29. Escape the busyness trap that tricks entrepreneurs into working hard while accomplishing little

Over the last couple of months, I have been incredibly busy with Feel the Boot and other projects. I have been setting up schedules, writing blogs, recording interviews, posting content, advising companies, and the like. All of the associated deadlines have been stacking up, making me feel stressed while not making much progress on my main strategic goals.
Then suddenly, I realized that I had been caught by the busyness trap … again!

The busyness trap is when you get caught in a pattern of doing a lot but accomplishing little. In this installment, I look at: why entrepreneurs are so easily caught in the trap, what it means for your startup, what gets lost when you are in the trap, and some approaches to escaping from it.

Why are entrepreneurs so vulnerable to this trap?

For many, being busy has become a status symbol. When people ask, “how are you?” we say “busy” or even “it’s been crazy.” We brag about long hours, but rarely in the context of any strategic objectives.

 Another cause is guilt. I often feel guilty when I am not busy. I will do meaningless little things at my computer rather than walk away. Sometimes I find myself doing completely wasteful activities rather than leave the office. I find myself thinking that there might be a link to a useful article on Twitter if I just scroll down a few more pages.

Stress can often lead to busyness. When you know there is a lot to do, you may focus on doing a lot of things. With no time to look up, you laser in on knocking off that next task, answering that next email, scheduling that next post, or whatever other tasks are on your to-do list, without pausing to think whether those are the most important things to be doing.

For entrepreneurs, busyness is self-imposed. No external boss breaths down your neck, making sure you are filling every moment with productive activity. Although we might have learned the habit from prior employment, we have the power to change that pattern now.

What does busyness mean for your startup?

First, there can be diminishing returns from working longer and harder. Value produced does not scale linearly with hours spent on the job. Productivity drops off sharply after too long on the job.

When I was in graduate school, pursuing a Ph.D. in Astrophysics, I had to take a two-day test covering all aspects of undergraduate and graduate-level physics. For months my life revolved around studying for that test, cramming my head with every possible detail, equation, and technique. I wallpapered my living room in equations big enough to read from the other side of the room to help me have all the information instantly available at any time.

I quickly discovered that I was only good for about three hours per day of focused high-intensity mental effort. Working longer than that accomplished nothing more and left me fatigued. Eventually, I had to give myself permission to structure my days around that reality and do only less brain intensive things outside of those 3 hours.

I need to remind myself that the opposite of busyness is not laziness. It is a purposeful choice about what to do and when.

What gets lost when you get busy?

A lot of important things can get dropped or missed as we get busier. As an example, look at the essential activities that I have been allowing to fall to the wayside.

I don’t read nearly as much as I would like. Reading is fuel for my idea engine. When I am going through a good non-fiction book, I regularly stop to take notes on new ideas and projects.

Busyness prevents me from making time to talk to people outside of structured meetings. Open-ended conversations bring forth all kinds of fantastic concepts and cement relationships that will be valuable later on.

I find it hard to stop and “sharpen my saw” while in the middle of work chaos. It feels like wasted time, even though these meta-activities can lead to substantial overall productivity boosts. Intellectually, I know that improving skills, workflows, and organization structures can all pay big dividends. Yet I stay caught in the demands of the moment.

I feel like I am missing out on opportunities. Being heads down in the weeds can mean that I don’t take time to notice openings or to take advantage of changing situations.

I remember a lesson about relaxation from my Kung-Fu instructor. Tension makes your body slow, while a relaxed body is fast.

The same is true of a relaxed mind that can perceive opportunities for action that would miss when locked into a narrow channel. When you are stressed, opportunity looks like one more thing to do, so you avoid it. 

The biggest thing I miss out on is pure thinking time without a specific plan, so my mind can wander over possibilities. I keep a waterproof pad of paper in my shower because of all the thoughts that pop up while engaging in that mindless activity. Long walks, or just sitting staring into a fire, can often be the most effective use of my time, if only I permit myself to do it.

General Eisenhower had an excellent framework for thinking about tasks and making sure that important ones did not get lost in the shuffle. He looked at every activity along two axes: whether it was it important and whether it was urgent.

If something is urgent and important, like putting out a grease fire in your kitchen, then there is no question or hesitation. Of course, you do that immediately.

The busyness trap arises from the issues that are urgent but not particularly important. They make a lot of noise and attract attention, but don’t change your world. These are the tasks that often fill our time driving out the others. They need to be kept in check.

We need to make room for the things that are important but aren’t urgent. Reading, thinking, talking, planning, and working on long duration projects all fall into this category. If they are going to happen, we need to carve out substantial time for these kinds of important but not urgent activities.

Finally, there are those tasks that are neither urgent nor important. You don’t need to do those at all.

How do you escape the busyness trap?

Obviously, I haven’t found the magic solution to avoiding the busyness trap. It is a tricky thing because there is no one moment when you feel its jaws grab you; it comes on over time.

For me, awareness of this issue is the first step. Knowing that the trap is a real thing, helps me look for signs that it is happening again.

When you realize that you are spending your time on less important things while strategic initiatives are being ignored, stop and take a breath. Force yourself to take some time to look for ways to eliminate the clutter. I find that an audit of where my time actually goes helps me see where my priorities are out of alignment with my daily practices.

As soon as you realize you are in the trap, spend some time listing the projects and activities that are important to you and make sure you have a process to keep them front and center on your schedule. 

Finally, permit yourself to just ponder. Creativity requires that kind of open, unstructured time.

If you are in the midst of the trap, this should help you find your way out, if only for a while.