Busyness isn’t good business.
Your constant busyness may just be laziness.
Staying busy is how you procrastinate.
Does this sound familiar? It makes me wanna eat the wallpaper.
I have a word or two to share with you about being busy. And I’ll start by telling you my Crazy Amy story.
Many moons ago, I was a student at the University of Illinois. I had a part-time job that could only be described as part secretarial assistant and part messenger.
My work consisted of asking the secretaries if they needed help with anything. Sometimes, I delivered documents or stuffed envelopes. On any given day, they had a running list of tasks for me.
I reported to one secretary in particular. Her boss paid my part-time salary so I always started and ended my shift in her office. And that was Crazy Amy.
Crazy Amy was good at her job and a good person, but she had a lot of mood swings. If I reported to her on a day when I had nothing pending (I had completed all my tasks from the day before), she’d either tell me to go check in with the secretaries OR she’d come up with a task for me herself.
Let’s just say I learned hella fast that I did NOT want Crazy Amy coming up with my tasks.
To give you an example, one time she had me pick through all the secretaries’ trash baskets for documents with staples and then remove the staples. I’m guessing it had something to do with recycling. I’ll never know. It’s not like I ever asked her for explanations.
So I learned for me to be safe from Crazy Amy’s bad moods, I had to be busy. Or at the very least, pretend to be busy.
I learned that people like seeing you walk back and forth with stacks of papers. They want you to be busy. It makes them feel better. I even learned to spread out my tasks so that they took longer. Uh-huh.
The other secretaries would come to my rescue sometimes and tell Crazy Amy they had an urgent task that would take a while. Then I’d go to their offices and keep them company for an hour. Smile.
It’s a funny story, right?
But here’s the thing, this goes way back.
I remember as a kid spending time alone in my room with the door closed. Or going outside and playing in my fort. Because I knew that if it looked like I had nothing to do, I’d get ordered to do a chore. In my house, we always had to clean stuff.
So I learned if I was busy doing stuff, I was safe. Hmmm.
Think about your own childhood. Or jobs you’ve had.
If we’ve learned from a young age that being busy keeps us safe, is it any wonder we have a hard time letting go of being busy?
Do we really have a procrastination or discipline problem?
Think about it.
I propose that if you're anything like me, you do not have a discipline problem.
Why?
Because there's so much more going on here than willpower. Nope, forget willpower, we’re talking nervous system, baby.
This has been a huge insight for me. And a huge weight off my back. Although I can't reverse this nervous system situation, I can begin to catch myself. And I can forgive myself, don’t ya know.
Catching yourself feels a whole lot better than blaming yourself.
Do you take a shorter lunch break to get more done?
Do you keep cramming more things into your schedule?
Do you dismiss taking a 15-minute break and choose to scroll on your phone instead?
The next time stop and ask yourself:
Does it make me feel good to be busy?
Take note. Remember we’re talking about your nervous system. It’s gonna feel strange to slow down. It might even feel wrong to you. But try slowing down anyway and see what happens. You may surprise yourself.