What does proactive have to do with busy and productive - DBR 063
Episode 63
I'm interested in this difference between busy and productive, if there is one. It’s hard to tell the difference, even from the inside. I think this has something to do with the relationship between the terms. Busy is a state that we are in intermittently, occasionally, as circumstances drive us. We mean that our time is fully or somewhat over committed. It is a term of reaction. We would like to say “No” to some work, but we (for whatever reason) don’t feel that we can. Busy is more of a feeling/emotion, a response to the environment. Productive is a more long-term, personal trait. We mean that results are produced. We sometimes also add in the idea of ‘efficient’. I think this is where the overlap with Busy comes in. Is busy something we can avoid? This is going to take us on a deep dive into the first of Covey’s 7 habits – Be Proactive Expectations and consequences
- We do many things because we want the results of the doing - we do others because of the consequences
- Recently, we defined some kinds of work/effort. The first two: 1) work proper, which is work for money and 2) chore, which is maintenance work to meet some standard, often external.
- We defined hobby, as well. Here we do things because we enjoy doing them, and the doing is its own reward.
- Consequences are powerful behavioral controls.
- And these are "police" in our world, bosses. Other people closer to us, we more experience consequences with them than they're the deliverer.
The sphere of influence and the sphere of concern
- ideally, I think our sphere of influence and our sphere of concern would coincide, and we control both of these things. One we control in the long term, the other we control in the short term.
- We can control the sphere of concern in the short term, and most of us need to shrink it.
Busy/productive – how does Covey address this
- Habit one is be proactive. This is neither busy nor productive, but precedes both.
- Covey defines being proactive is to subordinate an impulse to a value – I don’t love this
- I think most of us hear proactive and we think pre active (contrast to reactive)
- Proactive, in some ways, is response to a lack of stimulus, or the ability to create our own stimulus.
- In order to act, we look at values and our own desires and we initiate action, rather than constantly being at the mercy of external stimuli.
Back to spheres
- Technology allows us to expand our sphere of concern (and our number of stimuli) beyond any reasonable scope relative to our sphere of influence.
- A lot of people waste significant time and emotional energy on areas of the sphere of concern that don't overlap with the sphere of influence
- If we're in the sphere of concern and not in the sphere of influence, then the only action we can really take is to worry, and that takes our attention and drains our mental energy.
- Modern communication technology tempts us to expand our circle of concern so we can, you know, investigate what's going on in areas of the universe that really just have nothing for us
Moving to commitments and action – delivering influence