Why Being Busy Does Not Equate to Being Productive
Busyness is practically a disease today. We all cram as much as we can into our seemingly limited time. Yet being busy isn’t the same as getting things done.
Haven’t you had a day where you felt like you didn’t have a minute to spare, yet you still felt like you didn’t accomplish anything? Nearly everyone has.
There are many reasons for this, but the most important is a failure to prioritize and focus on the tasks that will really make a difference.
These are some of the common symptoms of busyness without productivity:
You’re worried today about how busy you’re going to be tomorrow.
You’re annoyed that the people around you never seem to be as busy as you are.
You spend your evenings thinking about all the stuff you didn’t get done today.
You can’t pay attention during conversations because you’re too busy thinking about all the things you have to get done.
You eat in your car.
If that sounds like you, try these ideas to free up time in your life and get things done:
Prioritize. Decide what the most important tasks are to accomplish today. If you don’t choose what you’re going to do today, you’re choosing to let the world decide your priorities for you. Dictate the direction of your day by making a decision before the day even starts.
Notice how you’re wasting time. Many times, we intentionally avoid doing what we know we should be doing. We don’t want to make that difficult phone call or work on that report we’ve been dreading for weeks.
We are all excellent at inventing other things to do that don’t really have a lot of impacts. Notice the things you do when you don’t want to do what you should be doing. It might be cleaning your desk, checking email, or getting coffee. When you notice your ‘stalling’ behaviors, it’s easier to catch yourself and get back on track.
Keep your to-do list short. A good idea is to make a list of everything that really needs to get done, and then just focus on getting the top 3 or 4 things done today. That might not seem like enough, but imagine what your to-do list would look like today if you had been doing this exercise for the last 2 weeks.
The Pareto Principle suggests that 80% of your work can be completed with 20% of the relevant actions. Focus on the most important stuff and you’ll be amazed at how much you can get done.
Eliminate the excess from your life. Avoid spending your time on activities that are optional unless you truly enjoy them. That means you shouldn’t spend your free time on that charity or club that doesn’t really matter to you. Strive to eliminate as many of the non-meaningful activities from your life as possible to leave room for meaningful things.
Limit yourself. If you only allow yourself a limited amount of time to work on something, you’ll be forced to do the most important tasks first. The fear of not getting done in time will increase your efficiency.
Measure yourself. At the end of the day, ask yourself how busy you were. Ideally, you should have a full day, but you shouldn’t have an endless list of tasks to complete.