my coaching clients is managing the number of things they need to accomplish in their roles layered with the demands of their lives outside of the office. This struggle, of juggling time and commitments, is often created by our desires to achieve our own perceptions of joy, success, and satisfaction as part of an overall career or life plan. While we each seek an individualized goal of balance, often the way we think and talk about the number of things requiring our time, is the very thing that can rob us of the satisfaction we are seeking. It can also unwittingly undermine our credibility and ensure an unlimited, lifetime ride on the great hamster wheel.
Being busy is a reality we all deal with. At the same time, “being busy” is often something worn as a badge of honor. It can offer validation that what we do matters. Having a full schedule with competing commitments for our time confirms the idea of being needed. It provides a yard stick for our significance, offering a sense of being productive – or so we think.
The Concept of “Busy”
Imagine, for a moment, you run into a colleague or friend you have not seen in a while. The typical exchange often is an initial inquiry on how you have both been followed by a question related to exactly how you have been spending your time. Odds are high that within that exchange one of you will use the word “busy”. It will be thrown out, cementing that you have places to go, people to see, and things to do. How likely is it that one of you will also describe your time commitments with an exasperated tone? A sense of exhaustion for all that is demanded of you. This is the moment the concept of “busy” tips the balance from giving us meaning to robbing us of satisfaction. This is where being productive moves from working towards an end to being an endlessly spinning hamster losing sight of why we are doing what we are doing. This is where being busy becomes so much more than being impactful.
In suggesting this, I recall a specific exchange I had many years ago. Having identified a key role that needed to be filled, I met with a senior leader and her boss to discuss scheduling several interviews. When asked for availability, this leader proceeded to read me her entire calendar, hour by hour for the next few weeks (it was not the first time I had experienced her approach). While she took great pride in her lack of availability, her boss was struck by her lack of capacity to prioritize and delegate. A subsequent exchange with her boss suggested several items on the list of “commitments” that were of far lesser value and should be offloaded. Being “busy” was not being impactful. The inability to understand the difference in this situation cost her credibility as a leader.
Time Is a Limited Resource
We are what we say and what we think. Our words and our thoughts define how we see ourselves and provide the frame from which we ask others to view us. Time is a limited resource. What would it be like to think and talk about how we use that resource to gain satisfaction, to be impactful, and ultimately to find joy, rather than taking pride in the exasperation of not having enough of it? What would it be like to eradicate “being busy” from our vocabulary?
Reimagine the exchange with the colleague or friend you run into, from the mindset of having been purposeful rather than “busy”. Viewing these commitments from the perspective of an end goal would offer a less exhausting perspective. ‘I have some really good things going on at work that I am excited about accomplishing and have committed substantial time towards.’ Or, ‘I went back to school so both the kids and I are managing through homework after dinner every night.’ Positively communicating where you spend your time, based on the impact it will provide towards your goals delivers credibility, significance, and focus to the goal itself.
Having Purpose To Your Journey
The challenge for the hamster on the wheel is there is no purpose to the journey. Given that time is a fixed, finite, nonrenewable resource, shouldn’t your yard stick for measuring how you use it be based on how wisely you allocate it, rather than how quickly you deplete it?
