Sometimes my gut absolutely mirrors the Market. Yesterday I was all freaked out. By the end of the day, I felt better. Now I actually smell a little bit of hope in the air. Things are marginally back to normal. The sky did not fall. The sun will come up tomorrow. If every cloud does not yet have a silver lining quite yet, there are patches of blue among the gray. So I think I’ll get back to business and usual and do what I said I was going to do last Friday and offer 10 things you can do if you’re too busy.
1. You can cancel all meetings with aggravating people right now unless they are your boss. It’s amazing how many meetings we create with people we’d rather not see for reasons that, once we are at them, are unclear. I believe many of us whip up activity to prove to ourselves and others how non-fungible we are. A little fungibility never hurt anybody, particularly the terminally busy who are already essential in quite enough areas, thank you. Be less fungible. Share your funge.
2. Never write a long e-mail if a gnomic BlackBerry message will do. It’s incredible how many chunks of work can be tossed over the side with a short electronic piffle like, “OK, let’s do that. Can you handle?” If you’re a big player, that’s called delegation. If you’re not, it’s called passing the buck. Either way, it results in less bussitude.
3. Close your door and tell your assistant that you will only be disturbed by a) your boss or b) somebody who is bringing you a hot pastrami sandwich, and nobody else. Your door has to have meaning if you are not to lose your sanity.
4. Take lunch. You won’t be less busy, but you will FEEL less busy. Let me ask you a question. When you eat lunch at your desk, do you end up with less to do after lunch? I’m betting the answer is no. So if you’re going to be screwed up anyhow, why not enjoy a nice, peaceful hour away from the office? Have somebody join you that presents a legitimate opportunity to use your expense account, if you have one.
5. Don’t go on conference calls unless your boss is on it. Isn’t there somebody junior to you in your area? Somebody ambitious, who still believes they get some kind of juice from being on a big ratpack event? Put them on the call. They can be the ones who sit there and twiddle their thumbs while you’re out generating non-fungibility.
6. Schedule an occasional offsite for yourself. Every city has conventions, gatherings, symposia about new technology and other BS you can glom onto. “Where’s Ambruster?” people will say. “Oh, he’s at the global streaming thing at the Hilton,” will come the answer. Smart Ambruster! To be interested in such an arcane issue!
7. Don’t be so friggin’ reachable. A few years ago, I noticed that everybody in LA starts calling New York at exactly the time when we all want to go to lunch. For a long time, I answered their calls and upset my circadean rhythms. Then I thought, “The heck with them,” although perhaps not precisely in those words. “I’ll return their calls tomorrow morning while they’re in the shower.” The bottom line is, just because your phone rings doesn’t mean you have to answer it. CONTROL, guys. It’s the sense of losing it that makes you lose it.
8. At about 4:15, take a look at your To Do list. Anything on it that can be put off until tomorrow? Hold on! Can’t, like 80% of it be put off until tomorrow? Or even the day after tomorrow? That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. It’s called procrastination. It’s divided into three parts: PRE-crastination is all the things you do before you start your serious PRO-crastination which comes right before a good session of POST-crastination. Then you can do whatever it is. Or not.
9. Schedule a meeting with your boss to “go over things.” Anything you do with your boss supercedes in importance anything else you could be doing. If your boss is going out to play golf, accompanying him or her is actually “working” smarter and harder than constructing that spreadsheet you’re supposed to be showing to the Controller next Tuesday.
10. Work faster. Concentrate harder. Clear your platter aggressively. Then rest. Rest is work, too, particularly for those who take it seriously.
By the way, the picture you see at the top of this posting is of Mike the Headless Chicken, who lived for eighteen months with his head cut off between 1945 and 1947. Proving, I guess that our kind of lifestyle can go on for a while, but in the end does take its toll.