The Myth of Busyness
How to Be Productive Without Losing Your Mind
Bam, Bam, Bamm!
Over two and a half thousand years ago, Socrates warned us about “the barrenness of a busy life.” He was right then — and he’s right now.
In my view, busyness doesn’t just steal your time; it steals your achievements. It’s another word for “I am unproductive,” and as I’ll show, busyness is not good for business.
To illustrate, let’s take a detour from Socrates to the Rubble family. Bamm Bamm, the adopted son of Barney and Betty Rubble, was an infant with extraordinary strength — and a knack for destruction wherever he went. So why mention Bamm Bamm in a guide about efficiency? Because, like Bamm Bamm, busyness can be destructive.
Photo by Andy Bodemer on Unsplash
What Busyness Really Means
I use BAM and BAMM as acronyms to describe the different flavors of busyness:
Busy and Mediocre
Busy and Misused
Busy and Multi-tasking Madness
Busy and Micro-Managing
Busy and Modern Media
In most cases, when someone says, “I’m busy,” it’s a state of mind — a way to impress a boss, justify poor time management, or signal control over others. Too many people wear busyness as a badge of honor. It’s not. It’s a problem to fix.
The next time you catch yourself saying, “I’m busy,” stop and ask: Am I being unproductive?
Lessons From The Workplace
I started my career as a public servant in 1979 and 1980 I was assessing unemployment benefit forms in Geelong. It was a high-pressure environment: if forms weren’t processed on time, people didn’t get paid.
The 1980’s, Malcolm Fraser is Prime Minster, Malcolm, he of the famous Razor Gang that implemented tough budget cuts across the Public Sector, double digit inflation and double digit unemployment.
What a time to have the job of assessing Unemployment Benefit payments.
Geelong at the time was a heavy industrialised area with factories such as the Ford Motor Company and its supporting factories, Alcoa, International Harvester and the Shell oil refinery.
Agriculture was also prominent with grain elevators, wool storage and transportation.
Unemployment was high from the early to mid 1980’s.
We had an unwritten rule, that if a person got their form in by 11.00am, their cheque would be received, in the mail, 2 days later.
The assessor’s of these fortnightly forms, Malcolm (A to K) and myself (L to Z) had to work as productively as we could to get the forms assessed, signed off and sent to the data entry operators to input the information.
We weren’t “woke” ahead of our time but while making sure the less fortunate received their cheques on time it was a matter of helping ourselves out, most importantly the Counter Staff that would be confronted by angry beneficiaries two days later if their cheques were not received. Those who didn’t get paid on time then took the longest to deal with upon their return to the office, meaning those who had to lodge their forms on that day ran the risk of not be able to put their forms in before 11.00am on that day and then their cheque would be late, compounding the situation.
Success required focus, teamwork, and finishing one task before starting the next. Multi-tasking wasn’t rewarded — productivity was. Everyone pitched in to get the job done, from the most junior staff to the data entry operators. Everyone in the chain was willing to go that little bit further to keep the chain linked and strong.
Key takeaway: Do one job, finish it, then start the next.
The BAM(M)’s in Action
Busy and Mediocre:
Some people never rise above mediocrity. They live by “near enough is good enough” and they will always be busy chasing the last 10% of their work. Recognize them, but don’t emulate them.
The mediocre business will forever be trying to finish the last 10% of their orders and always chasing the last 15% of their payments.
If you just read the above, you are not mediocre.
The Pareto Principle
The Pareto principle should be mentioned here as most businesses at some point in their operation will find it beneficial to know what the Pareto Principle is and to understand it.
The concept was first recognised by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto early in the 20th century. He observed that 80% of Italy’s land was owned by 20% of the population.
The Pareto Principle is commonly known as the 80/20 rule.
In the 1940s, Joseph Juran, a management consultant, adapted the principle to quality control after noting that 80% of problems can be often be attributed to 20 of possible causes.
If you are operating a production facility and are having consistent quality problems, a quick glance at your work force will most likely show that 20% of you operators contribute to 80% of those quality problems.
If you use sub contractors for component supply and are having quality problems with those, again, you will, with some rudimentary investigation, find that 20% of sub contractors will be sending you 80% of you problems.
These 20% of the internal operators and 20% of the sub contractors causing 80% of your quality problems are the mediocre workers and sub contractors. They will look to be the busiest, but when you look closer you will see they are the most unorganised and lack preparation.
You be most productive with your time by hunting them out and ridding yourself of them. This is vast improvement in the use of your time, your personal productivity, as by ridding yourself of them you will not be trying to solve the problems that they were forever presenting.
By far the most important example of the 80/20 you should be aware of is not letting 20% of your customers being responsible for 80% of your revenue.
The Pareto Principle or the 80/20 rule should be used as a guideline only. It is NOT a mathematical law. It maybe 75/25 or 85/15.
Also it does not imply for a minute that you can ignore the 80% side of the principle. It should help you recognise problems and get your priorities focused. It should assist in improving outcomes.
Busy and Multi-tasking Madness: Multi-tasking is a productivity killer.
Try this simple experiment:
You will require.
4 different colored pens complete with cap or white board markers complete with caps
Paper for writing on or a white board
The stop watch on your ‘phone
1. Write your full name in one color and replace the lid
2. Write your full name in the second color and replace the lid
3. Write your full name in the third color and replace the lid.
4. Write your full name in the fourth color and replace the lid.
Repeat the above four times until you have written your full name sixteen times.
Stop.
How long did that take? I’ll give you the answer, too long!
But at least you were busy.
Now, use one pen, write your full name 16 times.
How long did that take? I’ll give you the answer, a hell of a lot quicker than exercise one.
Now you are being productive. Time is not wasted by repeatedly stopping and starting the unnecessary task of uncapping and capping pens (and changing colors).
Time to have a cup of tea while waiting for the first person to finish their task(s).
Which is faster? One focused task beats many half-finished ones every time.
Everytime we need to stop and restart a task, time is wasted.
Busy and Misused:
Using the wrong tool, short-cutting processes, or misallocating resources wastes time and energy. Misuse can lead to financial loss, frustration, or worse.
Using a hammer to put in a screw, misused.
Using compressed air to put out a fire, misused.
Using your rent to put on a bet, misused.
From the sublime to the startlingly stupid we see examples of misuse everyday.
While I have some time (a little) for those who choose to remain mediocre, those who misuse normally know better, are too penny pinching to buy the rights tools and equipment or are outright criminals.
They take short cuts, short cuts that to lead to poverty, jail or both.
Anybody who always wants to take a short cut, takes the easy way out (supposedly) or takes away the livelihood of others should be avoided like a hungry shark.
What occurs with this misuse is that the job or function that the person set out to initially to complete is never really completed by them.
They, or someone else, will need to take time from their daily work regime to make repairs. Many times these repairs will require the equipment initially required to be purchased to be actually purchased and additional man power hours are now required.
The initial costs that were perceived to be saved have not been saved and time has been wasted, costing more.
Busy and Micro-managing: Micro-managing saps confidence and kills productivity. Leaders should guide and support, not control every detail. A good manager moves the elephant forward — not pick the fleas off it.
Micro managing is a lousy method of managing, it saps the confidence, motivation and purpose from those who thought they had been entrusted with responsibility.
It does not encourage productivity and Continuous Improvement.
The micro manager must know that they have this ability to influence, sometimes a great deal of influence and this influence must be a positive influence, not a harmful one.
My favorite saying for this one is “is that you don’t buy a dog and then bark yourself”.
The two most important parts of managing are providing a light to lead the way and providing a crutch for guidance and support.
You want those who have been entrusted by you to reach their potential while working in an encouraging, healthy environment.
Unfortunately, micro managers have the opposite effect.
Let’s
1. Allow people to make mistakes
2. Allow people to question your direction
Good people will learn from both.
As long as they do not keep making the same mistake(s) both they and the manager will reap the benefits.
As long as the questions are respectable and are for learning purposes everyone will reap the benefits.
The best questions that a successful, motivating and supportive manager will receive is when people ask questions about the successful decisions that they have made. Never discourage a willingness to learn.
“Time waste is different from material waste in that there can be no salvage. The easiest of all wastes and the hardest to correct is the waste of time, because wasted time does not litter the floor like wasted material”. – Henry Ford, Inventor
Busy and Modern Media:
Juggling multiple communication platforms leads to chaos. Important information should be properly recorded and shared, not scattered across social media.
While modern technology has been a boon for achieving efficiency and improved productivity these achievements can only be reached if the technology itself is used effectively.
Do not try and communicate across more than one media platform at one time. If you are communicating with more than one person on the same platform, make sure the users are in the same conversation.
Trust me, if you do not follow the two guidelines above, eventually you will answer one or more questions from one conversation to the person on the other conversation. This will not only be embarrassing but could endanger both you and your companies intellectual property.
Tips for Real Productivity
Single Task Focus: Focus on one task at a time. Avoid stopping and starting unnecessarily.
Halfway Doesn’t Count: Doing 50% of six tasks is worse than finishing one task fully. The math is simple: partial work equals zero value.
Invest in Leadership: Consider the opinions of others both internal and externally to your workplace.
Conclusion:
Busyness is seductive but deceptive. True productivity comes from focus, organization, and teamwork. Finish one task before starting the next. Minimize distractions. Use the right tools. Support your team.
Remember Socrates and Bamm Bamm: wisdom and destruction can exist in equal measure. Choose productivity — not chaos.
“Busyness is the common thread that runs through most organisational failure — and I’ll come back to that.”
Now that we have recognised some of the people and ways that busyness can have an detrimental effect on out lives let us take the steps to set us on the path to be the most productive people we can be.
We will also look at the methods that we can become good leaders and bring out the best in others.
Start the journey