Does this dialogue sound familiar? ‘Hey! How are you?’ ‘Busy, as usual. Yourself?’ ‘Yeah – really busy. Life’s just crazy, you know?’ ‘Yep, crazy-busy.’We live in a world where it’s not only cool to be busy, it’s
glorified. It’s the first thing we say when we greet each other.
You’re given a pat on the back when you pull a hefty 13-hour
day, or if you’ve done an all-nighter, or if you’ve rushed around
like a mad thing to meet a deadline.
We wear our ‘busy-ness’ like a badge of honour and will proudly
tell everyone in our lives how crazy and hectic things are.
For me, there’s nothing glamorous or sexy about ‘being busy’. In
fact, it’s something I want to steer away from. I don’t want to be
run off my feet, stressed out, and overwhelmed. Instead, I choose
to move through my day with a sense of ease and grace. How
much nicer does that sound?
While we’re busting through myths and misconceptions, let’s
debunk another one: life isn’t about trying to find ‘balance’ either.
I think the idea of striving for balance is unrealistic… and kind of
destructive. Besides, it doesn’t even exist — it’s just another thing
us ladies use to compare and measure ourselves against each
other. We even use it as a self-inflicted weapon to make
ourselves feel guilty and unworthy. I spent way too much time at
work this week, I’m such a bad mamma. I didn’t fit everything in
today, I’m such a failure. ( Can you believe the awful things our
Mean Girl says to us sometimes?! )
The fact is there are times when my work requires more of me.
Like when I’m bunkering down to write a book, or knee-deep in a
speaking tour, or launching a new product like Get Your Glow On.
There are also times when my family or friends need me more,
and everything else gets put on the back burner so I can show up
fully for them. I believe it’s all about being present and riding the
waves of life. Sometimes one particular area will call for more
energy or more love and it’s our job to be so aware and tuned in
that we can recognise it and act accordingly.
INSTEAD OF RIGIDLY STRIVING FOR ‘BALANCE’, TUNE
INTO THE NATURAL EBBS AND FLOWS OF LIFE – THAT’S
WHERE THE MAGIC IS.
Ready to take action?
If you want to ditch the overwhelm and avoid the busy-ness trap
once and for all (and supercharge your productivity while you’re
at it ), try these 7 hot tips:
1. Start using your digital calendar
I used to love using a pretty hand-held calendar that I would
carry around in my handbag everywhere I went. But not only was
it chunky and extremely heavy, I found myself missing
appointments and stuffing up times because the inside of my
planner looked like my 2-year-old nephew had taken to the pages
with a bunch of pens!
We live in a world where things move and change all the time,
and constantly crossing out and writing over things takes time
and can look overwhelming ( especially if you have writing like
mine! ).
It’s so easy to move things around on your digital calendar. Plus
you can sync it to your smartphone and computer, which makes booking things in super easy. You can also send calendar invites
to other people so they don’t miss your meeting or catch up.
2. Delegate
For many years, I really struggled with this. My business is my
baby, so handing anything over to someone else scared the
bejeebers out of me. But since I have learnt to delegate, I have
really been able to focus my attention on what I love most, which
is writing, speaking, teaching, sharing and creating. As a result,
my business has grown exponentially.
To make this shift for yourself, work out what you love doing in
your business. If you love writing and creating content, and don’t
necessarily love sending invoices, bookkeeping and assigning
tags in Infusionsoft ( also lovingly known at MA HQ as
Confusionsoft ), then hire someone else to do it. You need to stay
in your zone of genius and stop wasting your precious time doing
things you don’t enjoy. Life’s too short to do anything that
doesn’t light you up.
3. Make sure you schedule in time for you
I know it sounds ridiculous that we have to actually schedule in
downtime, but we do: if we don’t, it doesn’t happen! I personally
make sure my yoga, meditation and afternoon self-love time are
all added to my digital calendar, otherwise I know they’ll just fall
by the wayside.
Set yourself up for success by scheduling in your self-love time
today. You can also make it a recurring task, which saves you
time and makes sure these essential activities are always front-
and-centre in your day. Need ideas for your self love time?
4. Ask for help
There’s a common misconception that we have to do it all alone
and that if we don’t, we’re a failure. This is BS. When you really
let go of that belief — and simply ask for help when you need it
— you can avoid burn-out and stop overwhelm in its tracks.
Give it a go.
ASKING FOR HELP ISN’T AN ACT OF WEAKNESS; IT’S AN
ACT OF SELF-LOVE.
5. Brain dump
In this post I talk about “ Things“, which is one of my favourite
productivity tools.
Every morning I do a brain dump into the app, which helps stop
my brain swirling into overwhelm and falling into that
unproductive busy-ness trap.
6. Meditation
Want to supercharge your productivity? Meditate! But let me
guess: you’re too busy and don’t have time, right? Wrong. We all
have the same amount of hours in the day — it’s about
prioritising yourself, scheduling it in your digital calendar, then
showing up every single day.
As Tom Cronin says, we have 72 units of 20 minutes per day. All
you need to do is allocate two of those and you still have 70
units left!
7. Eat your frog first
Once you get all of your tasks out of your head and into your app
(or onto paper), you need to start organising them. Divide your
brain dump into four categories:
1. Things you don’t want to do, and actually don’t need to do.Once you’ve got your list organised, it’s time to prioritise the
2. Things you don’t want to do, but actually do need to do (the
frogs).
3. Things you want to do and actually do need to do.
4. Things you want to do, but actually don’t need to do.
sections. The most important place to start? The ‘frogs’. These
are the things you don’t like doing, but that actually really need
to be done. They’re the ones you aren’t motivated to do, and that
send you spiralling into procrastination. In fact, they can hang
over your head all day and fill you with guilt… yet you still can’t
bring yourself to actually get ‘em done.
So how can we finish our frogs?
Frogs need structure around them to ensure that they actually get
finished. You can create the motivation you need to make them
happen by either transforming them into something desirable
(say, turning your weekly vacuuming session into a lounge room
dance-jam) or by linking the act of frog-finishing to another,
stronger habit.
In his famous book Eat That Frog, Brian Tracy suggests that the
best habit to get into is eating your frogs first thing in the
morning, which is exactly how I like to structure my to-do list.
Not only does it mean you get the icky stuff over with first
(leaving you free to do the things you enjoy without a cloud of
guilt hanging over your head) but it’s also incredibly rewarding.
Within the first hour or so of my work day, I already feel like I’ve
made great headway, and that surge of momentum helps me
glide through the rest of my day with ease. ( Like Mark Twain
once said , “If you have to eat a live frog, it does not pay to sit
and look at it for a very long time!”)
Bonus Tip : Ban the ‘B’ word
My team and I have eliminated the word ‘busy’ from our
vocabulary. It helps, a lot! Try it if you like. And next time
someone asks you how you are, try not responding with, ‘Oh, I am
so busy’. Instead, connect with how you’re feeling and go from
there.
Now I’d love to hear from you, beautiful. Tell me, are you ready
to ditch the busy-ness badge of honour? And do you have a
favourite tip for supercharging your productivity and sailing
through your to-do list with ease and grace? I’d love to hear your
insights.
Thanks so much for being here, and for sharing from your heart. I
love the bejeebers out of you!
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