3 Tips to Cure Busyness – by Arnie Wohlgemut
I have noticed that if my business goes through a slow time, I start to get ‘busy’. I find myself doing things that aren’t on task and doesn’t move me forward towards my goal. It’s as if all the less important “things” in the back of my mind, suddenly push out the important tasks that could build my business.
This is not a challenge unique to me, I believe it happens to everyone.
One of the services my company provides is organizational reviews. Unlike employee engagement surveys, that have a reputation of “nothing ever changes”, organizational reviews tend to put folks on edge. Very quickly folks become busy to secure their position.
“Being busy has almost become our identity – we think the busier we are, the more impressive we seem – it’s a story we tell ourselves every day. …Instead, it’s time we all got into the habit of stopping and pausing once in a while – after all, making the time to think is where we’ll find the real route to success.”
Alistair Cox
Being busy seldom adds the value needed to secure a position or lead to future success. We have all heard it: “Add value.” This comment is prevalent in the leadership and training circles, however it’s seldom clear what adding value means. Here are some quick tips to keeping you and your people from plodding away on the treadmill for the sake of appearing busy allowing you to add value:
- Focus your efforts on tasks you have control over or have influence on the outcome. Mastery of this focusing skill will serve you well in many other life situations.
- Eliminate tasks and processes that do not help you achieve what you have been hired to do. If you’re not sure why something is being done, “think it through, figure out exactly what you want to know, then ask your superiors as clearly as you can”, says TimeShare CMO’s Melinda Byerley.
- Automate as many remaining tasks that you can. If you must dig deep into data to generate a quarterly report, then you have not automated enough route processes.
Mastery of these three tips along is an important demonstration of the added value you provide.
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