09 Apr Are you busy being busy
Are you busy or are you busy?
So, which one are you? Are you busy, in control and feeling, ‘I’ve got this’ or are you busy, overwhelmed and in constant chaos?
Unfortunately, the world seems to glorify being busy. We look up to people that say, I worked till 4 in the morning, I’m working around the clock, I was up all night. Some people wear it as a badge of honour, but seriously, is this something worth striving for? When you work long hours, who misses out? How effective are you when you’re always thinking about what you could or should be doing and not focusing on the thing at hand. How long do you think you can keep it up without falling over, getting sick or screaming from the rooftop? What if you changed your focus from working 24/7 and instead, focused on the idea of living 24/7. In other words, what if you enjoyed your day, doing stuff you love, while at the same time working effectively, productively within your ‘available work time’ … how would that be?
Would you have more energy and experience joy, just that little bit more. Would doing some of that fun stuff energise you to do the work stuff.
If you’d like to change from being busy, to I’ve got this.
Here are just a few things you might like to consider.
It’s essential to create structure in your ‘busyness’
What is missing when you feel out of control and overwhelmed is structure, a system that will support you. It’s essential to bring structure into your ‘busyness’ and set clear boundaries that work for you. In other words, clearly, defining when you’re working, resting and stick to it.
If you’re working five days a week, then have a strong intention that you don’t bring work home with you. Leave it at the office. It may take time for you to feel comfortable with this step, especially if you’ve been burning the candle at both ends for a very long time.
My advice is to set the boundaries and stick to them. If you miss them every now and again, let that be okay. If it keeps happening over and over again, we may need to talk 🙂
The solution is to keep your promises to yourself
If you’ve chosen to end your day at 4 or 5 pm, then stop, put tools down and move onto the next thing.
If you’re working from home, this may be tricky; however, it is doable. The solution is to be strict with yourself. It can be done. I work from home, 4.30 is my knock-off time. If I’m feeling especially organised, I’ll stop meditate (cause it gives me a boost for the night ahead) and get dinner on. My incentive – my son has to have
dinner on the table; otherwise, he will eat himself (yes, really), so I use that to motivate myself to stop. It works every time. It’s either that or I’m not joking he will eat himself.
How do you use your available time?
A day is 24 hours; it’s not 36 or 48. Be conscious of how you use your available time. Things do and will wait. Just make sure it’s you who chooses your priorities; otherwise, others will decide for you.
What’s negotiable and what isn’t?
While making the kid’s lunches might not be transferable, changing the bedsheets on a given day might. Again, review your week. Seek out what can be changed and change it. Your sanity is counting on you.
What’s it showing you?
If over time you find that nothing has really changed, you feel just as busy and out of control as before, then ask yourself the question, what is this showing me? It could be that you’re overcommitted, you have difficulty saying no, you need to create a waiting list, put people off, or even the dreaded ‘delegate’. Asking this question is valuable. It enables you to step outside of yourself and look at your situation from an outside perspective. From this place, you can then proactively put into place measures which will assist you in changing what isn’t working.
One small step?
Find one thing, you love doing and do that for an hour a day or if feeling stretched, an hour a week, whatever works best for you. Just doing that one small step will give you the energy to do all of that other ‘work’ stuff. Go for it, experiment with this and let me know what you think?
Enjoy now.
Get off the treadmill, lean in, love hard, play hard. Your work, the cleaning, the dishes, can wait.
PS: Who’s in for a movie?
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