Day 137: Rethinking “Busy”

Photo by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash

Ever feel like you could do everything on your to-do list - if only you could clone yourself?

Guilty.

Then I hear really crazily accomplished entrepreneurs like Derek Sivers (founder of CD Baby) say things like, “Every time people contact me, they say, ‘Look, I know you msut be incredibly busy ….’ and I always think, ‘No, I’m not.’ Becvause I’m in control of my time. I’m on top of it. ‘Busy,’ to me, seems to imply ‘out of control.’”

To this, Tim Ferriss says, “Lack of time is lack of priorities. If I’m ‘busy,’ it is because I’ve made choices that put me in that position …. if I’m too busy, it’s a cue to reexamine my systems and rules.”

Reexamining Is Harder than it Sounds

That sounds easy, but it’s not. It means you have to decide not to do some things you really, really want to do.

You have to want to be “not busy” more.

You have to want to be accomplish a few things more than you want to have a hand in lots of things.

If you’re like me, that feels a little like deciding which of your children you’ll pick up after school and which ones will have to find their own way home. Ouch.

Reexamining our ‘busy’

I recently heard another entrepreneur (I forget who it was) say that he tries to give away as many ideas as he can. The ones he can’t give away he figures are his to do.

And there’s the secret: If you’re too busy because you have too many worthwhile projects on your plate, try giving some away.

You might open up an opportunity that someone else can shine in. You might benefit from their unique knowledge and talents.

At the very least, you connect with new people. And, more and more research suggests that the real “success” only happens when we work together.

So the next time you find yourself saying, “Oh, I’m so busy,” it might be your cue to step back, look around, and wonder who you could connect with.