Episode 107: What to do when busy work takes over

00:07 Welcome to Unfrazzle, a podcast for solo business owners with a big vision who are ready for a kinder more sustainable approach to productivity. I'm Louise Miller and each week i share bite-sized insights to help you step away from the hustle stop faffing and stay focused so you can make your brilliant ideas happen and make a bigger impact in the world Before we dive into today's episode, if you enjoy what I'm sharing here on Unfrazzle and you'd like to support the podcast. You can buy me a cuppa by going to BuyMeACoffee.com slash Louise Miller and making a one-off donation. I'll pop a link to that in the show notes. Okay grab yourself a cuppa and let's get started!

00:47 I recently asked the good people of LinkedIn to tell me what busy work looks like for them and here are some of the things people said in response. They said, it's stuff that needs to be done not necessarily urgent when i've got a bit of a gap but not enough time to do something really constructive or focused and to me that means keeping busy so i don't feel guilty even if it's not really important And another person said, I think for me there's a category of tasks within busy work that is driven by perfectionism and avoidance of the bit i don't want to get wrong. So for example replacing images in a powerpoint deck hunting for the right image rather than updating important content or formatting a bit of my website page rather than nailing down the copy

01:30 And I also asked people to tell me what sorts of things fall into the category of busy work and they said things like pulling my financial info together for my accounts, scrolling or responding to social media going through my inbox jotting down ideas for social media tidying my files on my computer Posting on socials that aren't my key platform. Checking my email even though it's all newsletters, watching training sessions and webinars I know i'm not in a position to implement. So some really great examples there quite varied examples of what busy work looks like for various different people and some insight there as well I think that's quite interesting around why people are doing it. Does any of that feel familiar to you?

02:11 Now whatever is driving your busy work, whether it is perfectionism avoidance of something challenging boredom or even guilt when you spend too much of your time engrossed in activities that aren't actually moving the needle for you and your business. It stands to reason that there is less time to spend on things that matter most The projects are excited to make happen but never have time for So if you feel that you're always so busy juggling the day-to-day stuff That there's never time for your bigger priorities What do you do? Well today I want to share a few things you can think about that will help you address that balance. So first, understand what busy work looks like for you and your business

02:51 So how do you do that? Well, you might already have an idea of the things that you're spending time on that actually wish you weren't. But if you're not entirely sure then you might want to spend a few days just monitoring how you're spending your time and I've got a template that can help you with that. I'll pop a link to a copy of that in the show notes it's called mindful monitoring and it's just a way of keeping track of what you're doing And then you can look back over that, look back over what you've been doing and notice the activities that feel like they're moving you forward. The activities that might need doing but they aren't actually contributing to your growth. Also keep an eye out in case there's anything on that list there that are things you're doing that actually don't need to be done so is there anything that you can let go of altogether? Keep an eye out for that as well! Then once you know what busy work looks like for you and once you've established that it does need to be done

03:39 You can then ask yourself whether it needs to be done by you. So if you already have a team, is there anything that you're doing that you might delegate? And if you don't have a team are you ready to think about getting support So in an ideal dream world it would be great if we could all outsource all of our busy work so we spend 100% of our time doing the things only we can do that will lead directly to the growth of our business. But sadly most of us are not in that position, there are still some things we have to do even if we don't want to! So if that is the case then what do we do? Well first of all use that monitoring that you did earlier to notice how long your busy work is taking you

04:19 And then consider whether it actually needs to take you that long. So a quick caveat here, if you've been in my world for awhile you'll know I am not a fan of telling people to speed up! That's not helpful Often it just leads to more overwhelm. Everyone has their own pace and that is totally okay, so that's not what I'm talking about here What i want you to do here is pay attention whether things like perfectionism are causing a task to take longer than it needs too So quick example of that Are you agonizing over designing Canva or finding the perfect image for a blog? Just a quick reality check for you there. Yes, of course you want things to look good and be on brand but the difference between a good enough image and an amazing image is not going to be the difference between the success or failure of your business it just isn't so are you spending a disproportionate amount of time on things that actually are not adding that much value?

05:14 And also get curious to see whether a task you don't really want to be doing is taking longer than it needs too because you're bored, you keep checking your LinkedIn feed. You're using whatever procrastination tool is at your fingertips just slow you down so notice all of that and there might be some obvious kind of solutions for you there once you start paying attention and if you're reflecting on all of this and you know that you're spending too much time on busy work I really recommend creating a container for it So deciding when it's going to happen. Decide how much time you're willing to spend on those important tasks that need to get done but aren't really making the boat go faster and do your best to stick to that boundary We all know work expands to fill the time available so how might giving yourself less time to get your busy work done free up more space for other things? And speaking of other things, Do you know what is important to be doing instead of your busy work

06:11 So do you know what the project or goal that you want to be working on right now is and have you got clarity around why that thing is so important to you? I'm not usually a fan of the word should but here is somewhere that it can actually be really helpful. If you know what you should be doing with your time, that bigger project, the big thing that actually is going to make an impact for you... And if you're committed to making that thing happen It becomes easier to limit the time you're spending on other things because you've got a much better sense of the impact that busy work is having and what it's preventing you from cracking on with. For example, if you know there's a new group program you want to be working on having clarity around the tasks you need to do to move that forward will help you choose wisely when you have a spare 15 minutes that you don't know what to do with You know, when I was sharing what people on LinkedIn said earlier someone had said that busy work is what they do when they really don't have time to do anything impactful

07:06 Well sometimes we can get a lot done in 10-15 minutes as long as you've got real clarity around what it is that you need to be doing. So just keep that in mind, do you have that clarity? And then if you're used to getting the busy work out of the way before you let yourself focus on your bigger priorities, It's no wonder that you're never getting to what's important so I would love for you to rethink what you do first What would happen if you allowed yourself to spend time on your big exciting project first? Whether that's blocking out every Monday morning for it, or spending the first half an hour or hour of every day working on the thing that matters most.

07:43 A great way of preventing the busy work from eating into all of your time is to not do it first, right? Do the important thing first and get to the busy work later. Because the truth of the matter is if you spend all of your time doing whatever shouting loudest, juggling day-to-day stuff engrossed in that busy work You will never do the things you need to do to get your business to the next level So remember you get to choose Carry on as you are waiting until you get to the end of your ToDo list before you let yourself focus on what matters most to you Or put yourself, your growth your business growth at the top of your list of priorities. And the key to this as with everything is awareness and intention and if you're realizing that the busy work is taking up too much of your time and nothing I've shared here is going to help you

08:29 It might be that you've created a business model that actually isn't serving you and could this be your cue to sit down and think about what, if anything, you might like to change about that. And as always I hope that this helps and i look forward to seeing you again soon Thank you for listening to Unfrazzle. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who needs a dose of calm productivity in their life and I'd love it if you could leave me a rating and review as that will help more people discover this podcast. If you would like to hear more from me to help stop faffing and take back control of your time, you'll find the link to join my mailing list in the show notes and I would really love for you to join us! So thanks so much for your support and I look forward to seeing you next time