A full diary and no time to think

Time to think is being squeezed out of the packed schedules of workers, who regard a full diary as the mark of success.  Inevitably, it is being called ‘busy syndrome’.

This may sound familiar: people have been bleating for years about the long hours that managers are forced to work in today’s corporations.  Busy syndrome is, however, only partly related to long hours.  People are also busy in their own time – it is, in fact, the return of the ‘work hard, play hard’ ethos of the 1980s.

Working nine hours a day, working out twice a week and hectic socialising is the aim, and detailed planning is needed.  It is now common to have a diary completely full for the next four weeks.

The return to the yuppie lifestyle has also led to something of a resurgence of that other 1980s icon, the Filofax, which had seemed doomed by the rise of the smartphone.

The obsessively busy are losing time for contemplation and may be missing vital opportunities to steer their lives in the right direction.

Busy people are always communicating with colleagues, friends and family.  The diary is full of meetings at work, business appointments, dinner dates, gym sessions and even, if time permits the odd date.

We need to daydream to find our selves.  The clients I see make me believe that many people are feeling increasingly isolated despite all this potential for being connected.

Being on the go all the time eventually leads to burnout.  A friend of mine – a poorly paid, but highly stressed woman working in Bristol – told me: “I have lots of friends; I’m out almost every evening drinking and partying; my phone rings off the hook.  But after 18 months of this, I’m exhausted and it seems pointless. I feel bombarded and I don’t know who my real friends are.”

We need to communicate with ourselves and to foster our internal lives.  In the end, no amount of external validation or packed diaries can support us more than momentarily, if we don’t have an internal point of reference, a central core of knowing.

In fact, a full schedule indicates a desperate lack of confidence. What I see more and more in my friends and clients is this kind of existential isolation, a lot of uncertainty about their identity, their values and their purpose – who they are and what they’re here for.

The trap that busy people tend to fall into is to schedule - Monday, 08:15-08:30: contemplation and realisation of inner space.  It doesn’t work like that.  You have to loosen up, leave your schedule flexible and grasp opportunities to take time out and think of yourself.

I did this myself when I suddenly wanted to get out of banking.  It took three days in a hotel in Devon in seclusion, away from the phone, email and the post, to think through what I wanted to do with the next phase of my life.

The quick fix does have its place, but a little more time spent analysing, pondering, mulling over, reflecting what’s important in our lives and day-dreaming the living moment can ultimately make for a better outer conversation.

It was as a result of a conversation with myself that I decided to become a leadership consultant.  And the main advantages of employing one as I see it, is to get ordered about.  Just as the busy employ personal trainers to get bossed into taking exercise, so they employ performance consultants to get nagged into taking time off for thought.

Once you have decided on your next destination, you need to map your way there in order not to lose your way through the forest of appointments in your organiser.  But here the chronically pre-arranged tend to get things wrong as well, making goals that are far too specific, such as ‘being production manager by the end of the year’, or ‘becoming a millionaire by the age of 40’.

These very specific and materialist goals do nothing for your inner-life, and failure to achieve them, even only by a small margin, is not good for self-esteem. If you go to see a performance consultant and come away with lots of goals and masses of homework, you’re unlikely to be getting the help you need.

William Montgomery is a regular contributor to television and radio on all aspects of leadership excellence. To find how he can help you and your business, please call his office on +44 333 666 1010.