In this blog post, I will tell an imaginary story, a hypothetical example of Busyness that you might also partially recognize from your life and leadership role. At least aspects of it.

It is meant to spark reflection, discussion and learning and to positively affect beliefs about being busy.

The Airport.

You get up at 3:45 am and feel like a nightwalker.

Yet you quickly eat your cereal and drink your boiling hot coffee so fast that you get a tongue burn. Then you rush into the ice cold shower (you simply need to save on heating) before you routinely put on your business clothes. As a new first-time manager you are on your way to the airport to catch your early morning flight. You will join your remote team located in Poland.

You want to take the elevator from the 7th floor with your luggage, but it seems that it has come to a halt in the ground floor and is not moving. But, hey, you feel fit and just take the stairs as a good morning Stairmaster exercise.

On your way to the Metro, that will take you to the airport, you see a Metro sign stating that the Metro station is closed due to a regular maintenance of the tracks.

Damn it! You think to yourself. Now you will be really delayed on arrival to the airport. Your heart is pounding and you begin to sweat.

Quickly you begin to look for a Taxi, but no one is around at this early hour. Then you grab your phone and try to find the phone number for ordering a cab. An employee from the Taxi Central tells you that the nearest Taxi is 20 minutes away, so you will have to wait. You now wait trembling with impatience and you feel like if you will not make it in time. You constantly look at your watch.

The Taxi is a few minutes delayed.

Come on! How difficult can it be to arrive on time, you think to yourself.

Luckily, the cab arrives shortly after and you hastily almost throw your cabin luggage in the trunk. You instruct the Taxi driver to drive fast to the Airport for you to make it in time. So, in that moment you transfer your own busyness to the Taxi driver.

He looks a little perplexed, but then begins his metaphorical Formula 1 race to the airport hopefully without pit-stops and tyre changes (you mentally kicked the tyres, and they seem ready for action)

Upon arrival to the airport, you pay the Taxi driver and run to the terminal building with your luggage rolling behind you (like a fox with its bushy tail). You try to find the check-in counters for your flight, because you were not able to check in beforehand for the flight due to COVID-19 restrictions. So, you need to find the right check-in counter to show your detailed travel documents.

You see a long queue (worthy of an Ed Sheeran concert) in front of the check-in counter where you need to go. The queue is moving really slowly because there is not enough airport employees at the counters. They ask for you all to be patient. Luckily patience is your middle name… Not!

You are about to explode! You don’t think you will make it in time when you also have to go through the security area.

But, within a few minutes the queue begins to loosen up and flow better, so you quickly get to the counter and show the different travel documents. Shortly thereafter, you run to the security area.

The security area flows consistently and you place your luggage, laptop and electronic devices in the baskets to be checked by the security personnel. You walk by the body scanner and receives a very thorough one-to-one body scan and inspection by an airport security guard.

You are happy that you are not in their shoes performing a body inspection of yourself now where you are sweating heavily and it shows on your clothes.

As if it wasn’t enough you are also “the winner” of a random check of your luggage. A thorough check of your suitcase, that makes it a struggle to pack and close the suitcase again. But you finally manage it.

Coming through the security area actually runs quite smoothly and you quickly thereafter run to the flight gate where boarding has already started. You make it in time sweating and with your heart pounding.

The Workday.

Later in the morning you arrive in your Volkswagen rental car to the office after a 45 minute drive from the Polish airport.

You start by engaging in some hour-long project meetings, to quickly pick up on the things to achieve in an important project with a short deadline. You have time with your team followed by back-to-back business meetings, so you get a late lunch.

Your team is happy to see you and they ask how you are.

Rushing between activities, you say that you feel so busy today. So, many urgent tasks to do and you don’t have much time available.

A team member asks for some time with you to discuss a personal matter face to face, but you don’t have time and ask that the employee wait until later during the week. The team member looks a little puzzled, but then accepts to come back another day with the matter.

You then quickly swallow your lunch in almost a race for time. Short of breath you go on a Teams call with some important stakeholders in the organisation. They are not satisfied with a delivery by your team, which was missing the mark in terms of deadline and quality. They want for you to personally take the lead on a new very short-term delivery with a deadline within a few days.

As the ambitious person you are, you agree to personally take the assignment and deliver as promised.

The day continues with myriads of meetings and no breaks in between. You are getting tired and begin to “zoom out” a bit in a few of the meetings, where you don’t play an important role. You consider whether you have managed your time and energy well enough and why you are invited to these meetings. You even say to yourself that you shouldn’t have accepted the meetings at all!

Around 6 pm, you make a call to order some take-away dinner, which you will pick up on your way to the hotel. It is ready in 30 minutes, so you hurry to send a few more urgent last-minute e-mails. You have now been on the road for more than fourteen hours straight.

You are one of the last ones in the office, so you turn off the office lights and head to your rented Volkswagen. You feel that you are slightly delayed and don’t want to miss your take-away dinner (as you have looked forward to the Chinese noodle soup), so you push the gas pedal to get to the restaurant in time.

When you arrive at the hotel room, you eat your now tempered salty soup alone. It is almost 7 pm and you would like to start working on the important assignment due in a few days, so you eat your dinner rather fast. You know that the next days are occupied with meetings, so you need to get started on the assignment tonight.

You receive a text message from your manager, that you need to come back on a critical matter asap, so you open your laptop and finds out that the quick e-mail you sent before picking up the take-away food has created turmoil already. It was filled with errors and sent to a wrong person. You start cold sweating.

Arhhhh! Really! Even more work, you think to yourself. Furthermore, you don’t want to look bad from the mistakes you made.

Quickly, you handle the situation with a new clarifying e-mail and keep your manager in the loop.

The clock is ticking and reaches 8 pm and you are still working on the assignment. You are drained now and feel almost like as a tunnel vision, when you look at your laptop. You narrow in on the data and graphs of the Powerpoint presentation. It is almost like you work in slow-motion.

Around 10-11 pm you decide to call it a day after more than 19 hours. You know that the next workdays will just repeat themselves in an endless cycle of busyness, urgency and overwork to do things.

You are so tired, drained and exhausted now that it affects your well-being, so you fall a sleep instantly.

The Hotel

The next morning at 9 am, a cleaning staff knocks on your hotel door. No replies.

She knocks on the door again. No replies. So she locks herself in to your hotel room. She asks if anybody is there, but again no responses.

She starts cleaning the bathroom and walks between the multitool of a cleaning trolley and the bathroom. She has a very strict deadline and needs to clean six other rooms, so she is really busy this morning.

She walks to make the bed and then screams loudly and covers her mouth with her hands.

Next to the bed, your lifeless body lie on the floor.

You look peaceful as you lie there on the floor not breathing and with no pulse. The empty overturned cup from the Chinese noodle soup lies next to you. During the night, you had a stroke and silently died alone in your hotel room. Without your family or anyone dear to you in that room.

Her first instant thought is that it is really sad. Then she thinks about if anyone will miss you?

At the same time she also thinks about the time she now needs to spend calling the police, an ambulance and informing her manager. It will slow her down even more today from her busy cleaning schedule in the hotel.

While being occupied with her own thoughts, suddenly a loud whistling sound breaks the silence.

What was that? Was it coming from you?

The cleaning staff walks closer to you on the floor. She hears the sound again now even louder.

It is a snoring sound. You are snoring really loud now.

You wake up like from a nightmare, shocked and fully alive. You have just been sleeping very tight. You look straight into the eyes of the cleaning staff, who is now almost leaning over you in the floor (what an awkward and a little too intimate situation).

She quickly moves away and mumbles something about coming back later to clean your room.

You look around and is surprised to find yourself on the floor. You look at your watch that now says 9.20 am.

You turn pale as you are now one hour delayed from your first morning meeting. You are already behind your schedule and begins your day by being busy. Now the busyness cycle starts all over again.

What can we all learn from a story like this?

It seems that busyness has become a new and often involuntary badge of honor in life for managers and employees in many organisations and corporations[1]. Combined with a so-called productivity paranoia from employers, where being accessible online all the time in hybrid settings have become the new office face time. A way to show that we are there and busy.

It is also a natural reaction by leaders to become more task-oriented in times of crisis or uncertainty and wanting to move closer to employees and pushing for more speed and productivity[2].

That and the busyness paradox can luckily be much more balanced.

Is busyness something we impose to avoid our feelings and thoughts? Is it a way to avoid the present moments, because they might be difficult to handle for us? Or is it solely about ambition?

I believe there is something to that.

But it doesn’t have to be like that and some forms of busyness are in fact motivating and create momentum. It is critical for our mental and physical well-being however to be able to hear our own thoughts and notice what we actually feel, our real emotions.

“Life is too short to be busy.”

Tim Kreider

Remember that life is too short to not focus on the present moment.

What are your experiences with busyness? Are you yourself trapped in a busyness paradox?

Please feel free to share your experiences with busyness in the comments below.

When we work together in a Coaching cooperation, we will work in a partnership to..

* Set clear, exciting goals that motivate you to take action and achieve your goals.
* Create new perspectives and patterns to create balance and give you confidence to achieve your goals.
* Become aware of where you need to be accountable to create action and get things done, to help you better manage your time and energy and improve your performance & well-being.

Please feel free to contact me to learn more about Coaching.

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References.
[1]Schulte, B. (2019) Preventing Busyness from Becoming Burnout, Harvard Business Review. Available at: Preventing Busyness from Becoming Burnout (hbr.org) (Accessed 10 November 2022).
[2]Wedell-Wedellsborg, M. (2022) How to Be a Good Leader in a Bad Economy, Harvard Business Review. Available at: how to be a good leader in a bad economy (hbr.org) (Accessed 29 November 2022).