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Work to Get Out of Work

It’s usually called busy work and I see it more often than I’d prefer.

Work to get out of work happens when we say, no I’m too busy.

The problem is “busy” is another way of saying, everything else is less important.  Usually everything isn’t less important.  Being busy is how we get out of the important work.   How would it sound if instead we said; “I can’t, email is more important.”  or “I can’t, finishing this report is more important.”

It would be harder to get out of the important work if we always had to explain what we are prioritizing.

There is work and then there is important work.  The important work should always come first.   Too bad this isn’t always the case.

It’s not that we aren’t working, were just not prioritizing the important work and that’s a problem.

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  • http://scottschnaars.com Scott Schnaars

    About 2 years ago, I vowed to remove the word ‘busy’ from my vocabulary. Everyone is busy. What I discovered is that ‘busy’ is a cop out to make people look busy. They’re busy because other things have made off with their attention currency (Facebook, Farmville, Twitter, etc) and then they hustle to squeeze in the things that they were supposed to do. As you point out, it is a prioritization thing.

    Busy should be opportunity. If you’re a sales guy, and you’re busy, you should be crushing it.

    People get so down on being busy, but being busy is the best thing in the world. Busy is exciting, especially if you’re busy with the right things.

  • http://twitter.com/davemacdonald Dave Macdonald

    Keenan, have you read anything about the “Getting Things Done” method? If you have a Mac, you can pick up OmniFocus which forces that method upon you and it’s just brilliant. Priorities go out the window and it instantly becomes about ‘getting things done.’

    When I picked up OmniFocus, I felt naked. There’s no other way to describe it. I was accountable for what I told myself I’d get done. That feeling is incredibly intense and I’m constantly amazed at how many folks can do incredibly well without having that feeling.

  • http://theBigRocks.com Steve Chihos

    Good points Jim. I once had a boss who put it this way: “I appreciate your need and here’s where it fits into my priorities…” His openness helped me understand when to take things to him and when to find alternative means to my ends since it wasn’t going to get done through him anyway.

  • http://asalesguy.com Keenan

    It would have been great if you could have said that to him as well.

    Sent from my iPad – therefore please excuse any blatant spelling or grammatical errors, I blame the on-screen keypad.

  • http://asalesguy.com Keenan

    I’ll check it out, it sounds interesting.

  • http://asalesguy.com Keenan

    I think we should all remove it from our vocabulary.