00:00:00: Introduction
00:00:54: Dan Siegel
00:01:24: Alternatives to ‘busy’
00:02:08: Positive words
00:02:44: Challenging words
00:04:14: A useful quote
00:04:44: A related episode
00:05:11: Final thoughts
Name Surname: Hi, my name’s Sarah, and in this Squiggly Career Shortcut, I’m going to be talking about why I think we should ban the word ‘busy’. When I ask people to describe their week at work in one word, pretty much 90% of people will say, “Busy”. It’s our default, it’s our go-to word now to describe what work feels like. But it is quite a vague term, and being busy can mean lots of different things. And I think when we say busy, it doesn’t really help us with what we might do differently, or do more of the same. So, we want to be more specific. If we’re going to use a word that helps us to reflect, that helps us to be more relevant, and helps us to get better at the work that we do, I think we want to challenge ourselves to go beyond ‘busy’.
We also know from the work of a psychologist, called Dan Siegel, that if we want to work with words, we need to name them to tame them. I always really like that phrase, really memorable, “Name it to tame it”. So, if you want to change those words, if busy for you means actually you’re having a really difficult week and you’re feeling really overwhelmed, the more specific we can be, the more chance we have of working with those words in a constructive and useful way. So, rather than saying ‘busy’, maybe as you’re watching this now, think, “If I wasn’t allowed to use ‘busy’, how would I describe my work or this week in one word?” Maybe you feel ‘confused’, maybe you feel ‘overloaded’, maybe it’s ‘progress’. So, you could start off with ‘busy’, but actually, when we dive into what busy means, what that looks and feels like for all of us, it’s probably quite different. It can be positive, it might be neutral, or it might be a more negative, much more difficult word. But the more specific we are, we can then do something with those words.
So, once you’ve got your words, let’s imagine it was ‘progress’, we can then work with those words. So, if it feels like a positive word, it is worth just pausing for a minute to notice, “Well, what am I doing well? If I’ve made really good progress this week, what has helped me? What could I do again next week? What are the repeated habits that have been really helpful for me?” so that we are intentional about kind of continuing to create an environment and ways of working that really work for us. So, if your word is a really good one, why is that? Ask yourself that why question.
If your word is a more challenging one, let’s take a couple of examples, let’s imagine it’s ‘overwhelming’. I imagine we all have weeks where we feel overwhelmed. What that then might do is to prompt you to ask a question like, “Okay, I do feel overwhelmed. What’s the one thing that matters most today? Or what’s the one thing that matters most this week?” And so, we force ourselves to prioritise and to turn that overwhelm into, “Well, I’ve got to make some choices. I am overwhelmed, there might be quite a lot of quantity, but I’ve got to make some choices”. So, maybe we just ask ourselves some coach-ourselves questions to help us to move forward.
If you’re feeling ‘confused’, slightly different to overwhelmed, confused, maybe you’re not sure where to start, or you feel like you’re second-guessing maybe other people or what you’re meant to be doing, you might ask yourself instead, “What will help me to create clarity? Would a conversation help me to create clarity? Would a mind map, a one-minute mind map help me to create clarity? Would just writing down what I don’t know, doing a bit of a don’t-know notebook, would that help me to create clarity?” And ask yourself, “What has helped me to create clarity in the past that might have been useful?” because we’ve all had those moments where we feel a bit confused about work. And so, it will encourage you to ask some different questions, but also think about the tools and the techniques that can help you. We don’t want to stay confused for too long; we don’t want to stay overwhelmed this week and next week and the week after.
So, there’s a great quote from a philosopher, which I always like, which is, “The words that we use frame how we see the world”. And so, I think by just asking ourselves this question, How’s my work been this week in one word?” and then thinking about, “How do I work with that word to do more of what’s good, and to maybe make some changes if things are not working for me?” it is a much more useful way of learning and growing in our Squiggly Careers. If you want to dive a bit deeper into a Squiggly Careers episode, episode 29, so that is at the start of the 500-plus episodes that we’ve done. So, I’ll be fascinated to hear if any of you do then listen to that one, whether we’re very different or very similar to how we are today. Yeah, episode 29 is all about managing stress. So, not directly on busy, but if your one word perhaps is ‘stress’ or I feel ‘stressed’, that might be a good one to dive into.
I hope you found that helpful, and please do email us, we’re helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com, if you’ve got any feedback, or if there’s any ideas you’ve got for squiggly shortcuts that would be useful for you.