Leaders are often stifled by the “busyness mindset” in the workplace. The busyness mindset occurs when people generally believe that the more meetings you attend, or the less available you are, the more valuable you must be. Don’t be fooled. Most leaders waste a lot of time in unproductive or unnecessary meetings, activities and on other low value tasks. The aim is not to be busy. It’s to be effective.
If you are busy, and also effective and productive, and happy with your work performance, you don’t have to change a thing. If being busy gives you significance and is necessary for you to be fulfilled, then it’s not time to re-evaluate your choices. However, if you are tired, stressed, overwhelmed, and you feel badly about the things you can’t find time to do, make a commitment to change right now. Most people don’t like change and don’t like having to create new habits, so in order to get yourself motivated, think about what your current situation is costing you and how it hurts other people.
Raise the bar
No matter what you decide, please, stop glorifying being busy. Too many people are sacrificing too much and it’s not good for the culture, morale, or effectiveness. Let’s raise the bar by eliminating or at least discouraging wasted time and efforts.
We all have days and weeks that are busier than normal. There are times when you won’t be able to fulfil some of your obligations as work piles up. The best leaders create an environment for people to do their best work. This means helping employees navigate what’s unclear, providing context about what needs to happen, and showing a path forward about why the work matters.
But you can’t do that as a leader if you are on the phone with clients all the time, buried in your email inbox, or running around to business development meetings all day.
As leaders, we need open space to listen to what’s not being said within our team. We need gaps in our day to observe what and who the bottlenecks are.
We need the time and patience to ask questions to better understand what can be improved, and to be empathetic to an employee. You can’t make decisions that are strategic and well thought-out, or map out a company’s vision, if you are busy – you will then be a tactician and not a strategist.
You can’t truly anticipate nor respond to the needs of your team if you are busy. The best leaders choose not to be busy.
People who wear their “busyness” as a badge of honour are often scattered, disorganised, and not nearly as effective as they could be. Please stop glorifying being busy. Being over-committed and not finding time for strategic planning, or for improvement, or to train and motivate teams, is nothing to brag about.
Managers who spend their days putting out fires and who are reactive rather than proactive need to realise they are not acting as leaders. Being too busy leaves no time for reflection and self-awareness. When I hear “busy” I hear “out of control” or “over-committed” or “not clear on priorities and goals”. And don’t even get me started on the negative effects on one’s personal life, personal relationships, health, wellness, and emotional state.
Be effective
What if instead of valuing “busy” you valued “effective”? Isn’t that what matters, anyway? You can be busy answering emails or checking social media or going to countless meetings, but what are you really accomplishing?
Please schedule some time to clarify your priorities, set goals, and create metrics to keep yourself accountable. You will become aware of blocks of time wasted on activities that don’t bring any value. You will soon realise that there are many things you can stop doing or do less often or delegate.
You will open your eyes to what you’ve neglected that urgently needs your attention. It will also be a great opportunity to create healthy boundaries with people who consume too much of your time. If you want to make a shift from valuing being busy to valuing being effective, you need to understand what has caused you to glorify being busy and change it. For example, here are some false beliefs and unconscious habits that hold people back.
Thinking that being less busy means being less dedicated to your work, or even lazy. Thinking that being busy is what makes you important as a person and determines your worth. Being afraid of what people will think of you if you appear less busy.
Using work and busyness as an excuse to avoid what you don’t want to do. Using busyness as an excuse to avoid the tasks you don’t enjoy. Using busyness as an excuse for delays, procrastination, avoidance, or mistakes.
Finding comfort in avoiding change and valuing what’s familiar over seeking improvements. It is critical that you reflect on your beliefs and what has kept you stuck until now, or else you will unconsciously self-sabotage and continue to be excessively busy.
Ego
Another thing to keep in check is your ego. Please understand that choosing to work differently does not mean you were wrong before. If becoming more effective and less busy makes you feel bad about your past choices and behaviour, your ego will stop you from wanting to make changes.
Give yourself appreciation for your past choices and habits. After all, it’s your hard work that allowed you to climb the ladder and get the position you have today. But now it’s time to grow as a leader and become more self-aware and strategic.
Sometimes the ego stops people from growing because they cannot stand the idea that another person, book, program, or system can offer them techniques they didn’t already know. Please don’t feel bad about not knowing the things you haven’t learned yet. You can’t know everything about everything. Have the humility to open your mind to new solutions.
Now is the time to be completely honest with yourself. Do you wish to remain as busy as you are now, or do you wish to take a close look at how you spend your time and make some changes? If you can be a role model for the type of behaviour you want to see, then you’ll start to change the culture of your team.
If you have committed to your team that you will be available at a certain time of day, or that you will review something for them, do your best to stick to it. You can drop commitments with your team because you are “the boss”. But this doesn’t look good and sooner or later your team will feel vulnerable and unsupported, and you will start to lose credibility.
One way to stick to your commitments is to block out time in your own calendar to work on specific items. When other people try to book your time over the top, politely declining or asking for a reschedule is often the best strategy.
