I was recently reminded of a song by the late great Bing Crosby.
Busy Doing Nothing
“We’re busy doin’ nothin’
Workin’ the whole day through
Tryin’ to find lots of things not to do
We’re busy goin’ nowhere
Isn’t it just a crime
We’d like to be unhappy, but
We never do have the time”
The lyrics resonated with me as I am sure that we all hear how busy individuals are, diaries going long into the future, and a general sense of lack of time.
This is however tempered with many of us attending meetings that quite frankly could happen without our involvement.
We seemed to have gone from group office meetings where a lot of time was wasted to an endless round of Team/Zoom meetings where at some point, whilst adding the long list of attendees, our names got added.
We have all no doubt seen the memes of cardboard cutouts, or video loops being used to show attendance. All this at a time when we are “so busy” we don’t have enough time in the day.
The question though is how productive are we actually being during our ‘busyness’?