Life is what happens when you are making other plans.John Lennon
-“How are you?”
-“I’m so busy!”
Why do we like to answer the question saying we’re busy?
It feels good to be occupied. It makes us believe that we are needed, our skills are required and we feel accomplished. It gives us an artificial confirmation of the importance of our lives. It’s an existential reassurance that we have a life.
When somebody points out our busyness, we may get defensive. We have dreams to chase, promotions to achieve, debts to eliminate, we have a lot of goals to fulfill.
We are affected by other human’s emotions. If our co-worker is busy, we automatically tend to feel the same. It’s infectious.
We think that success means to squeeze more tasks into a day than others do. We use time-management apps not to liberate time for us, but to add extra duties to satisfy this world of infinite demand.
Busy and Business.
Busy and business words have the same roots in old English.
Busy – careful, anxious, continually employed or occupied, in constant or energetic action.
Business – care, anxiety, occupation, the state of being busy, occupied or engaged (the latter replaced by busyness.)
It’s a great business to keep us busy because we’re distracted. Unfocused people get taken advantage of and are easily manipulated towards more consumption. We tend to spend a lot of money on expensive things, luxury holidays, or weekend getaways because we feel that we deserve it as a reward for our hard work. “Stuff” doesn’t make us happier for a long period of time.
It’s challenging to get out of this trap. In this competitive society, we feel pressure and fear of losing our jobs. We don’t recognize our value, full potential, so we limit ourselves and accept busyness as a part of life.
Being busy as a choice.
There is an option where you choose voluntarily to stay many hours at work or bring it home. Maybe you’re one of those lucky individuals who love their job, and sees it as life, purpose, commitment.
You can use your strengths, have control to make decisions, see the results you have been working on, and be acknowledged for them, getting direct feedback to evolve and spend time with other professionals with the same mindset.
The main difference is, if you ask them how are they, they don’t reply,” I’m busy”, they never complain about their busyness. They perceive the time spent as being productive and will respond telling you all about their achievements and finished projects they had been working on.
What message are we actually sending to people around us by saying we’re busy?
1. You don’t work smart, even worse: you’re lazy.
You don’t want to come out with brighter, efficient solutions on how to do things. You prefer easy tasks (like replying to the never-ending inbox of emails) instead of doing hard work (like preparing webinar or making video-trainings). You are seduced by a false idea to feel fruitful while you procrastinate.
2. You focus on yourself first.
You’re saying, “I have a life. I have several responsibilities, obligations, stuff to do.” Everyone is busy, it doesn’t make you special. That’s a curse of the society we live in.
3. You don’t know how to say NO.
You can’t make tough choices and be selective about assignments.
You can’t handle your bookmarks, emails, amount of data received per day as all is too much. I’m with you here, we have too many stimulation, pressure, information to handle. Our brain is at the same time overstimulated and bored.
No one owes you anything. The world keeps spinning without you.
4. You settle down for mediocrity.
You don’t have any achievements to be proud of. You drag about busyness instead of working on your personal projects. Sometimes we think, the busier we say we are, the more productive we sound, but the opposite is true. If you’re pulled by other people’s requests and expectations, you won’t make things happen. We are convinced that our needs are not significant or we miss the courage to take a desirable action.
5. You’re not open to new opportunities.
If an exciting project shows up, your boss (or whoever has a new idea) won’t have you in mind to take over as you’re too occupied to be involved.
6. You value work over your beloved ones.
You don’t make time for people you love. You don’t have work-life balance, one of the keys to happiness.
Create space for your relationships, friendships, people you care about. Smart people know that quality connections are much more critical to run a successful business than any marketing strategy.
7. You fear of missing out.
You’re addicted to your busyness because you feel you’re in the loop. You multitask, even though it makes you nowhere fully present and deliver half-made projects. It’s done, but it’s not mind-blowing.
You are missing life. You don’t have time to think, to process, to create; you chase everything that’s going on.
Busy means having a great deal to do.
What is mine? What do I crave to accomplish? What do I truly want for today? How it will help me to achieve my dreams and goals? How does this activity bring me closer finishing today’s tasks? Would I be doing this if it would my last day?
Focus on 2-3 things per day, which are important and meaningful to you. Reject activities which are not. I start my day with tasks which scare me the most because I’m productive in the morning.
Train your creativity to identify and solve problems in an efficient way. Use time wisely by closing all attention-driving-away tabs, turning off the phone, closing social media notifications.
Do you want to promote anxiety and busyness, or change, progress and effectiveness?
Next time, if someone asks how are you, before replying “I’m busy”, stop for a second and take a deep breath. What is the message you want to send to that person?