Don’t Be Busy, Be Productive
Being Busy Vs Being Productive
Being busy is more often being frantic while being productive is being more focus oriented. It seems intriguing, doesn’t it? How people confuse being busy as being productive? But let us tell you how completely untrue it is. Being busy and being productive are two as different as two concepts can be, but we never really pay any attention to it, do we? For most of us, a ‘busy’ man means someone who is a go-getter, who is out there doing all the work he has to do and more, and we respect him, never taking into account whether any of this work is actually productive and will make any substantial difference or not.
‘Being busy’ is the new ‘Cool’. Somehow perception has become more important than the actual outcome. Let us put across some more difference through the following points and how why you should be more productive and not busier:
Appearance:
As we mentioned earlier, ‘Being busy’ has become the new ‘cool’. Busy people just want to look like they have a mission/goal, whereas productive people actually have their goals clear and the entire plan to make sure they achieve that goal mapped out.
Priorities:
In order to be successful, you need to know your priorities and make sure you don’t budge from it. Life is all about managing by the way of priorities, now to be very clear, 4 things can be considered as priorities, but 20 things is just a mess.
The ‘Yes’ Man:
Your time should be focused on the things that you have prioritized, saying yes to each and everything will just end up with you being pulled into multiple directions, which no means to streamline any task resulting in a one giant heap of ‘oops’. This is the difference between a productive and a busy person, a productive person knows when to say no whereas a busy person does not.
Action oriented Vs Process oriented:
A busy person is more action oriented, in the sense that he/she pays more attention to how he can get things done faster whereas a productive person focuses more on the process knowing very well if his process is effective, his results will reflect that clearly.
Humility or lack of thereof:
A busy person always wants to go around and tell everyone who will listen to him of how busy he is and how very little time he has for unnecessary tasks. A productive person does not indulge in such behaviour. A productive person tends to keep their head low, focus more on the work and lets the work speak for itself.
Too many things all at once?:
A productive person is focused on what they have to do and dive their energy into that and that only whereas busy people tend to multitask more. Now, you might say that multitasking is not essentially bad, but hear us out, if you want to get something done more efficiently it is definitely advised you do not engage in any distractions. Focus on that and that alone.
All Talk and No show:
A busy person is always seen talking about all the work he is going to do, all the difference he is making and all the change that will happen because of him. Whereas a productive person just goes ahead and does the work, later talking about it, about how the work inspired them. Now you decide, who would you rather be? Would you be the person who is All talk and no show or someone who is a go-getter?
We would like to leave you with these thought provoking lines by Henry David Thoreau, American Essayist, poet and philosopher- “It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?”
That is it for today folks, see you on our next blog. Until then, Stay Home, Stay Safe.