“Busy” has become a word so packed with meaning in social circumstances, it has become has common a response as ‘fine’ to the question ‘How are you?’. Habitual it might be but are you telling people what you really want to when you use this in conversation? Busy can be a positive thing, if you are busy doing the things you want to do with your life. If your business has been quiet and now it’s ‘busy’ that’s good. Be careful though of using it as a standard response because when you describe yourself as busy, you are potentially communicating to yourself and other people one or more of the following:
- I’m overloaded
- I’m not sure I can cope
- I have no space
- I’m bad at managing time
- I’m disorganised
- I feel a bit out of control.
Any of these will create an unhelpful feeling inside you around how you spend your time. It can programme your mind, if repeated, into believing you don’t have space for anything else, even the good things. Someone else could be left with an impression of you that you hadn’t intended. If someone is too busy it is not a badge of honour, it is an indication that they are finding it hard to prioritise and manage their life.
Think about other responses you can use that give people a more accurate picture of what you’ve been up to:
‘It’s been an interesting time at work, we’ve been getting a lot of orders’
‘I’ve been really lucky recently and invited to lots of nice events’
Karen and John’s new book Time Mastery; Banish Time Management Forever will be released in the autumn. Read our newsletter and sign up to be the first to know about launch events and special offers. You can also find us on social media; on Facebook , Linkedin and on Twitter @monkeypuzzle
