I'm so busy doing busy work | Into The Mountain

I’m so busy doing busy work

By Fiona Boyd |

In my days as Managing Director of Arts Hub (2003 to 2005) I used to be on the alert not to hire staff or engage the services of anybody who was too busy to do real work, due to their need to look frazzled and out-of-control doing ‘busy work’.

Seth Godin speaks of something similar in his blogpost Modern Procrastination, where he’s hit upon the same terminology that I learned studying a Graduate Diploma in Education, where as soon-to-be teachers we were warned to beware of the student who engages in endless busywork. That is, looks super busy, always appears to be trying hard, however what they’re never actually concentrating on or doing is the actual work they’ve been given to do. They’re busy thinking about anything else – and of course, telling everybody how busy they are while doing it.

How many people do you know who actually got through all of their school years without being caught out by an eagle-eyed teacher and questioned on what they were actually doing?

It seems to me that if you ‘look busy’ the people around you take it for granted that you really are busy, and are unlikely to look more closely at you to see if what you are doing amounts to anything of value or indeed, is in any way related to what is expected.

Are you too busy being busy to do 'real work'?

I worry also that the ‘busy workers’ put off genuine people who actually want to do work that matters and want to thoroughly throw themselves at the tasks at hand, but because they get so involved and do such good work and appear to be enjoying themselves while doing so, those around them aren’t actually going to believe that they are quite ‘busy’ enough. Busy means to look tired, frazzled, to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, to look and be serious, to look like you’re drowning not waving! To look important, because you are BUSY!!

The busywork ethos is all about looking busy, however if you tie up all your energy in looking busy, what is left over to actually do the work that’s needed to be done? And more than that, who’s going to figure out what needs to be done?

With the rise of Twitter, Facebook and the multiple other ways in which we connect with others online and through social media it’s really interesting to see who indeed uses these social mediums for a noble purpose, revealing that they’re doing meaningful work there and those ‘busyworkers’ who have found yet another way to hang around looking busy and really doing nothing.

If you’re someone who thinks you might be using ‘busywork’ to prevent yourself from doing ‘real work’ then how about you think about doing things a little differently? Instead of talking about the work you’re meant to be doing, how about just doing it? Usually there is no need to talk about our work. And instead of needing feedback and wanting to be noticed for a small amount of actual work you’ve done, keep quiet and get involved more heavily in your tasks and in completing them in really satisfactory ways. Even better, why not do your work brilliantly and then innovate. Figure out how you could have done it better and faster second time around. And don’t tell anybody – just next time you get a similar task use your faster and smarter knowhow to do a really great job quickly, efficiently and without drawing attention. An insightful leader/manager will notice something has changed and will be more inclined to view you as really valuable to the business, and opportunities flow to those who are highly valued.

Many business owners don’t need to be counseled on this area, it’s usually really obvious who your ‘real workers’ are, and in many companies I suspect the fate of the company going forward rests on a handful of really able workers by whose efforts a whole plethora of passengers get to tag along looking self-important and as if they’re actually contributing to the company and doing real work.

Across my time as MD at Arts Hub I had a bit of an epiphany when I realized that the ten staff we had doing very carefully crafted roles appeared to be spending way too much time politicking and looking special and important – a sure sign of a busyworker. When I did a time in motion test I came to the conclusion that their output could be done by half the number of workers, so I went about restructuring the company and staff levels with David. As it was, I only hired two and a half people to replace this lot, and they did more and better work (in the area of content generation) and as a result our members reported that our content had improved dramatically.

So how does that work then – reduce the workforce by 75% and you get more and better work from your team? It works because we didn’t have any busyworkers in the new team and because this bunch had a relentless drive to create great product and to be involved with it and really care about our content and our members and our company- so that every new staff member who joined from then on, had to fit this ethos. They didn’t have to be any other thing in particular – we had a very liberal outlook – however the team and owners did dictate that only real workers got to join this team, not busy workers. They also didn’t work super long hours – we asked everyone to be there by 9am, and they always were, and no-one to stay later than 6pm (usually they all went by 5pm) as we had the office in our home and home life started for real (kids, dinners, noise mess) at 6pm.

We also rarely had meetings, instead we all communicated regularly with each other via our company intranet and email. Even though we were all housed in the same building, most of our decisionmaking communication was done via email – and it worked! So face-to-face time was not about company stuff but about sharing a bit of ourselves to each other – proper social contact and time together. A beer, a laugh, dips and chips and a chat on Friday nights and then off to one’s other life!

I must admit that I look back fondly at that team at Arts Hub from 2003 to 2005. A key member is still at Arts Hub and the others are now in senior roles at Lonely Planet and wonder why it is so rare to come across such a wonderful high-performing group.

Busy work is my answer. The world has been taken over by busy work and it’s well nigh time to put the honour back into doing great work, for love and money, in an understated but efficient and excellent way!

Real workers of the world, unite and take over!

Image: flickr Don Nunn

Fiona Boyd and David Eedle go into more detail about their run with the ‘dream team’ in their book about the Arts Hub startup adventure – Niche Content Millionaire.

Niche Content Millionaire is a downloadable eBook that tells you the true story how we made millions from subscription content and membership websites.

Buy Niche Content Millionaire Now