Why being busy is a new form of laziness

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Intercom's assistant vice president, Megan Sheridan, believes people are too obsessed with time and timing. So much so that they are trying to cover up their laziness. We bring to your attention Meghan's essay on this topic.

Contrary to popular belief, time is not a limiter. The obstacle to success is yourself.

Time management and concentration are important, but they must definitely influence the progress towards the goal. The factors limiting this degree of influence are not always obvious to you or anyone else.

Thinking that time has won is a common mistake. Constant employment is the true outcome of this battle. And worse, we often confuse it with success.

You can write emails all day, solving this or that problem, and be extremely "busy". But this is the wrong approach. After all, you can meet in person and eliminate the problem in 10 minutes. In the first case, you are simply wasting time; in the second, you are influencing. Loading yourself up with meaningless work is like being lazy.

Quite frankly, work should not lead to fatigue and stress. Influencing means realistically assessing opportunities, criteria and time.

Try to rethink your approach, despite the fact that the whole world is told: the more, the better. Why get a lot of work done in no time if you don't do it first class? Clients won't accept your hack just because "you had a lot to do." The rules of the game have changed. Your employment is in your hands. The unpredictable part of your world and your influence is yourself.

What then is stability? Oddly enough, in time. Time is objective: there are 168 hours a week, no matter how you use them. Calculate: 7 hours a day you spend on sleep and 55-60 hours a week on work. It turns out that rest takes much longer than you thought. Great, isn't it?

Let's take a look at the work segment. Your influence is spread over a 55-60 hour period. Regardless of your position and value to the company, you are part of a common cause, you are counted on. Roughly speaking, you are a commodity with certain responsibilities, a certain supply and demand. You probably want solid, consistent results, and here are a few things to keep in mind.

Quality or quantity? Either one or the other is a choice that you will face over and over again. The answer lies in the question itself. Quality and performance cannot be mutually exclusive. Influence is not art. It's just a balance between actions and their usefulness. After all, you would not fight half-heartedly.

My favorite example of this is how Starbucks responded to the constant requests of customers "we need more coffee." They developed a huge drink glass - trenta, 916 ml. It is 55% larger than a regular cup and 16 ml more than the human stomach can hold at a time. Logically, such an exaggerated and wasteful reaction of the company to consumer requests is nothing more than a caricature. But this is what we ourselves are doing all the time. We "overextend" tasks, overexert ourselves, and waste resources on work that has already been done or is irrelevant. Instead of directing the forces to something else.

We are idle, unnecessarily.

This behavior leads to high costs. You've probably heard about. This is a real professional apocalypse. It is unlikely that you would put unfocused work in the technological work plan. So why include it on your own to-do list? Be honest with yourself: what should you do?

Manage your time

• Make a daily routine to understand what it consists of. Share it with others. Pinpoint the periods when you will be busy and unavailable.
• Keep a list of tasks. Use for app,, and others.
• Track your actions to understand where you are really spending your time. For example, the application will save and analyze your life story. You can gather this information quickly and painlessly.
• Ask yourself, what can you spend half your time on but achieve the same results? Never stop asking yourself this question. And go for it.
• Plan in blocks so that meetings run sequentially. Include time for single work in your daily plan.
• Plan your schedule ahead of time with and around upcoming events such as meetings, appointments, and so on. So that between these events you can direct energy with special force on current tasks. Then you will feel like you are truly influencing your success.

Manage concentration

• Always focus on one thing only.
• Turn off notifications. Close tabs and programs you don't need at the moment. All of this is distracting.
• Eliminate the need to make decisions that don't matter. For example, Mark Zuckerberg at all public events in the same T-shirt, so as not to expend energy on choosing what to wear or what to eat. Try and you only influence what is really important.
• Take on administrative tasks periodically, but do not interrupt the current ones. Work your mail for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening before leaving home.

Manage your team

• Don't go to meetings where your presence is not required. Always check if they can do without you.
• Attend work meetings as much as you need. Feel free to get up and excuse yourself to leave when the topic of your interest is exhausted.
• Establish and maintain the timing of meetings. For example, if in Google Calendar you have allocated 30 minutes for negotiations, there should not be a minute more.
• Break off negotiations when the time is up. Business meetings require preparedness and composure. If you have allowed 5 minutes for it, the interlocutor should meet.

Influence doesn't exist in a vacuum. If not you, nobody is realizing your potential.

Effective use of time requires discipline, thoughtfulness, and self-control. You must own and manage time relentlessly. Protect your attention carefully and always work with one hundred percent concentration. Don't be afraid to cut off the clutter (respecting the people who create it). The same applies to the inner self: know when to release and when to reason with your ambitions. Be moderate.

Try to follow these tips for a week and then repeat again. Use what works for you, and remember: your behavior is always an indicator of your influence. Do the right things for the right reasons at the right time.

Energy and talent can propel you far, but influence and concentration will be with you throughout the journey.