Busy..?
We all use time as an excuse at some point in our lives. The number of courses, books, and webinars on time management is overwhelming, and like most things, the real impact is that improving your time isn’t the issue. It’s the choices you make around time.
I love working with clients and seeing how we can “create” time back for them through a simple diary management activity and a super-fast time study. The reality is we lie to ourselves about time and how we really use it.
I'm spinning so many plates at the moment
We have all said it at some point in time.
Why do we say it?
What does it mean?
What does it say about you and me?
How does it affect others and yourself?
Commonly, the following phrase is,
"I am just trying to keep them all up in the air" when you write it down, and it reads even worse.
Human nature and conversationalist rules state that if we hear these phrases in a conversation, we probably pay little attention to their actual meaning or impact.
Yet, is it a simple phrase about self-promoting, or as I said to a client last week, you could even call it sycophantic busyness? Self-promoting how busy you are or boosting your self-importance. Is this a little harsh? Or is it the want to be seen and heard or feeling undervalued, so you choose to devalue your time at the same time?
As a coach, you continuously consider what people say to you—why, what, how, and what if/about?
So what does the phrase "I'm spinning too many plates" imply? If you are spinning plates, does it perhaps suggest you lack clarity?
Ask yourself, do you know the answers to the following:
Why is this the choice of language?
Why are you short of time?
Why is this important?
What decisions and choices are you making?
What’s important to you right now?
Is this a personal choice, or do you “feel” you have to say it?
Do you believe it’s true?
As a leader or owner, consider these questions from a business perspective if you regularly say I am too busy.
What are your three strategic goals for this business year?
How many meetings do you attend? Why?
How do you communicate?
What are the milestones required in delivering them?
What requires your complete focus right now?
How many things can you do really well?
How much time does each one take/require?
What are you delegating and not? Why?
If you are a solopreneur, what’s your network of support? Do you ask for help?
Why did you start your business, and are you doing that?
If you answer no or don't know any of these, then your spinning plates are useless. You can be demonstrating ineffectiveness and the inability to say No. Or, worse, your spinning plates and glorifying busyness could be your ego taking over. Self-importance and the desire to be liked, needed, and wanted could all impact your time.
Now, one of the challenging moments is that time is also about ego. We have discovered a direct correlation around ego, either overstated or understated, devaluing or overpromoting self. (Read more here and do the ego test)
Time is the only resource we can never get back.
Think about time as money invested. Each minute has a true monetary value. How are you spending your money and time? So many cliches and idioms are linked to time for a reason. Spend your time like you spend money—think about it.
Busyness is not good.
It doesn’t make us more important or more valued (remember, we are all equal!)
It doesn’t make us look better- we become more needy and desire recognition more.
It doesn’t justify or validate, hide or deal with root-cause problems
It doesn’t mean people like you.; it usually creates disconnection, not connection.
Busyness means we aren’t choosing or valuing time; it means we prioritise the wrong things and the significant part we can improve.
"....multi-tasking is how we create a self-fulfilling non-fulfilling cycle... the skill is single task completion.
Debbie Halls-Evans and. co-founder
The glorification of busy has gone to extremes now. Let’s be realistic about using time to reflect on how we value ourselves and where we place our time. Not replying to family or friends yet adding more and more time to a work project that gets cancelled? Saying you are focussing on a balance in your life and then offering your services for free to someone because you think it's ts the right thing to do and then remove any time you had allocated to your balance? Have time blocked out in your diary for reading, exercising, stop time and then fill it.
If I told you right now I can give you a free holiday, 7 days in a 5-star resort, sun-soaked location, and you have to go in the next 6 hours -would you find the time? Consider this example of the offer of a free holiday, we suddenly would you make time? This is the reality distortion we have on time.
We CAN make time. Yet we know that we don’t actually do this. We say we do.
We tell and convince ourselves and others that we are so busy we can’t take the time to call someone back, visit, follow up, reply, or... the list goes on.
Yet, did you check your emails or your phone, watch that TV show, or attend a meeting just in case?
If we want, we will find the time. We don’t.
We choose not to do and fill time with non-important stuff.
So stop convincing yourself and others and honestly examine your time use. It’s about choices, and sometimes choosing a priority means compromise, too.
“Sometimes exhaustion is not a result of spending too much time on something, but of knowing that no time is spent on something else in its place.”
― Joyce Rachelle
What does “being” and not using or glorifying busy look and feel like? Well, I was a serial I’m so busy person, and this is what I did:
I choose to spend time with my family (kids and grandkids ), over seeing friends.
I choose to live away because I choose to have a better lifestyle with my husband.
I choose to work when, where, and how I want so I can manage my workload and walk, read, cook, and exercise.
I choose to make time to connect through social media, as I like reading the comments and seeing what other people do. However, I have to compromise that I don’t write as many blog posts as I use my time writing smaller posts.
I choose not to watch TV instead, I read.
I choose not to call someone back sometimes so I can talk about life and work with my husband.
I choose not to book meetings in the morning before 9 am so I can work out and walk.
We all know we can do better and improve, and we can and will continue working on making time a bonus and not a negative. See your absolute priority and make it count. Choose no one else. What do you choose? Carry on being busy and glorify it or actually make your time count?
…change the word busy to active- its a powerful shift change. Your brain does what you tell it.
Effectiveness and productivity
It's a proven scientific fact that we can't multi-task; we are not effective or precise. We do less and do it worse. So spinning plates is another demonstration of our lack of rather than the personal boost of how "we've got it together" and the self-importance we think we are portraying. Avoid multi-tasking, potentially a metric for “being better than others”. Single task completion is more effective, better quality and removes duplication.
Your language matters when it comes to time
Let’s consider our language in time use and application too.
The impact of glorying busy, working till we drop, working into the “wee hours”, burning the candles both ends, against the clock, time flies, in the nick of time how about
I’m so busy.
I can’t do that. I’m too busy.
Do you say I’m just constantly on?
Are you busy making excuses?
I always do that
We can all understand the importance of time choices -like nutrition, exercise, gratitude, kindness, self-care, and mindfulness. The reality is we don’t because you say I am too busy. Or do another response we see is people saying it because they think they should?
If I offered you a free all-expenses-paid trip to an exotic island, where you would meet your favourite celebrity, author, or inspiring person—yet you had to do it in the next 24 hours, how busy would you be?
How quickly could you turn it around to not being so busy? What happened to be so busy?
This isn’t a post about self-care, wellbeing, or anything else. It’s a reality check to please stop telling yourself and others you are too busy.
Permission
Would you instantly give your house or car keys over if someone asks for them? Would you question why they want them? No, we wouldn’t. So why do you hand over your time so easily?
When you give time to others, you give them continuous permission to take that time—every time they want. Permission is a huge opportunity to reflect on. If you say yes to doing something, then you give yourself and others permission that you will and can. You offer that your time is given for that task or action.
value your time, value others’ time.
if you are regularly late, you are spending others’ time, it’s not yours to spend.
Time is your choice; choose to own it.
Time is ours to do what we want; if you want to waste it, go you. This isn’t preaching that you can’t do what you want. This is STOP saying you are busy when you are not. STOP making excuses and say NO; I am choosing to do this instead.
The question is, being selfless isn’t selfish. Being focused and choosing HOW you will spend your time isn’t unkind or rude.
Ask yourself …
If we simplify, we become more effective and productive. In business, we can learn a lot from this by removing phrases that have no positive impact and saying what you mean. We can also have a better conversation and say what we are doing or focused on. We are all have a to do list to one degree or another. Yet we are all guilty of generalising in our communications rather than connecting and listening fully to see precisely where the other person is at.
It’s easier to say yes; it can make us feel better, liked, and more critical, yet it has a detrimental effect on us. Learn to say No when needed. The ability to say No brings control and choice back to you. Permitting others to take your time
Refocus today and see what happens to your plates. Maybe you have never been spinning plates after all. Focus on doing one great thing well rather than many badly, ineffectively or unproductively. Satisfaction comes from doing and completing, and this is done when we manage and choose how to use our time.
This isn’t a post on not feeling, well-being or mental health as these are critical and essential topics in the workplace. that require dedicated attention. Consider this more psychological safety in its first inception. We all have days when we don’t just do anything we should or could as we haven’t got the energy, the focus, the desire or the need. that’s ok that is being human. it’s about truly what are you doing with your time? We read so many things about how people have found out they have illnesses or life-changing things and they change how they connect, do, act, say and spend their time- let’s not wait till that moment surprises us.
16 Super Time Hacks - instant time back!
Be realistic and candid with yourself. Do the ego test and work out what it is like to desire, want, need, ego, or not say no that creates your need to be busy. (Do the test here)
Get coached—join our and.coaching, and in under 3 minutes a day, you'll learn new ways to manage time.
Use your phone and computer to track your usage (normal on all phones now - screen time, google has wellbeing analytics ). This self-check is critical to an honest and objective assessment of where time is being
Use an app to stop your wasting time- Offtime, Moment, Appdetox,
Turn aeroplane mode on or privacy mode and get into a focussed flow when working on a specific project
Turn off ALL NOTIFICATIONS on all devices.
Set an alarm (different times each day) to check, follow up, and reply.
Do a task once- duplication is the consumer of time and also creates more work for everyone.
Allocate specific time blocks in your diary—your time, activity reading, time, learning, stop, review, reflect, do, action, etc. This is essential.
Put pre- and post-buffers on EVERY meeting, action or diary invite (Calendly lets you do this automatically as a setting). This creates time to prepare and complete each meeting, task and task, as you are not adding time at the end of the day or chasing. Very powerful.
Create better email headers—code them FYI, ACTION, URGENT, REVIEW, etc., and use them for every email. Educate others or make a rule in your team. This will allow you to be more productive and act when needed.
Be more reflective and intentional. If you make to-do lists, consider using the Eisenhower matrix (urgent, Important, Not Urgent, Not Important)
SLOW DOWN- seems counterintuitive, yet it works.
Play music—an upbeat song for energy and a more classical song for focused detailed work. Music has a positive impact on us.
Use a Password manager - the amount of time that can be lost
Unsubscribe from unwanted mailing lists - a brilliant app for this is unroll me (not in the EU currently), or use your email provider to unsubscribe (see the email, and you can instantly do it on most standard email providers- Gmail, for example, or Apple has instant actions. It makes a big difference not scrolling to get to the emails that matter.
