Stop being busy - be efficient!
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There is a huge problem in today’s society, and it’s the glorification of being constantly busy. Not even necessarily productive but busy working harder and harder, as if burnout was a badge to wear with pride. Making work-life-balance a recurring dream on the vision board year after year. But the thing is, it’s not the amount of meetings in your calendar until it bursts that prove you’re successful or got the hang of it all. It’s more how you intuitively choose to spend your time, energy and resources. You may have heard about the pareto principle or the 80/20 rule, which basically means for the 20% input you give you yield 80 output. In other words you’re being effective with the time and creating outcomes that have impact.
But that’s not what we are talking about today, I want to dive deeper into this social construct as to WHY we attach so much meaning to being busy, and therefore often end up missing the bigger picture or better outcome. And this is all to do with us attaching our own self-worth to the construct of busyness.
So, we need to talk about, why this is a problem aka how it can hold you back from living a fulfilling and happy life, how to detach your self-worth from this limiting belief, and of course we will talk about some specific action steps that you can take and apply them to your life.
Why is attaching your worth to being busy a problem:
Well 3 reasons, really, 1. You might end up feeling overwhelmed all the time and experience burnout. 2. The focus is not on the quality of your output but on the quantity and 3. It can mess with your identity.
The first one is no surprise, in fact numbers of burnout reports keep on rising. And whilst this is 50/50 due to workload and expectations of employers, or if you work for yourself the fact that you’re your own employer, the other half stems from your habits and belief systems.
For years you may have been trained to work your ass off to make it, everyone around you does it that way, so you have been conditioned to “I need to work hard”. Whilst I do agree, working hard is indeed important, if for the right things, I don’t agree with the glamorisation that we attach to it. Running form one meeting to the next, working through lunch and doing overtime every single day whilst dreaming about some time off on the weekend only to answer just a few emails on sunday to get a “headstart” on monday is not sustainable. Not only does this impact your health end energy as you deplete more and more, it also affects your quality of work.
In fact, A study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology revealed that individuals who focused on intrinsic goals, such as personal growth and relationships, reported higher levels of well-being compared to those pursuing extrinsic goals like wealth or external validation.
Tying your self-worth solely to the number of tasks completed may leave you feeling unfulfilled as the quality of your experiences takes a back seat. Meaning,you’re not more or less worthy depending on the number of ticks on your to-do list.
So how to detach your worth from being busy? By learning that you’re worthy even when you’re not. And that’s where we go back to debunking limiting beliefs. The 3 steps are to recognise what exactly you’re attaching your worth to and where it’s coming from. Or in other words: create awareness. Then release the old belief through debunking it as untrue, and recreate a new belief system for example in the form of “I am worthy without 30 calls a week”, or “I am good enough and capable, without answering emails on the weekend”.
The next stage would then be to work smarter with less attachment so you can not only enjoy what you do, but also carve out time to do more of what you love or to look after yourself.
To save time and actually get meaningful shit done vs just a lot I want to share with you some of my favourite practices . So this section is especially for those who always ask me how I am so productive and disciplined whilst still working humane hours with odd exceptions and taking time off whenever I want to.
Make self-care a non-negotiable. Literally put yourself before the work and create actual distance before you even plan on doing something so you can make sure you are energised and ready to take something on. Empty your calendar, then plot in when you look after yourself. For me that looks for example like working out in the morning and then having breakfast with my boyfriend before I do any work. Or no screentime right before bed but journaling or scripting and reading harry potter. Weekends are no-work time, unless for rare occasions and I don’t shy away from muting all notifications for days to just switch off completely. Think of it from a long-term perspective, and build habits and structures that support you to go longer and further rather than having short bursts and being wiped out only to burst again. Athletes perform at their best, because they rest and look after themselves in between, not because they run themselves to death.
Don’t only set SMART goals, set AIM smart goals. A stands for acceptable, so the minimum-viable outcome you want to achieve. I stands for the ideal outcome, so best-case scenario and M stand for the happy middle between the two. So, for example, if you were to write a book, you might say your Acceptable outcome is to write a minimum of 300 words every weekday. Your ideal outcome would be to write 600-1000 words every weekday and finish your first manuscript within 3-4 months for a 200 page book. The middle outcome could be to set one something between. This way, you strive at least for the acceptable outcome and know what to do after. If you achieve more than that it’s the cherry on top. I found this approach highly motivating, and empowering as anything below 300 wasn’t an option, and everything higher a great to have and you create a nice sense of achievement as you go. At least that’s how it was for me. At the same time, it dilutes the perfectionism pressure a bit, because your have variable outcomes rather than the one perfect one.
Reverse-engineer what you need to do. Whenever I set a goal or decide on a new project I will get clear on what I want to achieve when, work backwards with what I need to do, normally I braindump it all out, then I sort it into actual tasks and plot them into my timeline. For a long time I used excel, but I invested a while ago into clickup which has been super helpful in keeping everything organized and also more efficient as it send me reminders of my tasks for the day. I added a link in the description box below, if you want to check it out.
Make the task mean something for you but not about you. and set yourself up for success. What’s your why and your intrinsic motivation and driver of doing this, where does it fit into the bigger picture of what you want to achieve in your life and how you want to live it.
For example: One of my childhood dreams was to write a book. It doesn’t make me more or less worthy when writing it or not, but it surely made me happier and I loved the process. I didn’t write it until last year. But when I started, I finished my first draft within 40 days only due to setting myself up for success with a strong practice. This included consistent and non-negotiable time-blocks that I have planned in my calendar, small rituals that help with focus like lighting a candle, putting headphones in, listening to beta or gamma waves and blocking my phone with the forest app so I’m not distracted. But also accountability structures like bringing on board a group of beta readers that expect a chapter from me every week. So what I did here was to combine my long-term dream, something I wanted to do for so long (aka strong intrinsic motivation) with a supportive structure that yields maximum output in a short amount of time. And I still had more than enough time to go to the gym and spend time with loved ones whenever I wanted (except for that hour).
Bonus tip: take notes, my boyfriend is often surprised by how well I remember birthdays. The truth is, I don’t remember them at all, I just noted them down and checked my calendar (and I have to admit I still do sometimes forget, but it’s becoming less and less). Same goes for anything else, if you take good notes and have a good system for them so that you can always refer back to them, it will make your life a lot easier and free up space in that smart brain of yours.
If you want to break out of the cycle of constant busyness. overworking and a non-existent work-life balance - click the button below to work together and co-create a sustainable and more enjoyable lifestyle!
