Avoiding The Business Of Busy-ness

By Author: Robert Gerrish
Total Articles: 2
Comment this article

Avoiding the Business of Busy-ness
by Robert Gerrish When running your own business it's pretty inevitable that things get hectic from time to time. However, if you're so busy you're continually working long hours and your "must-do's" are growing, rather than diminishing, you may just have a problem. Let's get one thing straight at the outset: If you subscribe to the theory that to run and build a business you absolutely have to work all hours regardless of the cost to your health and wellbeing, then this probably isn't the column for you. Show me gravestones covered in business eulogies and maybe I'll change my view. Until then I see balance as 'standard equipment' not an optional extra. One year I attended a small business meeting where a business owner was speaking of the many successes of his manufacturing business. The presentation began with an outline of how an innovative business idea, and loads of energy, had led to something quite special. So far, so good. As the talk continued, the pace of the speaker slowed as he told us of the endless day-to-day grind involved in the fulfilment of orders; the expansion ...
... of services; the addition of new products and so on. Without doubt, these steps had contributed to the success of the business, but at what cost? At the end of the talk we were invited to ask questions. With my coach's hat on I asked what would he like to have changed about his first few years in business. His answer said it all for me. Without a moments hesitation and with a forlorn look on his face, he said he would like to have spent more time with his children and family. Success? - Not in my book. Building a business takes hard work; there's no denying. But how well do you really work when you have such gross imbalance? Just remember how refreshed, energised and clear you can feel after a short holiday. Now imagine a day where that feeling is topped-up steadily rather than drained. The rot usually starts when we fail to get the lesson about saying 'no'. If we automatically say 'yes' to requests, we're likely to end up being very busy. This is a common behaviour of the new business owner. The trick is to gauge when the behaviour is failing to be of benefit and take action to bring about change. The challenge is to see if we are saying 'yes' because we genuinely want to or because we think we should. The latter means we are working to someone else's agenda. We can start by gently practicing saying 'no' and see how our state of 'busyness' begins to ease. Next is the all too frequent, misguided belief that 'no-one does it as well as me'. Fine, maybe they don't, but let's look carefully at what we're saying. By personally holding onto work procedures we are guaranteeing a perpetual flow of work and responsibility; we're saying that no-one else can learn; signalling that without us, it's simply not going to happen. This is a dangerous trap to fall into and one from which it's difficult to escape. We can start to make things a lot easier by delegating tasks to others; even part of the task. We can secure the services of an assistant who can learn from us and even..wait for it.shock, horrorhelp us do things better. We should look to simplify wherever possible and spend time prioritising work concentrating on the most important issues. Feeling overwhelmed is a by-product of being busy and can itself lead to another problem: procrastination. The solution to procrastination is action - some form of forward motion. We can achieve this by looking closely at projects and breaking them into small, even tiny, steps. If, as a baby our brains were developed enough to really contemplate the enormous work involved in walking, the chances are we'd stay put. Fortunately, we don't focus on walking, but on forward movement. Our little brains think only of advancing in a direction. The same thought process helps procrastination. We must at times take our eyes of the big goal and look instead at smaller, more manageable ones. If we've not uncovered your 'too busy' source yet, we may need to address distraction or avoidance. Sometimes what keeps us busy is a failure to complete things, either through distraction or avoidance. Taking a little time out, talking to someone outside of the business can often clarify what's causing the problem and from there a plan can be drawn up to make amends. The advent of email, the internet and mobile phones has seen the incidence of distraction and avoidance grow hugely. A good question to answer is 'what's really deserves my time?'. For example, is it right that our attention should shift immediately we receive and email or text message? Should we break our flow when the phone rings?
We need to look at where our distractions come from and question their validity. Additionally, with avoidance we should discover why. It's not uncommon to lose sight of why we're doing something. This suggests that we need to re-assess and either modify or delete the task. Finally, we'd better look at the habit of underestimating the time it takes to complete things. A frightening exercise I undertake with many of my coaching clients is to monitor precisely where our time goes. It is quite astounding how often we underestimate how long we need to complete a task. By not allowing enough time, we make ourselves feel unrealistically busy. Allow more time and the sensation of busyness can be dramatically relieved. Robert Gerrish supports business owners on a path to loving their work. From his base in Sydney, he coaches clients from the US, Europe & Australasia. To receive more of his tips subscribe to his Flying Solo ezine at http://www.flyingsolo.com.au (total: 945 words)