We are all so busy. Busier than busy. So busy we have needed to create a new name to outbusy the busy: busyness.
Busyness: the state or condition of having a great deal to do.
We can all resonate with that, probably too well. But this busyness comes at a price, because even though we are so busy doing lots of things, how well are we doing them?
Matthew McConaughey talks about how a few years ago he realised he was doing too much. He was an actor, had a family, he ran a production company, he had a foundation and he ran a record label. The issue wasn’t that he couldn’t handle it all, because he could. The issue came in when he realised he wasn’t doing any of them as well as he would like.
“I was making B’s in five things. I want to make A’s in three things—I want to be an actor for hire, have my foundation, and be a family man, boom. And that was a great decision. I cleared two things off my desk, which was hard to do…but it was what I needed to do. And I did start making much better grades, so to speak, in those three things than I was making when I had five.”
The key is knowing which three are the most important, then learning to let go of the rest.
Life involves trade-offs. We can’t do it all, even if we think we can. At least, we can’t do it as well as we should or could. The more things we try to do, the less effectively we do them leaving us wide open to sloppy results, failing and burnout.
Doing more doesn’t equal success. Learning to do less better is a far more effective strategy. We need to remove the inessential so we can do the essential better.
We are all so guilty of saying yes to things we don’t want to do. But that yes comes at a price – not doing what really matters. We need to learn to give ourselves permission to not do it all. Saying no to things frees us up to do what is most important, what invigorates us, what energises us and what makes us feel alive.
It won’t be easy to start saying no. It won’t be easy to turn away from ideas you spent a lot of time developing. It won’t be easy to stop juggling multiple tasks at the same time. At first you will feel guilty, but it will be worth it. It is learning to live life by design not by default, as Greg McKeown says.
You can’t be great if you are stretched too thin. You can’t stand out if you are focusing on lots of areas. You can’t be the best version of you to those that matter, if you are never there.
There is a great story about a young girl. When she was 12 years old, she and her dad made plans to go out for dinner together when he was next in the city. They had been planning it for months. It was planned down to the minute. As soon as her dad had finished his presentation it was go time. But just as her father was packing up after his speech, an old friend who he had not seen in a long time came up to him. They began to catch up and the old friend invited them to have an incredible dinner at an incredible location (not the simple meal that they had planned).
Her dad said it sounded amazing. The young girl was crestfallen. She suddenly felt her special night disappearing in front of her. She didn’t want to go to a fancy restaurant. She didn’t want to hear more about business. She wanted the night she had planned with her dad.
But suddenly her dad turned to his old friend and said that despite it all sounding fantastic, he had other plans and unfortunately, they couldn’t be missed. He then grabbed her by the hand and went on to have the night they had been planning for months. Years later, she still talks about that particular evening and how that simple act from her dad saying no, meant he said yes to her. She knew that she was who mattered most to him, and it created a bond that lasted a lifetime.
That young girl’s father was Stephen R. Covey, who wrote The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and one of his principles was, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”
Learn to say no, so you can say yes to what really matters.