In our current overworked and stressed out society, it is easy to believe that you are doing something useful and worthwhile when in fact, you could just be doing what amounts to busywork. While you do get the rush and feeling that you are doing something, you have got to ask yourself if that is really what you should be doing. What if – whatever you are busily doing is just – activity designed to keep you busy?
How then do you determine what is worthwhile to do, and minimize the stuff that is just you being all busy and flustered in vain. Lets take a typical scenario where you have some important report that you have to finish up, and when you get into the office, you are inundated with phone calls and emails. Yes, you are certainly busy attending to the phone calls and answering your emails, but does that get you any closer to finishing your report?
Other ways that you can busy yourself include dealing with and solving other people’s problems, spending time organizing your table and your emails, and researching information needlessly on the internet. This haphazard busyness can lead to a lot of stress in your life, especially if you are not getting to do the things that are truly important to you and your career.
Sometimes, putting off the important tasks to do these random acts of busyness helps in a sense, so that you can build up a sense of urgency at the end when you really have no time left to do your important things, and you somehow find the energy to complete the task in record time anyway. You may have this tendency to only do things if your deadline is critically near.
Yet, this is a form of procrastination, where you don’t sit around all day doing nothing, but rather ignore the important stuff till the last minute. Your priorities in life need straightening out, so that you can see what the focus in your day should be. Start out the day by determining what needs to be done, and schedule it into your day planner in the order of most important to least important.
Once you have identified the important tasks of the day, you can make a conscious effort to work on these worthwhile tasks, and keep the distractions away from wrecking havoc on your time and resources. This will help to reduce your stress level as you will be taking care of the important tasks and not having that nagging feeling that you could be doing something more important. You will feel a lot better knowing that you are doing the right things promptly.
So take a moment now to reflect upon the tasks you are doing every day, and determine if what you are doing is just activity that makes you busy, or is it productive work that accomplishes something important. Take than five or ten minutes at the start of your day to plan it well, and you will save more than just time.
Shafir Ahmad is the author of “The Experts Guide to Managing Your Time”. If you are not managing your time, then you are wasting it. Don’t waste time! Get your 7-Part eCourse on Secrets To Better Time Management at http://www.PlanYourTimeNow.com
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