Why busy people waste time and die young: perhaps the greatest disease of the twenty-first century is 'being busy'. What does it really mean for productivity and what can we do about it?

Publication: Journal of Banking and Financial Services

Publication Date: 01-JUN-05

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COPYRIGHT 2005 Australian Institute of Banking and Finance

The need to be busy can, in fact, destroy productivity and kill people.

Our health, productivity and happiness are undermined by outdated ideas on work that have been around since the beginning of the industrial revolution ideas such as longer hours working means we are being more productive.

Productivity isn't measured by how many hours we're putting in, but by what we're delivering or 'producing'. Lack of creativity and poor decisions due to fatigue or poor thinking can be very costly.

Many of us are so busy we spend only a few minutes each day on our health, which creates a state of deferred living. 'I'll get around to it later, tomorrow, one day.'

This deferment of living puts off many good intentions and life-enhancing activities to a future that may never eventuate. Many of us work at a body and brain-killing pace so we can have four weeks of holidays or, even worse, we defer everything until we retire. Living has to be done now!

My research indicates that being busy and lacking motivation are the two major factors stopping us from looking after our health and productivity. This lack of motivation stems from the fact that we're so busy we are not making rational choices.

Some of us even boastfully wear the badge of 'being busy' on our chests to prove how good we are: 'I'm just so busy'. This isn't really a badge of success. Rather it's a badge of self-importance that's slowly killing us. We have lost the ability to stop. Whenever we...

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