How to be Busy Without Feeling Overwhelmed. Tip #2: How to Make “BUSY” Good
To get some clarity on whether you’re engaged in productive action or engaged in busywork, reframe your words. In her book 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, author Laura Vanderkam writes, “Instead of saying, ‘I don’t have time,’ say, ‘It’s not a priority,’ and see how that feels.” Changing the sentence helps you be objective and determine if you’re spending time on the right things.
Similarly, saying “I’m busy” is like saying, “I don’t have time for this.” Instead, Vardy suggests reframing the phrase to “My attention right now is on …” or “I’m busy doing these things.”
“That gives you a lot more to go with,” he says. “For example, ‘I’m busy working on my book,’ or ‘I’m focusing on building my online platform.’ Having a better phrase allows you to take that word back and make ‘busy’ matter.”
When you tell others what you’re giving your attention to, you create more of a conversation with someone who is asking for your time. “You can add, ‘I can’t talk to you right now because I’m focusing on this,’ but simply saying you’re busy has lost its power because it doesn’t have any meat behind it,” says Vardy. Productivity is about slowing down to figure out if you’re doing the right things in first place, says Vardy. “When you find yourself feeling busy, slow down and take stock to see if those things you’re working on are things you should be tackling at all or at that moment,” he says.
