Are You Busy or Productive?
With the New Year in full swing many people are feeling the strain of sticking to their resolution of keeping some semblance of work/life balance. All of us have felt the panic of the treadmill moments when life moves so fast with so many responsibilities that it seems impossible to get off the moving belt safely, or at all.
If your goal is to work smarter and not harder then you will also want to focus on being productive and manage your busy-ness to your advantage. In reality, being busy is not as impressive as it sounds. While you may be in the heat of the action when you are constantly busy, you may also be less productive because you have too many tasks on your plate to manage well.
Brad Bollenbach wrote a great piece for the 30 Sleeps blog and his Busy vs. Productive chart clearly illustrates why productive is the better way to go.
| Busy
Responds to your email within minutes. Ready. Aim. Aim. Aim. Makes the boss happy. Seeks consensus. Makes it elegant and extensible. Writes a detailed specification. Finishes it this evening. What else can we add? How should we fix this? Let’s get everyone’s feedback… |
Productive
Responds to your email within days. Ready. Fire. Aim Makes the client happy. Encourages creative self-expression. Makes it work. Implements a prototype. Finishes it tomorrow. What else can we remove? Do we need to fix this? DO IT! |
If you start with baby steps to be more productive than busy then you will begin to have more time to enjoy the things in life that bring you balance. Stop the busy-ness and bring on productivity!
February 15, 2011 @ 8:07 am
thx for intro to Brad Bollenbach! Am aiming for productive side starting now!