7 Things That Can Suck You Into Busyness By Phillip LeBlanc

Phillip LeBlanc & his wife Falesha

Today’s society is littered with things for people to do and ways to remain connected. For most folks, gone are the days of an 8-5 workday with a quiet drive to and from work and an uninterrupted evening at home with the family. Most have replaced that quiet serenity with busy lives and even busier schedules.

The root of such busyness is meaningless action. We live in a world in which we are prodded and tempted to engage in things that are fun, cool, and entertaining (and not necessarily in alignment with what we should be doing). Here are 7 common things in today’s society that most people touch regularly and that can easily suck you into a state of busyness.

1. Online Video – The internet continues to evolve in ways that fulfill right-brain cravings of emotional appeal. For this reason, the rapid growth in popularity of online video should come as no surprise. However, for these same reasons it is easy to get sidetracked in a 60-minute video on a favorite subject or find yourself lost in the land of YouTube search.

2. Blogs / Forums – Reading other people’s blogs can be fun and even educational. Maintaining your position as the most active user in your favorite forum is exhilarating. However, what is your purpose through those actions? Blog and forum posting can be part of an effective marketing strategy. Unfortunately, most people are not using blogs and forums for marketing but instead getting sucked into the busyness abyss.

3. Chat / Instant Messengers – We are now more connected then ever through real-time collaboration and communication. As much as chat and instant messenger solutions can increase your productivity through real-time engagement it is easy for those communication channels to open the door for non-essential conversations.

4. Facebook – With over 500 million users who does not have an account nowadays? But just because everyone is doing it does not make it an ideal platform of choice for getting stuff done. Unless you are in the middle of a well-defined social media strategy for your business, consider keeping Facebook off-limits during the times that you really need to get things accomplished.

5. E-mail – This is another popular vessel in which to communicate with folks around the globe. However, the daily time spent in our email inboxes rivals the time that most of us will spend in one-on-one conversation with our significant other. Personally, I conducted a Return On Action (ROA) study a few years back to find that I was spending almost 2-1/2 hours per day in my email inbox.

6. Phone Apps – No. You are not going to sell me on the fact that playing Angry Birds on your phone is improving your hand eye coordination nor are you going to monetize your ability to get back at those pigs. Most folks have their phones with them at all times. This means that apps (both useful and meaningless ones) are with us at all times, too.

7. People – Even though our technology-embedded world reduces emphasis on one-to-one human communication, it is still a common occurrence to lose minutes (and even hours) per day with others in unimportant talk at the water cooler. Protect yourself. Beware of other people who have zero concern about infecting you with their busyness virus.

Each of these things position you upon the peak of the productivity mountain. On one side is meaningful action; the other side is a steep descent into busyness that destroys your ability to achieve your intended results. Your challenge is to walk the peek in a way that you do not fall off.