I read a great blog the other day by the superb Seth Godin ‘ Two Kinds Of Busy’. It really resonated with me. For the reason that the word ‘busy’ is fast becoming one of the most overused adjectives in the English language!
It seems that busy is our new normal state of being. Everyone is busy and reverts to using this word to answer questions on how their day was or how business is. It encompasses a lot…or a little.
It used to really get on my goat to be honest. I used to believe that people wore busy as a badge of honour to which I could not understand. Because where I come from, we were paid to be busy and had to be productive while being busy, not just be busy being busy.
Now I am slowly succumbing to the need for the word busy and its almost normality in business. So I have reluctantly, and only recently, accepted it as part of normal conversation with my clients. Yes, even I need to be adaptable for the greater good!
As Seth pointed out, in his opinion there are 2 kinds of busy – the focused version or the multi tasking version. I think most people can relate to the latter, as many have multiple plates in the air that they need to keep spinning so they don’t come crashing down! It’s exhausting and quite time consuming. This type of busy will either be achieving great results for you or not. The clue in all of this is to know what type of busy works for you and to be flexible and self aware enough to change your busy style.
To future proof your business, you need to be able to shift your business and your people, as you need to and as the market conditions demand. Remaining stuck in a certain state of busy won’t help you. You need to be flexible between strategic, focused, organized and collaborative kinds of busy. These different busy states will achieve you different results and allow you to be agile and visionary in your approach.
This is all about being busy with purpose. Don’t be blinded and encompassed by busy. Know what you’re busy doing and why. And if you don’t – STOP! Reflect and change the style of busy to another kind that will work better for you.
Have an arsenal of busy that you can draw on for different situations. The success in this is to know when and where to draw your particular style of busy weapon.