Does it seem that there are not enough hours in the day for you to do everything you want to get done?
Do you ever reach the end of your day feeling exhausted and while you are reviewing your day, you find out that you got almost nothing done?
How can this happen? You are tired. You feel like you worked hard all day long. You were even in the office longer than you should have been. How is it possible that you didn’t get anything done.
This could have something to do with how much you are thinking about how much you have to do instead of actually doing it. (did that make any sense?)
I think I heard it first listening to a Brian Tracy CD. If I remember correctly he said something like, “If you want something to get done, give it to a busy person”.
At first this does not seem like something that makes much sense until you look back on those days that you just sat there and told yourself all day, “I have so much to do but I have no idea where to start”.
That is acting busy but it is not really being busy!
Remember the saying, “Motion creates emotion”? The person that can really get things done is the person that has the momentum. The person that is trying to figure out how to get it all done is not really “doing” anything.
I knew a person once that was unemployed for a good year or so. At about the six-month mark, I thought to myself, “maybe I can hand off some of the easier things that I have to do in my day and take care of some more pressing issues. I thought I was going to become twice as productive having someone by my side taking care of these minute details of my day. I was off to the races, right? WRONG!
Believe it or not, day in and day out this person would report back to me at the end of the day and tell me that they did not have enough time to get these things done.
I am going to stop here a second and give you an idea of what this person’s day looked like.
- Wake up at about Noon
- Flail about for a couple of hours and maybe eat breakfast
- Watch TV for about 4 hours
- Tell me how much they could not get anything done today
Ok, I’ll play devil’s advocate. I get it, they are unemployed so they might also be depressed. This was one of the reasons I gave them stuff to do.
So my next question was, how did you not have time? You didn’t do anything today.
To that I got the answer, I did not get a chance to do it today.
Didn’t have a chance? Didn’t have a chance? How did you not have a chance?
Then I started noticing that they were constantly reliving the loss of their job. They kept trying to figure out what happened. They kept second guessing themselves and their worth to the workforce. It finally dawned on me that this is what was taking up all of their time.
They would spend most of their day worrying about:
- Where their next job would come from
- Why they got fired
- How long they would be unemployed
- and a laundry list of other unhealthy, unhelpful thoughts
All while not getting anything real done throughout the day. I do not say this to be mean but to try to emphasize a great message to you.
Worry, anxiety, negative thoughts and obsessing over your bad fortune will never move you forward in life in and of themselves.
I have never heard of someone worrying themselves into a better job.
I have never heard of anyone having negative, almost obsessive thoughts all day long and improve their health while doing so.
There has to be something behind these thought and feelings. If you are going to have then anyway, at least use them as fuel to move you away from where you know you don’t want to be.
Action is the only thing that will get you out of your rut. Whether you get what you originally wanted or not, you will get something and chances are it will be better than whatever you had when you were depressed.
Worry is a useless feeling that does not produce anything positive. Been there,done that and speaking from experience!
Action, as little as it may be is the only chance you have against having too much on your mind and moving towards having too much on your plate.
Now even that is a step in the right direction.
Thanks for reading and remember to share this with someone you think might need it or find it useful.
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29. June 2010 at 11:55 PM
This is such a great article, Jose!
I struggle all the time with being productive over being busy. Lately, I’ve decided to make a little check box of the number of hours each day (4) that I will dedicate to PRODUCTIVE work. By productive, I mean work that will move me closer to my goals as opposed to work that will simply maintain my status quo, or non-work that is just killing time altogether.
I’ll let you know how it works out. Thanks for the insight and inspiration here.
[Reply]
Caraballo & Associates Reply:
July 1st, 2010 at 10:03 PM
Please do let me know. I think we all struggle with this and it’s something that I am trying to really balance out as we speak. I like your focus time idea of 4 hours a day on active (moving closer to goals) time. I think it’s great and will also be implementing that in my day.
Thanks for the input.
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13. July 2010 at 8:54 PM
This is a funny article to me. But it’s right on the money. Some people are very “busy” doing absolutely nothing and can still feel overwhelmed with this. They don’t always realize just how dysfuntional they are until you break down their day the way you did in this article.
[Reply]
Caraballo & Associates Reply:
July 15th, 2010 at 4:30 PM
I had to do that painful exercise also and I hated it. But it was well worth it in order to become more productive. It’s a work in progress and I try to improve everyday.
Thanks for reading and by the way I LOVE your blog name.
Thanks for the visit!
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20. August 2010 at 4:25 PM
thanks Jose, I couldn’t agree with you more! I’m pretty productive, but alas..those to whom I love and adore,my own family, tend to make excuses for ‘not gettin it done’.Putting things off until they reach the emergency crunch time, as the due date is now upon them.(usually my kids vs. homework)I have learned to keep my mouth shut and allow them to ‘figure it out’ and wait till they ASK for my input.(very difficult!) I’ve been able to keep myself from suffering with them as I have made them responsible for their delays.I realized that I can’t MAKE them do what I want, and that they are more willing to hear what I suggest when they ask for help.Why can’t everyone be like us?!!(grin) Fun reading, take care. your friend, Kim
[Reply]
Caraballo & Associates Reply:
August 20th, 2010 at 9:42 PM
I noticed that I have much less anxiety in my life when I practice the continuous motion method (just made that up). Waiting until the last minute to do things brings too much anxiety into my life and I am all about being zen these days.
Thanks for the visit!
[Reply]
Kim Jensen Reply:
August 21st, 2010 at 2:37 AM
‘The continuous motion method’..I like that! I think we have some things in common, our desire to ‘make it happen’ through action and also to take time out to find our center again. Thanks for the response Zen Master Jose! You are very likable and authentic…good things are commin for you. Take care and get-r-done!
Your friend, Kim
[Reply]
Caraballo & Associates Reply:
August 22nd, 2010 at 7:28 PM
I agree that it looks like we have things in common, to quote a classic movie, “this looks like the beginning of a…” well you know the rest.
Thanks and I hope to share with you soon.