Too busy to take care

One of my mantras is life is to take care. It reminds me to take care of the areas in life that I am responsible. Take care of my work. Take care of my family and friends. Take care of the tasks that must get done.

This translates to an active versus passive approach to life. I can’t avoid taking care because I’m too busy or I don’t feel like doing it. It helps me stay focused and do the things that most avoid.

Recently I decided to reread a classic financial book that I read 15-20 years ago. Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad is a great explanation of what the rich do to earn their wealth. Many criticize him and the information he presents. They make good points, but his overall message is still an interesting take on money that is worth reading.

Many passages stuck out to me. One was when he said, “Today, I often meet people who are too busy to take care of their wealth. And there are people too busy to take care of their health. The cause is the same. They’re busy, and they stay busy as a way of avoiding something they do not want to face. Nobody has to tell them. Deep down they know. In fact, if you remind them, they often respond with anger or irritation.”

I see this in the workplace often. A manager is trying to get their subordinates to complete a task that they dislike. Somehow it doesn’t get done and they all claim they are too busy to complete it.

Usually, the manager tells me about it with frustration that they aren’t overloaded and are just being lazy. Sometimes they give them other tasks that they enjoy and easily fit them in the schedule.

One manager said she has a unique way to get these things done. She says that she will tell them on a Friday afternoon that once they get it done, they can leave work early and enjoy their weekend. She said it works every time and the task gets done immediately.

While using a tactic such as this might work when trying to prompt others to do something, it can also be turned around to help us improve as individuals.

I’ve done this to myself. I want to leave for a night out but tell myself I can’t go until I’ve finished some chore that just hangs there. Instead of pushing it off another week, I will start to focus on it, knowing it is standing in the way of something I want to do.

Once I start working on it, I usually find that it is easier than I thought. The hardest part was getting started. Just like when trying to exercise, the motivation comes after we start, not before. If we want to do something, can we find a way to structure it, so we act instead of procrastinating.

This takes discipline and some willpower, but the rewards are incredible. Instead of being too busy to focus on those areas we know we need to address but don’t want to, we shift to taking small action on them.

This is the significance of the technique I discuss often, called setting the minimum. We set a small minimum amount that requires a tiny amount of effort or willpower. We do that regularly (every day at a certain time or certain times during the week, etc.).

Because we keep doing it, it becomes habit. We require less and less effort or willpower and it soon gets completed without much thought.

If we start to take care and make sure to find ways to get things done versus putting them off, that will become habit. You will do them automatically and not think much about it.

You will go from someone who knows what needs to get done but never does it, to someone who just seems to get stuff done. Instead of being too busy, you will be doing what you need to do. Life will become easier as you switch from passive to proactive.