Easier to spot in others, harder to spot in our own schedule.
Busywork (n): Being so focussed on doing the things that we do, that we lose sight of why we are doing them.
How do we identify busywork?
- It’s feels comfortable, possibly even relaxing (we look forward to doing it)
- It’s the thing we dread the most
- It’s doesn’t deliver much value
- It gives us a feeling that we are safe and secure
- We get the suspicion we might just be avoiding more difficult and possibly more important tasks
It could be regular meetings, it could be regular admin like scanning receipts or sending invoices, it could be a distraction like housework, it could be something that someone else could do if we could get around to arranging it.
Pick something that you either look forward to, or you dread in your schedule and try changing it. Question whether you need to do, get someone else to do it, or even automate it.
Even if you do nothing about it, the first step is identifying the busywork.