STEP ONE

Forget the Myth—
Being Busy Isn’t
Being Productive

OVERVIEW

Avoid “activity addiction”

Master the “meet, met, meat” principle

Get more out of your time through self-reflection

“How are you?”

Do you find when you ask a friend or colleague how she is, she frequently responds, “Busy, really busy!” Sometimes it is hard to tell if she is exasperated, distracted, or proud. Although our lives can certainly be demanding, fast paced, and hurried, “busy” has become a nondescriptive word similar to the often related nondescriptive answer, “fine.” Both “fine” and “busy” cover up the truth of what is really going on. This step’s goal is to illuminate the truths and dispel the myths of being busy while making sure that the person in charge of your time and life is you.

“I’m Really Busy”

A friend or colleague’s pained yet often proud expression, “I’m really busy!” leaves us wondering how to respond. If we probe with, “And how’s that working for you?” we set ourselves up for a barrage of cities traveled, deadlines, family events, and a panoply of time-consuming issues that amount to “busy-ness”—occupied time that is neither free nor necessarily meaningful.

POINTER

Too often, a busy person is an overwhelmed one, on a treadmill, expending energy, and going nowhere. Do you really admire all of this “busy-ness”? Do you really admire busy people? Should you admire them or pity them? Are you, too, among the “really” busy ones? Could it be you have become addicted to activity regardless of the outcome? Did you ever wonder if all the emails, voicemails, and endless to-do lists are necessary?

POINTER

You’ve heard many colleagues brag about the 50, 75, 100, 200, or more emails they receive each day. Is this productivity or merely the appearance of productivity? A common example is when you strive to clean out your email inbox—not just to read the emails but to get some subconscious relief. While doing so, you’ve made your company no money, you’ve advanced your agenda not one iota further, and you’ve not really connected with anyone or anything.

Identify Who’s in Charge of Your Life

In the early 1900s, the great Viennese psychiatrist Alfred Adler speculated that all we do is purposeful. We behave the way we do because it suits our purpose—sometimes a purpose that we are unaware of at the time. For example, children sometimes misbehave to annoy us, but their actions are not so much to annoy as to catch and demand our attention. Sometimes adolescents don’t complete their homework, not so much out of rebellion or boredom but rather out of fear of failure. “If I don’t try, I can’t fail!” says their inner thinking. When you are busy and when you multitask, could it be that you are really just procrastinating?

POINTER

We recently surveyed three groups of high-level managers with a simple question: “What percentage of your meetings are total wastes of your time?” The majority responded that 40–50 percent of their meetings were a complete waste of time; one responded 20 percent but then told us he was new and only had to attend two meetings per month (lucky him!). These managers were probably not the only ones who thought the meetings were a waste of time. And yet, who speaks up? Who breaks the pattern? And why don’t they?

How about you? What has your life been like lately? Who is in charge of it?

10 Important Reminders and Other Life Realities

Here are some reminders and realities to dispel the myth of busyness and to double-check that the person in charge of your life is you.

• It is easier to be busy than to be productive. When is the last time a friend or colleague answered, “Productive!” to your “How are you?” question? Yet it is well known that the words you use affect your thoughts as much as your thoughts affect your words. Try describing your day as “pleasantly productive,” “a blend of creative and practical stuff,” “best one this week,” “nice,” “beautiful,” or anything other than “busy.” See what kind of response you get. You can begin with a story or an example when you find that the description of your day is becoming boring and routine. For example, when asked how his day was going recently, one of our clients responded, “Organized chaos!” Then he went on with a concise story telling us about the organized part and the part that was chaos. He ended by saying, “And I like it that way.”
• Email is addictive. How much time did you spend staring at your email today? Worse, how many colleagues did you automatically “copy” with everything in your inbox? How satisfied do you feel about just getting through your emails when instead you should be asking the ultimate question: “What did reading my emails accomplish for me today?” You can get through many emails and not make a dime for the cause, not increase membership by a single person, and not really move the enterprise forward one bit. It’s not because you have poor intentions, rather it is because you are using email the wrong way. Like a student “studying” for a test by staring at a book, you are thinking wrongly from the start. What if you saw emails as a connection or intersection and not as an inbox? Would you treat some of the mail differently? What if your email was your town square? Thinking this way, your job is not to get through with the task, but rather to get through to the person. You save time when you connect with email rather than merely respond to it.

POINTER

• Returning voicemails is an adult form of “tag, you’re it.” Have you played that game? Or do you give every voicemail a headline up front, along with a concise, thorough answer to what you want next and the best way to get back to you? Voicemail only works when you prepare for it in advance and use it to move forward, not to play a game of tag. Like email, everyone listening to a voicemail has two questions he or she wants answered before deciding to cooperate with you:
  • What is this?
  • What does it have to do with me?
  Answer those questions early and often, and you will certainly be a “connector” . . . and you will have time on your hands.
• The cell phone is convenient, but it can undermine your ability to focus. Depending on the audience and those around you, using your cell phone can be unnecessary, unusually rude, or, in some cases, completely unacceptable. Imagine the times you have used your cell phone when the call could have waited. Were you surrounded by others who are on their cell phones and completely out of touch with the here and now? Was it in a restaurant, in an airline terminal, in heavy traffic, in a meeting, at a school conference, or a child’s little league game perhaps? Have you made calls from a public washroom? Are any of us so important that we need to be that accessible? And must the rest of the world listen to us while we think we are that important? Rather, we need to be aware of the need for privacy, the importance of social grace to others, and the influence we have on those who can make or break our careers. They won’t tell us how it affects them, but they will make a career decision based on this and more. Make a break from technology at meetings, especially when your boss and the boss’s boss are there. Never check your electronic device—never! Save time by being fully present to those in attendance. The perception others have of those who are tech-free (and fully present) is that they feel attended to.
• When you are late, regardless of the reason, you are probably kidding yourself as to the real reason. People learn to trust punctual people. Are you late because what you were supposed to be on time for was simply not important to you? When you’re late, the reason has to do with your way of choosing priorities, understanding your feelings toward the person or the appointment, and knowing yourself. Traffic is rarely the reason. You are the reason. What if you made a determination today to never be late, even to be there early to use that time to engage, discuss, or plant ideas? What if you saw the brief time before a meeting begins as your networking time or your influencing time?
• The leader’s job is never to look busy but rather to be inquisitive, interested, calmly competent, and respected. If you have a busy boss, does that really feel like a good thing? Many of the best bosses use the “meet, met, meat” principle. They know that to accomplish anything of substance, they have to meet the other person, gain his or her trust, and engage in a relationship. They know that having this meeting will render a memory for the other person that they have met. This also burns an image in the mind of the leader that you are important, unforgettable. Finally, leaders remind us of the meat that you can share together. This is the substance of your meeting, the thing you can do together now that you have met. What would your chance and arranged meetings be like if you implemented the meet, met, meat method? Adopted in this way, there will never be another meeting, wedding, funeral, or party that is a waste for you . . . as you meet, met, and threw some meat to others.
• If you can’t connect with me within 24 hours, you are way too busy . . . or think you are. There is great satisfaction in being able to respond within 24 hours. This does not mean you have to meet every deadline within 24 hours but simply that you have responded and that others know they have connected with you. Telecommunications today allow fast connections; people know that and expect timely responses more than ever before. Just a note that says, “I received your email and am working on it. I’ll get back to you with details soon” will suffice.
• Your quiet time today at work and at home will probably be your most productive time . . . and truthfully, few of us use it enough. What if you scheduled some right now? Try something other than a “close the door and work” session. How about a “close the door and reflect” session? Creativity experts have long taught the importance of the incubation step for eliciting and evaluating ideas. Early morning reflection or a walk at the end of the day provides quiet time for busy professionals. But what if you go one step further? Instead of doing something, what if instead you planned, thought through, and decided?
• Don’t kid yourself, your family, or even your stockholders. You are neither irreplaceable, nor are you so important that life won’t go on without you. We are surrounded with meaning and with seeming meaninglessness: People die too soon; lives are cut short, incomplete. It is as if whatever we are doing now is extremely important and yet in an instant it can be altered, changed, even over. Awareness is the key that reminds us we are both important and replaceable. Are you truly aware of this tightrope of meaning and meaninglessness that you walk? You are busy, and yet if a loved one is taken to the emergency room, do you really have to think about it? Or worse: Is what you are doing now so very important to you that it could be seen as falsely urgent, addictive, and misguided by those you work with?

  Here is one simple time-saving technique: Monitor your smile and your enjoyment of the moment. Those who believe themselves to be superhuman waste an enormous amount of resources focusing on the what rather than the who.

• The busy part of you is not as important as the productive part. What are your three or four (maximum) goals in your life? If you have to achieve anything with your life, what is it to be? Alan Lakein, author of the classic book How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, recommends you always ask the “golden question”: What is the best use of my time right now? Try asking yourself that question often during each day. The answers will be surprising.

Listen to Your Own Rhythms

Physicians have long suggested that we listen to our own natural circadian rhythm. When are you at your best? Some of us truly are morning people. Others really do wake up after dark. Rather than trying to fit things and people into a schedule, how can you build your activities around your own natural best? One of our colleagues snacks throughout the day and then eats lunch after 3:00 p.m. because he says lunch just makes him sleepy.

POINTER

High Point University president Nido Qubein thinks about time differently. Instead of thinking minutes and hours, he manages time in terms of five-minute units or 15-minute segments. If someone wants an hour of his time, he thinks in terms of 12 units or four segments. This allows him to better determine what the worth of that invested time really is and helps him think less generically about an hour as one of 24 and more as a precious parcel of time right now.

He also considers how the person requesting time really uses that time. Does he typically wait until the last 10 minutes to ask what he really wants from you? Qubein suggests beginning your conversation with, “What do you most want to talk about today?” rather than the typical and generic “How are you doing?” When you take the reins of the conversation from the beginning, you find time more productive.

Four Plans of Productivity

Consider the diagram in Figure 1.1. You’ll see a broader version of this later in the book. For now, notice the Four Plans associated with your productivity. The circles represent the dynamic forces that you engage in every day. These are the forces that shape your day and your time.

Circle #1 is about your history; your organization’s structure; your family’s past; and the important legacy that every person, event, and organization has that shapes its present and its future.

Circle #2 is your personal experience of life, how you view it, understand it, and make sense of it for yourself. Although you may encounter history and the traditions of others, you have your own perspective. When a friend returns from Europe with stories of the Eiffel Tower, the Tower of London, or even the special coffee shop in Leuven, his or her eyes and words are full of history. When you ask, “How was that for you?” you get an even deeper insight into the trip—that person’s personal experience.

Circle #3 focuses on your professional and personal skills—the toolbox that you carry each and every day. Some of you are the masters of the interpersonal, others of the financial, and still others of how to swing a hammer or operate a construction crane. These skills help you navigate the world. The better you are at these skills, the more effective you are day to day.

Circle #4 is your ability to enter into the world of the other— to engage and cooperate, negotiate and achieve consensus, and educate and develop. These interpersonal interactions and discussions are the sum total of the other three circles but are distinct unto themselves because so much of your life is wrapped around others. The middle circle represents the fruit of your labors. These five circles are dynamic, constantly changing, moving, and interacting. The closer you allow the circles to overlap, the larger your middle circle is—your influence with and over time.

Build Your Plan

Each circle combined with one other can prompt you to make the first step in your time journey—the plan. The plan is at the heart of a self-regulated life. When you understand the dynamic forces in your life that lead you to productivity and purpose, you can also go about the important business of creating and following the plan—and this puts you in charge of your own world. Have a personal business plan in addition to the real business plan. It will be a critical guide for you—a time saver, a life saver, and a career saver, too.

Business Plan: Your personal business plan will primarily be the combination of your knowledge of the business (goals and traditions) and your interactions with others (discussion and dialogue). Every new employee, and even veteran employees after a major change, must engage in understanding the system, the organization, and the people. Without knowledge of the business and your interactions with others, as well as a studied approach, your time will be chaotic as will your business plan.

Business Forecasting Plan: What is coming down the road that you need to know will be a combination of the organizational culture, its “system-ness,” and your personal experience in the profession and on the job. Here is where you will find your own personal wisdom. This is why experienced and engaged veterans of the company can provide you with valuable understanding. Retired politicians earn big incomes becoming advisors because they can finally say what they want rather than say what they think others want them to say. Comedian Jay Leno remarked on The Tonight Show during the writers’ strike, when few celebrities would cross the picket line to pitch their latest movies, “Now, I can finally tell everyone what I really think of these movies!”

Personal Plan: Your personal plan will be an outgrowth of your personal experiences and your professional skills. This is your value to the organization and to your team. We often advise clients interviewing for a job that they construct a 90-day plan—what are they going to do when they get the job (not if they get it)? Every employer wants to know more of what you will do, not as much of what you have done.

Professional Plan: This plan, too, is personal, but comprises your skills and the skills of others in communication with one another. The others may not always want to communicate. They may want to compete, demand, and bully—all the more reasons to have a plan based on skill.

The point is that successful people have a plan that saves them time, money, and effort, and perhaps influences their careers. This book is about making that plan. Worksheet 1.1, at the end of this chapter, can help you build your plan.

Here’s What to Remember

What keeps you going? What probably should? What do you really want? This is the question asked at the beginning of this book. Instead of seeking tips and techniques to save time, you will save your life when you reflect on yourself, your actions, and especially your attitudes.

WORKSHEET 1.1

Getting ready to save some time: A personal initial assessment

1. Time saving is like dieting, we do better when we have data. A good dieter knows exactly what he or she ate today and last week because of a food diary. Consider keeping a time/energy diary. For at least one week, note what you did and when, how much time it took, and who else was involved.
2. Think of the 10 most important people in your personal life and the 25 most important people in your business life and list their names. Over the next month, put a check next to their name each day you personally meet with them, speak to them, or interact with them.
3. Look at your schedule and your checkbook. Where you spend your time and your money is a keen insight into your future direction in life.
4. Ask others who know you for three words that describe you in relation to time and energy. Don’t argue with them! Simply accept each word and the explanation and move on to the next person. Notice any patterns—especially the surprising ones.
5. And finally, how do you feel about your use of time? Where do you applaud yourself? Where do you feel you are falling short? Who loses besides you?

Mindset Questions for This Chapter:

1. What are you noticing about your thinking about time just since the last chapter?
2. What have you done recently, even in a small way, that made more sense to you time-wise?
3. What else are you aware of that is happening in your life because of questions 1 and 2?