There is a disease plaguing our society: chronic busyness.

 

The bizarre thing about it is that most of those suffering see their condition as a badge of pride. You ask them if they are going to the event next Tuesday and they respond with a huge smile that they can’t because they are “super busy.”

 

It’s as if being “busy” is becoming an important part of peoples’ identities, somehow integral to their own sense of self worth.

 

I think one reason that  this is the case is that for a lot of people the idea of being “busy” is closely related to the idea of being “productive.”

 

The idea, it seems, is that if you are constantly doing that you are getting stuff done and thus busy=productive.

 

There are two massive problems with this line of thought.

 

First of all, busy doesn’t necessarily mean productive. You could be engaging in much activity but accomplishing little.

 

Second, even if you are getting things done, it doesn’t mean that you are getting the right things done. Productivity is not the same thing as effectiveness and getting more stuff done doesn’t mean things will get better.

 

Busy is a Decision

 

“Busy is a decision.” -Debbie Millman

 

Here’s the bottom line: you aren’t busy because you are important, you are busy because you chose to be. You have made certain things the priority at the expense of other things, and you have the power to change your priorities.

 

The calendar is there to serve you, not the other way around. Choices about how you manage your time certainly will have consequences, some of them significant, but those consequences don’t change the fact that you still have the ability to choose what you will do and not to.

 

Further, most of what you actually do is habitual, not intentional. According to Greg McKeown in his book Essentialism, 40% of your decisions happen below a conscious level.

 

Most of what you do is done out of habit and you can change your habits. Some habits, like brushing your teeth, you probably want to keep, but nearly every habit can be questioned and many can be safely removed.

 

Do you need to sit in on that conference call, or do you do it because you always have?

 

Do you need to watch Sports Center when you get home from work or is it a mindless habit?

 

Busy is Lazy

 

Ultimately, being chronically busy stems from an inability or unwillingness to set clear priorities.

 

Most people never take the time and mental energy to sit down and clarify what it is they really want, so they end up chasing everything that looks good.

 

If you want to be effective, you need to know exactly what it is that you are trying to accomplish.

 

My favorite exercise for doing this is the 10 Year Plan for a Remarkable Life, a snapshot of what you want life to be like in 10 years.

 

As renowned life coach Tony Robbins has said: “If you don’t have something to move towards you settle.”

 

It’s worth noting that not only do most people settle in terms of their results, they settle in terms of their methods as well, adopting a state of continual exertion with little forward progress.

 

After you clarify what you want, effectiveness requires the discipline to separate out the trivial many things that you could be doing from the essential few things that you should be doing.

 

It takes a lot of work to separate out the worthwhile pursuits from the worthless ones, and it takes a lot of courage to implement the worthwhile ones because they are usually the ones that we are scared to death of.

 

Once you know what you want however, there is no other way forward. You need to cut away the practices and habits that have you spinning your wheels and pursue the things that will lead you closer to your goals.

 

Even “work” can be a form of procrastination when you are pursuing the trivial many activities to avoid the essential few.

 

Saying “No”

 

One of the reasons why it’s so useful to declare yourself “busy” is that it is the lazy way of getting out of unwanted obligations without seeming rude.

 

There’s no way around the fact that this is a useful little trick, but I think there are harmful side effects that are worth considering.

 

When you say “I can’t, I’m too busy,” you are engaging in a kind of self-talk that limits the amount of control that you have over your life. You aren’t intentionally choosing to say “no,” your busyness is dictating the terms of your life.

 

Contrast that with the following:

 

• Sorry, that’s not something that I’m interested in
• Sorry, that doesn’t fit into my current priority
• Sorry, I’ve scheduled that time for something else

 

All of these responses imply that you are making a conscious and informed choice based on your priorities (which you have clarity on). You could do whatever is being asked of you because you are in control of your time and your schedule, but you aren’t going to precisely because you are in control of your time and your schedule.

 

You call the shots when it comes to deciding what to do with your own time and because you have a compelling vision of what you want and clarity about the best way to pursue it, you are only choosing to pursue the things that will move you the farthest in that direction.

 

Your time is dictated by your agenda, not someone else’s.

 

Final Thoughts

 

It’s time to stop using busyness as a crutch. It’s time to stop letting busyness be part pf your identity. It’s way past time to stop using busy as a badge of pride.

 

Busyness is what happens when you are too lazy to gain clarity on where you are going and to set clear priorities.

 

When you are in control of your time, you are never “busy” even if your schedule is booked solid.

 

You need to upgrade from busy to productive and from productive to effective.