Just Another Manic Monday?
Ever feel like your feet havn’t touched the ground in a while?
Manically busy…
Rushing Around…
One minute you’re here, one minute you’re there…
Spending a lot of time and energy….
But with little to show in terms of results?
*Raises hand*
Guilty Officer!
Man, it’s been a busy few months here at Xcelerate HQ!
- Racing for team GB in Glasgow for Triathlon
- Holidays
- Kitchen renovations
- Organising and participating in our most recent Xcelerate group charity challenge that saw us scale the 3 biggest peaks of the Chilterns.
- Putting up friends visiting from Australia
- Ticking off a ‘biggie’ on the ole bucket list by travelling the North Coast of Scotland
- Preparing to race for team GB in Ibiza
- Hiring a new Xcelerate coach and mentoring him in his first few months
- Organising our Xmas Challenge
- And all whilst doing my utmost to provide the Xcelerate gang all they need to thrive and succeed.
Sheesh….
I bet you’re probably looking at that and thinking…
‘Compared to me, that’s nothing pal!’
And I hear ya!
But the point today being…..
At some point or another we can all find ourselves stuck being BUSY simply being BUSY….
Turning the hamster wheel with all our might… but not necessarily getting anywhere.
I call it the ‘Busyness Delusion’
The dysfunctional belief that busyness is the same as effectiveness despite our own evidence suggesting otherwise.
Albert Einstein once said that ‘You can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it’
When we’re busy and rushing through life, we’re often short fused, short tempered, snappy, out of sync with ourselves and all that goes on around us.
Our thinking is fuzzy, our decision making is poor and our focus is short lived and erratic.
An indicator that they aren’t operating from the correct area of the brain associated with change and forward motion – let alone achieving what is important to us.
And to top that….a persistent busy state can be one of the greatest disguises for procrastination there is.
(You’re not hiding from the things you know you need to do by ‘being busy’ are you?)
Busy back to back schedules and busy minds rarely allow you to see the fruits of your labour.
Effective and efficient actions applied consistently and cleverly do.
But you knew that already, right?
The problem with ‘busyness’ is that it becomes a self perpetuating cycle that can be difficult to break.
Busyness simply breeds more busyness!
The only solution is an intervention.
This weekend I raised my own little white flag and took part in my own intervention before another manic week ensued.
And I thought I would share how you too can get off the hamster wheel and start seeing what you want…pronto!
- Take a breath. Sit down. Do nothing. Let everything settle.
- Re-evaluate where you want to go. Is your current trajectory heading you there? If not…carry on down the list chum…
- Take a look at where you are currently spending your time and energy. Are you spending the right amount of time on the right things?
- Address the energy vampires and things that are sucking your time from you unnecessarily.
- Set some KPI’s (key performance indicators) or mini goals which will allow you to focus your mind and ultimately lead you to head back in the right direction.
- Work out how much time you need to realistically achieve those mini goals.
- Use your diary. Move appointments and commitments around. Jiggle them about so you create more space and undistracted time to focus.
- Look at where you’ve got to drop some ‘No’s’ to allow you to priortise some ‘Yes’s’. You can’t bring your best by pleasing everyone all the time.
- Delegate small tasks that can be done by others to allow you more time to thrive.
- Move forwards