Being Busy – This is How to Overcome Chronic ‘Busy-itis’

Aug 2018

I must admit, whenever I hear someone complaining about or showing the symptoms of this common ‘disease’, I cringe – and I’m not even a doctor! However, before I judge them, I always catch myself because I too used to suffer from the destructive and debilitating effects of ‘busy-itis’, also known as the disease of being busy.

When I had it, it was like I was always running in circles like a dog trying to catch its tail, instead of in a straight line toward my goals.

How many of you out there suffer from ‘busy-itis’ or the disease of being busy?

Today’s post will take a deep dive into ‘busy-itis’ and look at some of the symptoms of being busy, the causes of being busy, and finally, the various treatments options available for being busy.

You can kind of think of this as the self-improvement version of a WebMD article. I do not claim to be an MD nor do I have a Ph.D., but one of my co-authors, Howie, does have a Ph.D., so I guess you can file this blog post under the ‘PrimeYourPumpPh.D.’ archives.

And instead of the disease affecting your body and/or mind, it is affecting your long-term goals, as well as your time and productivity.

Actually, you know what? Come to think of it, as you will see – it can affect your body and mind as well!

What are the Symptoms of ‘Busy-itis’?

Like any common disease, being busy or ‘busy-itis’ is characterized by an array of symptoms. Some of you may suffer from just one, while some of you may suffer from many of the following symptoms:

Running around like a chicken with your head cut off – You find yourself jumping from task to task without time to blink. Who has time to blink when you have a ton of stuff to do?!?!

Feeling stressed and overwhelmed – Being busy is often accompanied by a feeling of being overwhelmed and a fear that you won’t get everything done, which indirectly causes you to also feel stressed.

You are average at everything – It seems like everything in your life is average – from your performance at work to your relationships to your health to your happiness, to ahem…your sex life. It’s like you are just getting by and not really finding true success at anything.

Being reactive instead of proactive – Instead of YOU telling life what is going to happen, life is telling YOU what is going to happen.

Feeling unfocused – You feel like you can never really sit down and be focused on one thing at a time because you are always being interrupted or you are thinking about the next thing you ‘have to do’.

Making little progress on your big goals – You are making progress on your to-do list, but the problem is that the stuff you are making progress on is BULLCRAP..and you know it. Your big goals are still looming in the distance.

How Long Do the Symptoms of Being Busy Last?

Unfortunately, sometimes we here at ‘PrimeYourPumpPh.D.’ need to be the bearers of bad news and tell you things that you do not want to hear. This is one of those times. But the facts are the facts – ‘busy-itis’ will linger indefinitely until you find and address the root cause for its existence. Lucky for you, the causes of being busy comprise the next section in this blog post.

What Causes ‘Busy-itis’? How Do People Get Infected with Being Busy?

The causes of being busy are many and are dependent on the individual afflicted with it. Some of the more common causes of ‘busy-itis’ are the following:

Not being able to say no and taking on more than you can handle – You find yourself saying yes to everything even if you know it is not a good use of your time. Remember, there is only so much anyone can do…and do well.

Avoiding the tough stuff – Filling your life with bullcrap tasks and distractions so you don’t have to handle the tough stuff and handle the real problems and do what is important.

Not taking the time to plan – Doing stuff at the last minute, in a rush, and being reactive is often a function of not taking time to plan and think things through.

Being unassertive and letting others boss you around – This is related to not being able to say no, some people cannot say no because they are unassertive.

Not prioritizing – Focusing on the unimportant, instead of what truly matters.

Makes you feel and seem important – For some, being busy is a badge of honor they wear to seem important, like ‘look at me and how busy I am’. But, if you take a step back and look at it from an outsider’s perspective, you merely look like someone who is totally out of control.

Having no process in place – This is probably the root cause for most of us, we don’t have a process in place or a treatment plan to cure ourselves of ‘busy-itis’. Don’t worry, we will get to that in a minute. But first, let’s make sure you take things seriously by warning you of…

The Long-Term Effects of Being Busy

Unless you take the bull by the horns and address the causes of ‘busy-itis’ you will continue to suffer from the following effects:

You remain average – How many truly successful and elite people do you see running around like an unfocused chicken with its head cut off?

You don’t accomplish your big goals – By being unfocused and wasting time on meaningless bullcrap, you aren’t going to have time for and will not accomplish your big, important goals.

It may affect your health – Stress is called stress for a reason, you are putting stress on your body that at some point it will not be able to handle and you will need to see a medical doctor rather than a Ph.D. and his blogging cronies.

It will take a toll on your relationships – Not spending time with loved ones and friends are going to mean your relationships will suffer and you may lose friends.

What are the treatments for Busy-itis?

As promised, we will now discuss various treatments that can be used to treat ‘busy-itis’.

Depending on the cause of your ‘busy-itis’, some may need only one of the treatments below, while some may need to utilize several. Most of the treatments have been discussed in previous posts, so instead of getting into the details here, simply find the treatments that apply to you and if you need further details, click on the appropriate links.

Learning How to Prioritize

This is similar to preventative medicine in healthcare. Many times, diseases can be prevented by being proactive and prioritizing doing the right things in the first place such as getting enough exercise, sleep and eating well.

The same thing is true with ‘busy-itis’. One way to prevent being busy from overwhelming you is to prioritize what you are doing beforehand. We methods we suggest are:

The 80-20 rule: The 80-20 rule works by having you take the 20% of the things that you are doing that make the biggest positive impact (80%) in your life and focusing on them and eliminating the rest.

The Eisenhower Urgent-Important matrix helps you evaluate tasks based upon their relative urgency/non-urgency and importance/unimportance, which allows you to prioritize them to figure out how to handle them

Making better use of your time

Now that you know what you need to focus on, you need to make time for it. One strategy you can use is time blocking which was the subject of a recent post. Basically, you allocate chunks of time on your calendar to different tasks on your to-do list, then you work uninterrupted on that task during that chunk of time.

Stopping Your Habit of Multitasking

Once you have allocated some time, it’s all about execution. Execution means you need to stop multitasking. The last thing you want to do is be jumping around from task to task. A few methods you may want to try are:

The Pomodoro technique which alternates 25 minutes of focused work with 5-minute breaks. You repeat this process 4 times and then take a longer break. Personally, it has increased my writing productivity exponentially.

Personal Kanban which is a visual way to manage your to-do list which prevents you from taking on more than you can handle at once. It allows you with a quick glance to see what you are currently working on (‘Doing’), what you have already completed (‘Completed!’) and what you still have in the queue. (‘To-Do’)

Utilize batching which involves grouping similar tasks together. This way you aren’t wasting time jumping from task to task. For example, setting a time block for doing emails instead of doing them at all different times.

Saying No

If you have a hard time saying no to people or things, you need some self-improvement Viagra to figure out a way to make it hard to say yes. We recently did a post on saying no if that is something you need to work on!

Reflection

Sometimes doing nothing or taking a placebo is what does the trick, meaning it’s all in your head. Similarly, sometimes the best cure for ‘busy-itis’ is, in fact, doing nothing but taking time to reflect and think about what all the busyness is getting you and perhaps doing some meditation. Think about the outcomes of your busyness – is it more stress and more stuff to do? Are the outcomes of your busyness adding value to your life? By taking time to reflect, you will be able to evaluate whether or not you are doing the right things.

Measuring Progress on Your Goals – Getting Regular Check-Ups

Lastly, you need to get your regular checkups to make sure you are making progress with getting over your ‘busy-itis’, the perfect way to do this is by using feedback loops.

This is the point in time where the doctor usually says, ‘take 2 aspirin and call me in the morning’. Instead, we are going to say the following,

‘Take 2 hours to reflect on your specific case of ‘busy-itis’, what it is getting you, and what it is costing you. Then try to come up with your own personalized treatment plan utilizing some of the ideas above. If you still have questions, feel free to email us or hit us up on social media…in the morning!’

Until next time, stop suffering from ‘busy-itis’, take back your time and as always…PYMFP!

–Rick

Use It or Lose It:

To cure ‘busy-itis’ once and for all, employ whichever of these treatments work for the cause of your being busy:

Learning how to prioritize
Making better use of your time
Stopping Your Habit of Multitasking
Saying no
Reflection
Measuring progress on your goals

When to Use It:

When you find yourself suffering from the symptoms of being busy above.

What Do You Think?

Do you suffer from ‘busy-itis’ or the disease of being busy? If yes, which of the treatments do you think will work best for you?

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