Pop tarts don’t benefit us in any way, although I’m sure they taste great. There is a work equivalent of pop tarts: low value tasks with no benefit, involving extra layers of touch points and bureaucracy. Is your diary clogged up with ultra processed tasks like lengthy email chains, excessive management reporting, inefficient meetings, too many layers of decision making, misallocated resources, unnecessarily complex processes and constant interruptions? This is what I call crazy busy work.
To be clear, being busy is very good, but being crazy busy is definitely not. It’s tough out there. We need to be more entrepreneurial: heads up, fixing problems and looking for opportunities. Crazy busyness keeps our heads in the weeds, busy but not productive.
Research says we spend over 60% of our week on crazy busy ultra processed tasks. We don’t intend to but if you’ve ever got to 3 pm and realised that you haven’t achieved what you set out to that morning, then you’ll know what I am talking about.
A friend told me that she sees two types of people at work in her organisation:
Shufflers – who shuffle papers and slow everyone else down.
Shovellers – who shovel obstacles out of the way and make it easier to get things done. Which one are you?
And which ultra processed tasks and activities will you cut out to become visibly successful? This is the year to be brave and aggressively simplify.
My practical and energetic Crazy Busy session will open up the conversation about distractions and priorities, shining a light on what gets in the way of getting things done.The theme of March’s International Women’s Day is accelerating action. Crazy Busy fits perfectly.