You almost never hear someone say they are too busy to scroll social media.
Or, too busy to play Words With Friends.
Or, too busy to watch T.V.
Or, too busy to shop online.
Or, too busy to listen to the latest gossip.
But, you will regularly hear people say they are too busy to schedule planning time.
Or, too busy to visit with donors.
Or, too busy to plan the off campus event.
Or, too busy to get the newsletter designed and printed on time.
Or, too busy to prepare for the Board meeting.
Two observations about being busy:
- A culture of busyness is a bad culture. Focusing on being busy leaves people burned-out and lowers productivity (because people aren’t focused on being productive, they are focused on being busy). Focus, instead, on creating a deep work culture, and discourage multi-tasking.
- We really aren’t as busy as we think we are. And, the people who regularly talk about how busy they are, typically aren’t.
Yes, there is time to do deeper, more productive work. Many of us aren’t really too busy.
We just need to get better at identifying and reducing the self-sabotaging behaviors.