If you want something done, give it to a busy man.
This is one of my Dad’s many little sayings. At first, I thought it was a neat-sounding phrase with limited truth value. But ever since I heard it I’ve noticed that very often it holds true.
To really grasp the value of this idea I think it’s important to distinguish between Good Busy and Bad Busy. Obviously, the point is not to overburden someone whose back is already breaking under the strain of their commitment. However, there are people who manage to find the sweet spot of being Good Busy. We’ve all met people like this, and really I think it’s as much about attitude as it is about actions. My Mom is a great example of Good Busy. When I started my first job in Paris she drove me all the way from our home in England with all my stuff, despite the fact that she was herself moving to Mumbai with the rest of the family only 2 days later!
So what does it take to be Good Busy?
Perhaps the first key thing is getting your priorities straight. This sounds easy and we’ve all been told this before, but in practice it’s easy to get lost in the noise of everyday life. I know I have a tendency to move from one task to the next without necessarily stopping and thinking about what is most important. But if I stop for a moment to think — maybe in the shower in the morning, maybe walking the dog in the evening — it really helps me to think about all the things I have to do and then rank them by importance and urgency. This is just as true at for your home life as it is for your work.
Increasingly though, this is becoming more complicated because the boundaries between our home lives and our work lives are disappearing. This is a good but comes with its own challenges. It’s good because it means we’re shifting away from some of the less productive aspects of the 9-5 culture, where you feel you need to sit in your seat for hours, but don’t necessarily accomplish much. But the risk is that we end up being unable to switch off and tune out of work at home! That’s why it’s so important to remember to prioritise and make sure that family or hobbies are given decent weighting in your priorities.
A vital part of Good Busy is having a healthy balance of priorities. There’s a strong argument that making time for your interests or family will make you sharper and more productive in your work life too. Maybe think about getting a new hobby. Or why not teach your kids to sail or play chess.
As well as liberating you from the restraints of the desk-mentality, cloud technologies should help you to be more efficient in all areas of your life. Technology is here to improve the quality of our lives, not just to make us more efficient units of production. The real secret of the cloud is that it frees you up to be more flexible and effective in the way you use your time, and that’s what we’re most passionate about here at Wimi.
And that’s what we’re most passionate about here at Wimi.
