“Busyness has no value in the marketplace”–Cal Newport

Share

I listened to an interview with Cal Newport, professor and author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World and So Good They Can’t Ignore You.

“What do you tell people who say they can’t do something because they’re too busy,” he was asked.

“Busyness has no value in the marketplace,” he said. Solving problems, getting results, building assets–these have value. The best of it requires something he calls “deep work,” which is difficult to do when you’re “busy” with lots of less valuable tasks.

“When someone tells me they’re busy, I feel like saying I’m sorry,” Newport said. They’re working too hard for too little results.

Newport says deep work requires intense focus and concentration. To do that, you must eliminate distractions avoid multitasking and reduce the number of low-value tasks on your agenda.

To those who say they are busy creating lots of value, I suspect he would point out that they would be even more productive by doing less work (being less busy) and putting concentrated effort into a small number of more valuable projects.

Creative things like writing or building a business require so much energy and focus, (i.e., deep work), he said, you can only do it for a limited number of hours. Four hours a day of deep work, for example, will allow you to create more value than 14 hours of “busy” work.

Work less, earn more. What a concept.

Deep work for marketing legal services

Share

Apparently, you’re not as busy as you think you are

Share

Interesting article on Inc.com on the subject of busyness. Apparently you’re not as busy as you think you are.

Why do we think we are so busy? According to the author of Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time, it’s because we’ve talked ourselves into believing it.

We wear our busyness with pride, telling ourselves and everyone else how much we have to do and that there’s no time for anything else. We come to believe it and becomes a way of life.

This unrelenting feeling of overwhelming busyness is not good for our health or productivity. We become anxious. We sleep poorly. We rush to complete things because we’ve got so much more to do. Relax? Vacation? Maybe later. There’s too much I’ve got to do first.

Stop telling yourself that you’re too busy. You have more than enough time to do what you’ve got to do.

The other thing we can do to stop feeling so busy is to “reduce the fragmentation in your life by scheduling uninterrupted free time”.

Because we are so connected to our work and other obligations–our smart phones and tablets are always on and always with us–it’s difficult to let go. We’re always reminded of what we’ve got to do and this jeopardizes our ability to relax.

Schedule quiet time. Time to relax and do nothing. Time away from your calendar and lists, texts and emails. Time to go for a walk and listen to music, not podcasts, or time to read fiction instead of work-related material.

I’ll admit, I’m not very good at this. I’m always working on and thinking about my current project, and my next one.

On Thanksgiving, I’ll make the effort. No work. Just family, fun, and relaxation.

As for the rest of the year, I’ll have to check my calendar and get back to you.

Share