Blood & Ink: Busy by Design

Your life is busy by design…

There are 3 main reasons you find yourself with a calendar full of things to do:

1. You don’t know what you want.
2. You lack focus.
3. You need the distraction.

If you’re radically honest with yourself, what do you want?

For most people, it’s health, wealth, happiness—some combination thereof. Sometimes it’s adventure, fun, challenge, status.

Whatever it is, the empowering truth is that each of those only takes an hour a day, honestly less. Exercise for 30 minutes. Call a friend for a meaningful conversation. Do 1 important thing to move your business forward. There you go.

Do that 9am-Noon. You’re set for the day. No fancy productivity systems. No erratic sleep schedule. No daunting to-do list.

If you know what you want, the steps are simple, and no step ever takes that long.

So maybe you do know what you want. Then you’re just not focused.

It’s far too easy for “Do 1 important thing to move your business forward” to become “Check social media for 1 hour. Do the dishes. Prioritize your backlog of tasks. Respond to emails. Go for a walk. Sit down and half-ass 30% of the task you want to do. Check Instagram. Play with your cat.”

Not a damn one of those was the single thing you needed to do, and suddenly the entire morning is gone. You lack focus and/or the discipline to do it properly. They become interchangeable at some point.

Just sit down and do the thing, to the best of your ability.

And finally: the least obvious, but most insidious, for most people is that you need the distraction.

You crave busyness. It gives you an excuse. It gives you a distraction from the constant feelings of insecurity, fear, uncertainty, heartache, confusion, and depression.

It makes you feel important, significant, high-status, intelligent, and “in-demand”.

I believe this is why most people still have notifications on for every app on their phone. I’ve sat at dinners with friends and watched people get a notification for every Instagram like and email that comes in. It gives me anxiety just watching it.

Why would they do it? Because it makes them feel IMPORTANT. “Look at all this attention! Look at how many people are paying attention to ME. I must be doing a good job.”

You are busy because you welcome the distraction that trivial work gives you.

Busyness is the solution you have created for yourself, not the problem. What is being constantly distracted and overwhelmed giving you?

It’s a shield, protecting you from the heartache, the hurt, the confusion, the anger.

But if you took the time to sit in the discomfort, it would arise and pass quickly. Maybe you need a healing side-quest if something significant is still lurking under the surface. No problem!

You don’t need to be busy.

Busyness is not a status symbol. It is not desirable.

It is unfit for someone of your character. It is beneath you.

Do not be busy this year.

Naval once said, and I think this is brilliant, “you should be too busy to just ‘get a coffee’, while still keeping an open calendar.”

Understand that, and change your life.

The game is simple:

1. Figure out what you want.
2. Do not distract yourself.
3. Take 1 small, repeatable step each day.
4. Enjoy the rest of your newfound time.

I love you, have a brilliant year.
EB