Why we never use the word ‘busy’ in our business

We have banned the word busy.

We don’t use it anymore.

We are not busy.

Busy seems to have become one of those words which people use to make themselves appear important or as a reason (excuse) for not doing something. Its overused and we think it’s irrelevant.

You know the way it gets put into conversations:

• I am too busy right now to do that
• I am too busy to exercise
• I am too busy to make those sales calls
• and so on and so on…

When someone says they are busy, what that really means is that they haven’t got their priorities straight and are most likely not focusing on the right things.

Let me give you an example using ‘I am too busy to exercise’.

When someone says this it means that on their list of priorities, exercise is down the list and isn’t a must for them. As we only do our ‘must’ things, exercise doesn’t take place. Now consider someone who has their priorities right and knows that exercise and their health is the single most important thing to work on, because it is, right? They will never say they are too busy to exercise as it is more important for them to work out then to do some other less important task. Richard Branson has time to work out and he runs about a million companies, he knows that exercise is so important that it gets done. And guess what, he has the same 24 hours a day that you do.

So how do you get your priorities right?

You review your outcomes on a daily basis in the morning and you reaffirm what is important to you. That way you will never be too busy, you just have to make a decision each time something important comes in as to whether it’s a higher priority than what you are doing or not. Trust me, if you only work on your high priority items, you will achieve way more from your day and you will never be busy.

Is it time you stopped using the word busy as well?