Our Obsession For Busy-ness As Part Of Our Business. The Hamster Wheel Of Death.

Have you been part of this conversation?

“We need to do this and that and this other thing. It takes a lot of time and resources, but we need to do all of it.”

If you only stopped there and started doing, I’m sure it might have felt amazing… until it didn’t. Then it was just being busy all the time. Not knowing how to leave the hamster wheel. Not enough hours in the day. Not enough days in the week.

Burn out. Frustration. Sounds familiar?

Does it make sense? All this busy-ness

A couple days ago I was in a similar conversation and it just struck me (again).

Client: We need to do this and that and this other thing. It takes a lot of time and resources, but we need to do all of it.
Me: K. What’s the goal of it?
Client: Errrrrr….
It’s to… Errrrr…
Hmmmmm…
[Long pause]…
There’s no goal…
[Extra long pause]
We think it would be good to organize, group and streamline it to give a sense of what we do to our customers.
Me: Do they care?
Client: Errrrrrr… Not really.
Me: K. I don’t see a business case here and, to be honest, I don’t think I’ll be able to help you just keep busy. If there’s no clear goal, it’s just wasting resources.

You’re The One To Challenge

If you’re not challenging the way things are, for yourself and for your clients, you’ll get stuck in the busy-ness. Going through the motions is inertia. No intent. No alignment. No designed impact. Just spaghetti on the wall.

Start with a couple simple questions:

• What’s the goal?
• Why are we doing this?
• What’s the big picture?
• Is this an opportunity or a distraction?

Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog