101/365 How do you look at a Busy Day

By vinodnarayan on October 2, 2021 • ( 0 )

Whenever you ask people how the day was, they say Busy… Busy Busy and I wonder… is it really busy. Do people feel happy or unhappy when they are busy.

I sometimes feel it is not about busy but being meaningfully busy. If what we do is not meaningful then it does not matter whether it is busy or not. May be sometimes people think if they don’t say they are busy it will reflect bad. That makes sense. Why would you be in a job if you are never busy.

You can have slow and busy days. For me there are some days that are so hectic as it includes planning and preparation for the upcoming two weeks. So every alternate week is way busier.

I am not sure if this is the case with every teams we work with. Some teams are better streamlined and we have less surprises. Some teams always have surprises and in such cases I think we should define busy. Here are some thoughts I have.

Having something to do for every working hour of the 8 hours. Does that make you busy? Or is it that feeling that you have so much to do and you could not complete at the end of the day? Or is it that you just did not relate with anything you did and you thought it was a total waste? Or even better is it that you work for 18 hours instead of 8? Or is it that your are not just working at work, but also in life at home? What is it…?

What is Busy..? How do we define busy? I think we all might have our own ways of defining busy? Let us for a moment accept that we don’t act busy and we don’t say we are busy just because the alternate answer would make us a slacker. Let us say for now that we are all honest.

For me I see busy in two ways. Busy… drained… unhappy and Busy.. Drained but content and happy

I am busy.. drained out and unhappy when I cannot find a value in the busyness. When I feel I spent so much time on wasted activities that does not add any value to anyone. May be I am wrong, but I just don’t get the value of why we are doing it. I am not sure if you can relate to that. Meaningless meetings are one way. Or meetings you have no idea why you are part of.

I am busy… drained out but happy and content and will enjoy every bit of my time off work is when… yes I have been busy, but I find so much meaning. May be I got more done in any said hour that I did before. Where I could sense that people I worked with also felt a sense of achievement. When we made some real progress. That for me is a busy day at work that I love.

And then there are those meh… Kind of days.. it just went by… So what does Busy Mean to you?

Note: Now you can listen to the audio version of my blogs on the Penpositive Outclass Podcast on Google, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Check it out and new episodes uploaded every day 4 AM Pacific Standard Time