Feeling busy is an addiction. There are loads of books about it, but the penny dropped when I realised that the people in those pages were a version of me.
It’s been 3 months since I transitioned my career from a SVP in a tech company to an executive coach. As the days passed by, I was cherishing the freedom of following my dream but there was also an odd feeling that something was lacking. I was not overwhelmed. For many years, I was working the average 60+ hours per week with non-stop meetings and always jet lagged from transcontinental flights. This is no longer the case so why on earth was I missing it?
When you are a senior leader in an organisation, this profile comes with the territory, but when I reflect about it, I get that there was a sense of pride in being workaholic, in being busy. I wore busyness on my chest as a badge of honour.
So let me start defining what busyness means to me. It is that feeling that if I was not filled with things to do, there is an unsettling discomfort as if I was not being efficient enough. Having my diary filled with back-to-back meetings brought a secret pleasure of how important I was. Or even, the countless to-do lists and productivity apps to ensure I was as productive as possible. Yes, I identified with busyness.
Busyness does not happen overnight. It builds up. No one consciously wakes up one day and says, my goal is to be busy. One time requests become recurring tasks that for whatever reason, we just don’t drop.
Well, this is all gone now and I consciously changed my behaviour. So I started wondering if I could have ditched busyness whilst in my last role. My immediate reaction is that probably not since I would not have a choice. Is it really true? How to act differently when we are pushed and pulled in so many directions? The short answer is yes.
It starts with the simple things at work and at home. For instance, the choice not to have your phone on the nightstand, because when you wake up you should go brush your teeth and not check the emails that came overnight. Instead of reacting immediately to a request, just pause and ask if you could say no, postpone or delegate to someone else. Keep sacred time for your family or for yourself, so when you are walking the dog or taking your kids to the park, don’t look at your phone. I sincerely wished that when I was on holiday with my partner, I would not sneak into the bathroom to check my emails, because the Dow Jones would collapse if I didn’t. I am not saying it is easy to do things differently, but my question is just for you to reflect. Many times, we just go on auto-pilot and I understand how hard it is to change.
Everything starts with awareness. If you are really happy with the life you live, then it is all fine. However, if something is bothering you, go check it out. If you find busyness as I did, my suggestion is that you don’t replace it with anything. Just be. Who knows what would flourish from there?
Busyness
