Stop Being Busy!

How many times have you asked a colleague how there day’s going and the answer is ”I’m so busy!”?

What does that actually mean?  When someone says this to me, I hear:

• “Please don’t ask me to help you”, or
• “Please don’t talk to me”, or
• “I’m very important”, or
• “Look at me – I work so hard”, or
• “I can’t manage my time”.

Don’t get me wrong here. We have hectic lives; especially those with children, health issues, busy social lives or particular hobbies. We only have 24 hours every day to do what we have to do.  But therein lies the key: what we have to do.

As with many life hacks, the secret is in planning!

Being mindful of our priorities each day and scheduling time to do the absolute necessities is the first step to becoming less “busy”. This has the effect of allowing us to finish a day knowing we achieved what we needed to, but also gives us permission to shut out the noise of modern life; browsing social media, the ten minute chat mid-morning about shoes, the viewing of stock pages, catching up on the gossip…or explaining how “busy” we are!

Is this noise so important it must be addressed right now?  Or could these time-fillers occur when there isn’t an appointment to make, a report to start, or a meeting to prepare for? These time wasters can be beneficial to the brain. They can create a detour to allow a rest between cerebral activities. In fact, the best time managers seem to be able to fit these activities in anyway because they know what they need to do today in order for it to be a successful day; and they’ve allocated time to ensure those things are done.

Sure, there are many instances when the unexpected happens, when last minute requests are made by our managers, a colleague calls in sick, or a computer decides to crash. These are stressful times and invariably cannot be avoided. The things that throw your day out are often not your fault; they are caused by someone else’s inability to plan and prioritise. Sometimes they are unavoidable. That’s life. I get it.  

What I’m talking about here is the person who is “busy” almost all day. Every day. Albert Einstein gave us a definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. So here's something different...

I suggest you maintain two ‘inboxes’ and stick to your diary. Simple!

1. The first ‘inbox’ is a task list. You might call it your “to do list”. I keep mine in my Outlook email account, so that each day when I log in to my email there is a list of tasks I need to complete for the day. If a particular task has a deadline, I note that at the beginning of the task description. This enables me to reschedule the task if something else pops up through the day and I need to move it to the next day, or the day after that, and so on. I ensure this task list is empty by the end of the day, either by appropriately rescheduling what I didn’t need to complete and couldn’t get to. Or (of course) by completing the task.

2. The second is your email inbox. Apologies here if you don’t use one, but I’d say most people do – particularly white-collar workers like me. This inbox should be empty every night when you finish work. Once you have dealt with the contents of an email properly, move it to a relevant folder. If it’s something that can’t or shouldn’t be completed today, create a new task in your task list (see previous paragraph) and assign it to a day which will allow its timely completion. Note here that if you have an actual, physical inbox you should rename it your Work in Progress tray and ensure any work related to the documents in that tray are recorded in your task list.

3. Finally, diarise every meeting you have, both internal and external. Schedule these so that they actually happen. This is as pertinent for internal meetings as external ones. It’s easy to think that because you need to speak to someone in your organisation you can grab them at any time. But what if they’re not available or you just don’t feel like it today? If it’s scheduled and in the diary, the chances of it happening are far greater. It might be okay if the person you sit next to is the person you need to speak to, but in almost every other case…book in the time!

You may need to have more ‘inboxes’ depending on your organisation’s workflow management system. I realise this. In my business, we use financial planning software called XPLAN to manage workflow, and this might require having that additional ‘inbox’ of course. XPLAN creates task lists itself and automatically assigns them on the day they are to be completed.

The point I’m making is you should have a limited number of places (in my case three) to refer to in order to keep on top of what you need to complete for the day. By managing these carefully and assigning any extra work thrown at you to one of these ‘inboxes’, you should be able to keep on top of your work. You should get to the end of the day with visual evidence (your empty inbox) that you’ve achieved what you needed to. You can sleep easier knowing that everything foreseeable you need to do has been scheduled for completion. And you may find that although you’re constantly occupied, you’re not as often “soooo busy”.