The concept of being busy versus being productive has been swirling around in my life over the last several months. There has been a sudden awareness that I don’t have any time because I’m so busy, but my productivity seems to have dropped. How is that possible? I’ve been working as hard and as fast as a one-armed wallpaper hanger, but the days pass and I’m not sure what I have accomplished. How will I ever take on anymore than I’m doing?

I’ve really had to stop and examine everything happening in each day to see where I’m losing time to busy and figure out another path through in order to reach productivity faster. And today I am sharing with you the four ways that I am working to turn my “busy” into “productive”.

Write Out Your Daily Intentions

Sit down the night before or the morning of and write down the things you would like to get done in the day. Then go back and review them all and ask yourself for each – does “this” task have to be done today? Can it be eliminated or moved to another day? Better yet, can someone else do it for you?

Once you get this inventory done, you will be back to a manageable list that you should be able to focus on in the day. If something still doesn’t get done, don’t fret, just move it to the next day and note that it maybe it should have been moved in the first place.

Time Tracking The Busy

Just like I tell the women I work with about writing down everything that they eat in a day – it may be necessary to write down everything that you do in a day and the time allocation to each. Are you finding that at 11:30am you end up scrolling instagram or tik tok for a half hour? Should your morning routine only take you 20 minutes, but you’re dragging ass and making it last 40? Did you end up spending an hour on something that wasn’t on your intention list for the day?

It imperative to be aware of where you are spending your time. I can almost guarantee you’ll find pockets of time you can get back. As always, emergencies happen and you might have to shift gears or add something in, but know what these are and give yourself grace when it happens.

Don’t Do Something

This is another area where I have trouble. I do find that I have created “busy-work” for myself because I think that it moves me forward. For example: DO all of my podcast episodes need soundbites created? Will the lack of a soundbite affect the number of people that listen to the episode? This is something that I can easily investigate and have. No, it really doesn’t affect the bottom line download number, SO if I have time to do one I do, but if I don’t, then I take that off of my list.

You need to ask yourself the same thing. If you DON’T do something, does it really affect your bottom line? Are YOU going to be the only one that notices? You know, sometimes we just have to let it go for our own mental state. And most likely we are going to be the only one that notices.

Other Approaches To Busy

If you have the ability, hire someone to do some of the things that are eating up your time – it could be within work or your personal life. Hire someone to clean your house, mow your grass, run an errand for you, deliver your groceries, do your taxes, etc.

And last, don’t be afraid of B- work. B- is still passing and in the eyes of most people, it looks like A work, especially given everything that you are trying to accomplish at once. Give yourself some credit and a break. Note – this topic must have been on my brain because I have written this blog in about 10 minutes and I guarantee I will spend no more than that amount of time proofreading and rewriting. It just isn’t in my bandwidth this week. And I would almost guarantee that you won’t notice and if you do, hopefully you’ll forgive me.

Slow Down, Busy Friend

We get moving so fast that we just plow through things that we should be appreciating along the way. De-clutter your busy life and pick the things that will make you productive and enjoy your days. It really it your choice. Take back the power over your day.