Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of mental laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.
– Timothy Ferriss
“Work smarter, not harder” is one of the ultimate clichés. Like most clichés, few people actually do it. The busy outnumber the productive by a wide margin. Whether you’re a boss, an employee, or working for yourself, we’ve all had our treadmilling moments. Here’s the difference, from a geek perspective:
| Busy |
Productive |
| Rolls their own |
Uses someone else’s |
| Makes it “elegant” and “extensible” |
Makes it work |
| Responds to your email within a few minutes |
Responds to your email within a few days |
| Ready. Aim. Aim. Aim. |
Ready. Fire. Aim. |
| Makes the boss happy |
Makes the client happy |
| Seeks consensus |
Encourages creative self-expression |
| Writes a detailed specification |
Implements a prototype |
| Looks like they’re busy |
Looks like they’re slacking off |
| Finishes it this evening |
Finishes it tomorrow |
| What else can we add? |
What else can we remove? |
| How should we fix this? |
Do we need to fix this? |
| Sees the toolchain as a competitive advantage |
Sees the user-kickassness as a competitive advantage |
| Let’s get everyone’s feedback on this |
DO IT |
Busy-ness is impressive. It puts you in the heat of the action. It gives you an elevated sense of importance. You’re always late for social engagements, barely have enough time for family get-togethers, and hardly get a moment’s sleep. Emails get exchanged, meetings fill up your schedule, worldwide teleconferences become the norm–there’s even the occasional hope of revenue exceeding expenses. You’re like a rock star without the music.
Of course, it’s all just an illusion. A commitment to anything more than your standard workday is a commitment to work harder, not smarter. There are only so many hours per day that you can produce world-class, creative output. Building something that changes people’s lives is extremely hard, but looking like you’re part of something big is much easier.
Want a challenge? Remove a feature. Cut your deadline in half. Deliver rather than debate. Instead of being the devil’s advocate, be the user’s advocate. Eliminate half your RSS feeds. Stop making it pluggable and start making it work.
If you had to come up with one action you could take to put less time and effort into something and still get the same, or better results, what would it be?
This is a great article in defense of ADD-like behaviors, which I’m all in favor of because that’s me. But, you can only bum err finesse a cigarette so many times from the same set of dudes. It forces you to be social with many sets of smokers, but the costs there is quality relationships not just with co-workers, management but I’d expect clients. A little busy-like behaviors creates faith in your ability to create.
[...] Bollenbach hat darüber einen Artikel verfasst: Busy vs. Productive. In seinem Beitrag stellt er die Merkmale von “hektisch” und “produktiv” [...]
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[...] Bollenbach von 30sleeps macht einen schönen Vergleich zwischen betriebsam und produktiv: “Busy vs. Productive“. Sehr nachdenkenwert, ich habe mich leider auch in ein paar Punkten in der linken Spalte [...]
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I could not agree more with this article. I speak with so many people who can’t even have a productive conversation because they keep talking about how busy they are. If they would just shut up about that and have a one minute substantive conversation they could get something done. These people have their self esteem tied to being busy. Sad. My experience has been that the most successful people I know are patient, focused and take their time speaking with you.They seem to have all the time in the world and you wonder how they do it. Effective time management
[...] article describes a hard lesson to learn. I think most folks, especially when starting out in their [...]
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Some of this, I don’t agree with. Not your best article.
Почитал, прикольнуло :) А может и точно всегда думать исключительно о хорошем, а все плохое переворачивать?
[...] Artikel “Betriebsam vs. Produktiv” im Toolblog wird auf Brad Bollenbach verwiesen, wie er den Unterschied zwischen “betriebsam” und “produktiv” [...]
[...] Bollenbach von 30sleeps macht einen schönen Vergleich zwischen betriebsam und produktiv: “Busy vs. Productive“. Sehr nachdenkenwert, ich habe mich leider auch in ein paar Punkten in der linken Spalte [...]
[...] I happened to read about a blog by Brad Bollenbach at http://30sleeps.com/blog/2007/12/16/busy-vs-productive/ [...]
Great stuff! I think I belong to the busy type. However, for some reason there’s something that stops me from changing. I’m so obsessed with doing things the right way, of being overly perfectionist, of being well-looked at by others, afraid of failure, or rejection, that… I don’t know… but I do dig into some of your stuff.
Warning: This comment is disorganized… I don’t have time to edit right now… Sorry. I hope you’ll respond. Love your blog
I’m always on the computer or always reading. I’m always thinking about how things got started. I’m always planning, always organizing. I cry a lot and I love myself enough to always assure myself that I’ll live my dreams that I’ll reach my goals. Yet I hate myself much for not being the best at anything. I skip sleep to sneakily surf on the Internet at nights even though my parents would completely freak out if they knew about it. I’m always Googling phrases like “how to be famous, how to get a life, how to be interesting, how to be busy” etc. I keep a list of activities… I ask people what they do in their free time and I make a list of it. I read fiction books and take notes of things that the characters do…(Example: Monday: park-skating, play hockey, go shopping, ice rink, skating lesson, snack-hot chocolate – These are the things Nancy, the character of the book, does on Monday. ) Why do I do this? Because maybe…just maybe… I’ll have a life as interesting as the character’s. Or maybe when I’m bored I can just pull out the list, do the activity, and have a good time. Besides that, I collect biographies of famous people… I want to be like them so badly. Anxiety never leaves me. There is such a strong urge in me to do it all, and know it all. I’m always worrying whether or not I’ll do everything in life. Whether I’ll live to the fullest. I don’t want to waste my time, but I don’t know how to stop wasting. They say “thoughts are the seed of action”. If most people thought as much as I do they’d be very very active. Nowadays I don’t even feel much emotion… even my tears seem meaningless. I received my Star Test (California Standardized Test) Results a few days ago and I got good scores but they didn’t cause me to feel anything. Last year when I good scores… not only was I grinning like crazy but I couldn’t stop jumping around. That passion and excitement is all lost. I am home schooled. My parents don’t encourage me to participate in extracurricular activities. I have friends who I call sometimes but I don’t hang out with them. I don’t have a social life. I keep convincing myself that I’m young so there is enough time for me to have a life. But time is running out. I am a dreamer. I am a procrastinator. I promise to do my best and do interesting activities at night and as day rolls by, I’ve already spent hours on the computer. I love going outside; it gives me a sense of power and joy. But, my parents are on a tight budget so we don’t go anywhere… no shopping, no traveling. I don’t have difficulty making friends or a problem starting conversations. . I do get overwhelmed by the nimiety of living in the 21st century (so many movies to watch, places to go, books to read, songs to listen to – how am I going to do everything?) I play sports with my brothers sometimes but they’d rather do other stuff than hang out with me. Does anyone feel similarly? Can you help me? Give me ideas on how to start? Am I helpless? Is it just a social disorder, a lack of motivation? Please help me.
Hi Sally,
You’re going through a very common experience many 15-25yr old experiences. Discovering who you are.
Stop looking at what everyone else is doing and start doing what you like doing. Work smart by no longer doing the things that don’t mean much to you, and start doing more of what you do like.
[...] Shared Busy vs. Productive. [...]
[...] “Um… nevermind the photos.Be careful in all your “busy”ness, that you won’t miss life. And I mean real life, not superficial, pastime life.I will pass after dinner tomorrow to (my dorm) to say hi to a few friends. Hope I will see you there too!I thought you might find use reading some of the following articles about “busy” http://30sleeps.com/blog/2007/12/16/busy-vs-productive/http://lifeatthebar.wordpress.com/2007/05/21/are-you-busy-or-productive/ [...]
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Get more sleep..
to sally,
you know what,i’m experiencing the same thing as ur case, im a dreamer and a procrastinator, aside from that i am a certified worrier, and do have a lot of frustrations. (and i also love crying :P )But like Yyanago said, maybe its just a common experience of an individual who is yet to discover of who we are..but at least we think and in that sense we are on the right track..