It’s an interesting question because most of us have been conditioned to believe that the busier we are the more productive we’ll be. We live in a world that prioritises quantity over quality – more is always better. The more hours you work the more valued you are as an employee, the more successful you’ll be, the more you’ll earn. Until we burn out. Then we’re not productive or valuable to anyone!
Busyness is fashionable, we wear busy like a badge of honour. It means we’re needed, valuable and productive. This attachment to busy has become a marker of our self-worth and we cling to it.
Our societies attachment to busy means we no longer value the opposite of busy – we see down time as a waste of time. Do you feel selfish or guilty for taking time out for you? Even though it’s not just you that benefits from that time out. Imagine what a better partner, parent, worker, person you are when you’re not stressed out and tired?
It’s a concept I refer to as slowing down to speed up which I know sounds counter intuitive but bear with me! If we slow down, take time out, make time for self-care we find we become more effective and therefore speed up. Because tasks don’t take as long, decisions are easier to make and problems easier to solve, we can think clearly and we make less mistakes. This is the concept of slowing down that then enables us to speed up because we’re more effective.
It’s this difference between busy and productive and they don’t mean the same thing. In fact the busier you are the chances are the less effective you’re going to be.
We live in a world where we’ve been taught more is always better and a focus on quantity, that we should multi task, do more things in less time and that there’s never enough. It’s not a coincidence that burnout has become so prevalent.
However more is not necessarily better, especially where performance is concerned. We can work hard but only to a point. Without the necessary balance and down time the hard work starts to become ineffective. We hit a point at peak performance where further quantity starts to impact on the quality of what we produce. This is the time we’re more likely to make mistakes, less likely to innovate and less tolerant with those we’re working with. At this point more quantity starts to decrease performance until we eventually hit burnout.
That’s what I’ve charted below in this model. If we can do enough to hit peak performance without doing too much that we lose our effectiveness we’ve hit the sweet spot.
This is why I’m so passionate about teaching people how to slow down to speed up, the difference between busy and productive and how to perform at our peak. It leads to less overwhelm and burnout and ensures we are a sustainable resource.
Get in touch to talk about running this workshop for your business. Book a call here to chat further.
