What to do when you’re too busy

October 7, 2024

Have you had a convo like this lately?

You: “Hey. How are you?”

Them: “Oh you know… busy!”

What are you supposed to do with that as a response?

“Wow, that’s awesome.”

“Oh, that sucks.”

The term ‘busy’ is used as a bit of a catch-all in conversations to mean anything from: “I’ve got something exciting planned for every day of my overseas adventure” -to- “I’ve got 17 unfinished projects all due tomorrow.”

The type of ‘busy’ that I want to talk about here is the type that turns into a problem when you let it get away on you.

You’ll know it well I’m sure. It’s that end of the quarter busy. The kind of busy that we experience when your reports, proposals and bills are all due at the same time.

It’s stressful just thinking about that- sorry for making you read it! 😵‍💫

𝗛𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝘆 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻.

One of the cornerstones of coaching is being in control of your thoughts, so your thoughts don’t control you. Having a plan in place for when you get busy is a perfect example of this.

𝘽𝙚𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙗𝙪𝙨𝙮 𝙞𝙣 𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙤-𝙥𝙞𝙡𝙤𝙩

“When I get busy I get snippy with my family, I distract myself with online shopping and I just feel exhausted.”

i.e; what happens when your default thoughts are in charge and you think “yeah, that’s just my way of coping”.

𝘽𝙚𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙗𝙪𝙨𝙮 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙖 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙣

“When I get busy, I tighten up on my sleep routine, renew my Hello Fresh subscription and uninstall all the social media apps on my phone”.

i.e; the plan that you put in place ahead of time ON PURPOSE because you know that if you don’t you could end up spending $47 on penguin shaped post-it’s from Temu that never actually arrived!

Coaching is always about what we can do right now in this moment, for the benefit of our future selves. So whether you’re battling with being busy right now or not, it’s a great time for your present self to jot down a simple ‘busy plan’ that your future self will thank you for.