{"id":7217,"date":"2015-03-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intercom.com\/blog\/?p=7217"},"modified":"2020-07-31T22:55:36","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T21:55:36","slug":"being-busy-is-lazy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/being-busy-is-lazy\/","title":{"rendered":"Being busy is lazy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite popular belief, time is not your obstacle – you are.<\/p>\n

As an executive assistant for the VP’s at Intercom, one of the things that I have learnt to obsess over and be relentless with is time and how it’s spent. Creating and facilitating other people’s impact is my job. This is what I’ve learnt.<\/p>\n

Time management\u00a0and focus are\u00a0hard, but necessary to have impact. The factors that limit your impact aren\u2019t always obvious – to you, or anybody else for that matter.<\/p>\n

A common mistake is believing we must beat<\/em> time. Being \u201cbusy\u201d is a common outcome from this fight, and worse, we often align busyness with \u201csuccess.\u201d This is the wrong way to look at it. That doing more, or taking on too much, in the same space of time, is the sign of getting shit done.<\/p>\n

Straight up, impact doesn\u2019t have to be tired and it doesn\u2019t have to look stressed. Impact understands possibilities, measure and time.<\/p>\n

Try to think of it this way, despite what the world and largely our culture tells you, more<\/i> is not more, better<\/i> is more. Why deliver lots of work in record time if you\u2019re not nailing it? Customers don’t give you a pass on quality because “you had a lot on that day”. The game has long changed. Nothing is making you \u201cbusy\u201d other than yourself. The unpredictable aspect of your world and your impact is quite literally you.<\/p>\n

So where is the stability? Funnily enough, it\u2019s time. Time is reliable – it looks something like this: there are 168 hours in each week. No matter what, that is what you\u2019ve got. Broken down, \u00a07 hours of sleep a night and 55-60 hours of work in a week. Spoiler, the rest of your life looks a whole lot bigger than you probably thought. Nice one, right?<\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s play with your \u201cwork\u201d slice of the pie. Impact in the context of this 55\/60 hour period is a balancing act. Whatever your position, whatever you mean to your company, you are a part of something bigger that relies on you. Fuzzy feelings aside, you are a commodity that has a duty – one of supply and demand. Assuming you want to supply solid, frequent results – there are some things you must consider.<\/p>\n

Quality or quantity? It\u2019s a \u201cthis or that\u201d question that comes up time and time again. The answer being both – both matter. Efficiency and effectiveness cannot be mutually exclusive. Impact isn\u2019t an art. It\u2019s a balance. You wouldn\u2019t deliver a punch with a half closed fist.<\/p>\n

My all time favorite example of this is Starbucks\u2019 response to their customers wanting bigger servings of coffee. They developed a new cup size, the Trenta. This cup is not only 55% bigger than their biggest serving to date, the Venti, but it is 16ml larger than the average human stomach. Logically we know that their response to their market\u2019s demand is cartoonish (arguably a consumer prank), overcooked, and wasteful, but this is what we do to ourselves all of the time. We overcook tasks, we overextend our resources on a job that has already been done. It\u2019s hard work spent better elsewhere. We run on empty when we don\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n

This kind of behavior comes at a high cost. Burnout is the much discussed<\/a>, new professional apocalypse. You wouldn’t put this lack of focus in your product roadmap – don’t put it in your own roadmap. Be frank with yourself: What needs<\/em> to happen?<\/p>\n

Simplicity Starts Today<\/h2>\n

Managing Time<\/h3>\n