Busy Vs Productive. Stop creating more CHAOS.

Stop fooling yourself with being ‘busy’.

Busy doesn’t mean IMPORTANT.

Busy doesn’t mean PRODUCTIVE.

Often busy is just a state that we put ourselves to feel a sense of accomplishment

And more often it’s a mask for our deeper concern of the things that we are truly avoiding.

How do I know if I’m just being busy? Or productively busy?

First of all, don’t beat yourself up about it. We are human, and our natural human nature calls us to always choose the path of least resistance.

It’s why diet shakes and ’10-minute abs’ sell so quick. The longevity of sticking to a well-rounded, consistent exercise program & eating a well-balanced, nutritionally sound diet requires large habitual change, some education and a little bit of work. Ten minutes of abdominal exercises or replacing one meal with a shake doesn’t require too much lifestyle change, and that’s appealing to us.

The path of least resistance, however, is often short lived. It rewards us with instant gratification, but the gratification has a short fuse, and ends up pulling us deeper into a level of under arching anxiety about the things we really should be addressing.

We don’t sustain this level of accomplishment, because often goal attainment requires us to deep dive into the ‘too-hard-basket’. It’s nitty, gritty, often uncomfortable, and sometimes requires us to become a little more vulnerable.

Sometimes the underlying issue is obvious. There’s a tight deadline at work, but you’re not entirely sure where to start, so instead you’ve spent this week ‘busying’ yourself by clearing out your desk drawers and in-tray, instead of asking for some direction on the project you’re really concerned about. You know exactly what you need to do, but it’s going to take a bit of work and a display of vulnerability.

Other times the path isn’t so clear, and we don’t necessarily see that the ‘busy-ness’ is a distraction to acknowledging and exploring the undercurrent.

I will give you an example of a client and friend of mine who has recently been suffering through serious bouts of panic attacks, brain fog, restlessness and mood swings. As a result of their panic attacks, they’re finding their sleep, digestion and general zest for the things that they used to enjoy have been negatively affected. They found that temporarily, if they filled their time with ‘things’, they were able to distract themselves from the underlying issues. They distracted the thoughts by filling pockets of their time with more work, more running errands, more ‘busy-ness’. Subconsciously, they were able to feed their brain with ‘not now, I’m busy doing important things’ whilst spinning in circles without ever truly doing anything. Inadvertently, it was this ‘busy-ness’ that fed the anxiety, and the cycle would continue.

One day I asked them, ‘Tell me the last time you spent at least 3 hours at home… Just sat on the couch. Not with your partner, not with a friend. Just you and yourself”.

They couldn’t answer.

I asked, “are you afraid of being alone with your thoughts?”

And it was at this point they realised that all the little TO-DO’s they had on her list, were just BUSY NESS with no real PRO GRESS..

And this busy-ness was feeding their anxiety.

It took a lot of guts, and vulnerability to start to acknowledge all the nuances in their day that were triggering panic attacks. Rather than continuing to stick a band aid on this issue, this friend chose to take the long road to recovery. It ultimately meant choosing the path of most resistance, riding that, digging deeper, but in the long run, more able to understand their triggers & adjust their lifestyle before chaos hit.

Critical analysis and self-perception are the fundamental pillars to identifying whether your ‘busy-ness’ is productive or chaotic.

Not sure where to start?

Individual coaching could be the key to unlocking more time and accomplish more in your work and personal life. Contact me for a no-obligation chat about how we can work together to optimizing your productivity.