Transcript

SuperBusy · Humanity Working

0:06
SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is about busyness.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: Not business, but busyness.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: How are you today, Paul?
0:14
SPEAKER_01: Fine.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: Busy, but fine.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I see what you did there.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: So uh let's slow down a bit and start with this issue of busyness.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: Have we always been this busy?
0:25
SPEAKER_01: Uh no.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: Um there's some actually really, really interesting historical research on this.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: And the answer is actually pretty clear now.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, the concept of busyness is uh a pretty recent phenomenon, and it's also a cultural one.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: So the US, for example, is an extremely busy country.
0:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and it's become kind of a cultural badge of honor, I guess you could say, something along those lines.
0:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, so before the Industrial Revolution, whether you were busy or not was dependent upon the time of day, month, time of year.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: In agriculture, for example, there were times to rush.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: You had to get the harvest in, for example, and there were times to recharge, and nature told you when those times would be.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: Um, and we adjusted and we adapted according to that.
1:22
SPEAKER_01: And then the Industrial Revolution comes along, and the one thing it does, probably more than anything else, is the idea that when and how hard we work is no longer being driven by nature, it's being driven by companies.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's no longer being driven by ourselves, for that matter, it's being driven by companies.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: And then I suppose the next kind of wave that changes all this is the tech revolution, right?
1:49
SPEAKER_01: And what the tech revolution really does is it sort of brings in the idea that we can kind of cheat time and get more done because we can work from anywhere at any time.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: We can use technology to sort of like help us do more in shorter periods of time and things like that.
2:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so you start to see a lot of the um of the publicity around this and so on happens around that time.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: And now with energy drinks and certain drugs and so on, we're being sold the idea that we can even cheat the basic energy levels in our own bodies to get more and more out of us.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: And we shouldn't forget that this is happening not just inside work but outside of work too, right?
2:31
SPEAKER_01: So we've culturally we have to be busy shuttling our kids from soccer practice to the party to the swim meets, back again, and we and then our kids have got to be busy cramming in their homework, playing their video games, getting to bed, you know, all that kind of stuff is happening all at the same time.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: We've imposed busyness on them.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:50
unknown: Yeah.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: They're they're now being brought into our busy culture because that's what we do.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: So I I I think I know the answer, but is this good for us?
2:59
SPEAKER_01: Nah.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's pretty safe, I think, to say that.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's pretty clear as a country at this point that we're sleep deprived, our anxiety levels are through the roof, many mental other mental health indicators are not good.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: And the point here I want to say is that the yes, it's being driven on us by society and by companies and all that kind of stuff, but we're all we're part of this ourselves, right?
3:21
SPEAKER_01: Um and but but also it is actually really hard to break out of.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: Especially when it is so culturally ingrained to the point of of being not being busy, or at least saying you're busy, kind of implies that you're lazy.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: That's that's what we've kind of got to.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: But there are things you there there are things you can do, right?
3:45
SPEAKER_01: Oh, totally, yeah.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean We're not stuck.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: We're not but but I think the point here is Matt that it's gonna take some really conscious effort.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: Um and you're gonna you're gonna be swimming against the tide um if if you're the person who is defiantly and proudly non-busy.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: I mean, think about the people that are in our in our lives today who would not necessarily describe themselves as busy, right?
4:18
SPEAKER_01: They might be they might be artists, they might be artisans, they might be um people that do a different kind of work um than the rest of us feel like or think that we can do.
4:34
SPEAKER_01: And not only that, but if if you're acting busy, seeming busy, being busy, right, and publicly being busy, that can feel like something that is protecting you as an employee, right?
4:52
SPEAKER_01: My being busy means that I'm a good employee, and so people are not gonna fire me.
4:57
SPEAKER_01: And so the reality, of course, is that the success at work is really dependent upon how effective you are.
5:05
SPEAKER_01: Right.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: And if you're constantly being busy and you're not taking time to think because you're being busy, or because you're so busy that you're not getting good sleep, or you're so busy that it's making you sick, or it's making you anxious, right?
5:18
SPEAKER_01: Those things are going to negatively impact your work and make you less valuable for your employer.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: But to get out of that mindset and just say, now I'm gonna take a step back.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be less busy, but I'm gonna be less busy so that I can be healthier.
5:32
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be less busy so that I can be more ready to do good work.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be less busy so that I can uh be more sustainably effective over time.
5:45
SPEAKER_01: Those are the things that you're gonna need to be able to do, and you're gonna need to get over the fear of of uh the fear of that, the fear of the change.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: So there's some practical things I think that we can that we can do as individuals um and as organizations.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: So one thing, and I just strongly ask this, and I know I do it myself.
6:04
SPEAKER_01: So I'm kind of telling myself as much as anything else, but stop spreading this cultural myth, right?
6:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
6:10
SPEAKER_01: When somebody asks you how you are, like try to ban busy from your lexicon, right?
6:15
SPEAKER_01: Like if you find yourself going, oh man, I've been so busy lately, you know, etc.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: Get you might be busy, but that doesn't mean you have to spread the myth of it, right?
6:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: So you can say the same thing in different ways.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: For example, you could say, I feel a bit overworked and I'm trying to work on that.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: Right?
6:32
SPEAKER_01: That's a different thing, right?
6:33
SPEAKER_01: That's what that's doing is that's saying, you know, that's not that's not really good, right?
6:37
SPEAKER_01: To be overworked, right?
6:38
SPEAKER_01: So if you're saying something like that, then you're not spreading this busy, busy.
6:43
SPEAKER_01: We're all we're all really busy, right?
6:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:45
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then secondly, if you do feel like you're running at a thousand miles an hour and you're doing that every day, like you take the initiative to insert some things to slow down.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: Right.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: I mean, my one is a it's a little bit kind of like first one, probably me, but you might have heard of these like sensory deprivation chambers and floats and things like that.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: Like I try to do, I try to do that at least once a month, right?
7:10
SPEAKER_01: Um, and but you want to put in times where you're completely unplugged.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: Walking in nature, no earbuds, yeah, meditation, that kind of stuff.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Right.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, so those things do work and they do slow things down.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: Right.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: If you listen to five of these podcasts in a row, like turn it off, right?
7:32
SPEAKER_01: And just and and walk outside, right?
7:35
SPEAKER_01: It's those kind of things.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: And then if you're a company, right, start focusing on how you can get your employers consistently working well in a healthy, sustainable way.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: Um, you're gonna get better results for them, you're gonna avoid burnout, people are gonna show up for work ready to do great things with lower stress, right?
7:58
SPEAKER_01: That's gonna involve retraining yourself.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna involve retraining your managers, but it's also gonna involve some changes to policies and to culture and stuff like that.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: We do not have to continuously push our employees to be more busy.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: The culture is doing that already.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: Right.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: So we can we can take a foot off the pedal and start to focus a little bit on how you do this consistently and effectively.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's interesting.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: I I, you know, when I when I talk to my teams, uh sometimes you inherit teams that sort of have a PTSD of those management styles.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I'm like, hey, you know, if you can do your job more efficiently and not add heroics and burning the midnight oil to your day, that's better for everybody.
8:47
unknown: Yeah.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: Including the human.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: Including you as the manager and the human uh who's being affected by this.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: But they want their badge of honor, you know?
8:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: And they want their badge of honor because it was so hard.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: That's understandable, but but it doesn't help anybody.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: Crazy.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: All right.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Well, we did it.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: Another podcast in the books.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh, hopefully it didn't feel too busy.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: And uh, we'll see you next time.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: Thanks a lot, Matt.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: Thanks everybody.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: Humanity Working is produced and edited for Billion Minds by Matt Neal.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: Our interviewer is Paul Slater.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: If you like this podcast, please subscribe, like, and recommend us to others.
9:25
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9:27
SPEAKER_00: If you want to learn more about how Billion Minds gets companies ready for the future of work by building adaptable, resilient employees, look for them on LinkedIn or visit their website at billionminds.com.