people do less Good Work and more Great Work.
You can probably imagine how things might shift if you and
your team were all doing, say, 10 percent more Great Work. But
quite frankly, who has the time? In fact, if the chapter about the
Lazy Question (“How can I help?”) makes you a little uneasy, you
might be fearing that someone will actually give you an answer.
You’re already behind on emails, meetings, deliverables, exercise,
reading and family time. You’re at full capacity. How could you
possibly say Yes to anything more?
Let’s Ban “It’s a Good Busy”
At the same time, perversely, in these hurly-burly days of endless
connectivity, lean organizations and globalization, it’s de rigueur
to humblebrag about being overcommitted and overwhelmed.
“How are you doing?” they ask.
“Busy,” you reply. “But a good busy.”
We’re slowly waking up to the fact that being busy is no
measure of success. George Bernard Shaw was on to something
years ago when one of his maxims for revolutionaries stated, “The
reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man.” 4 -Hour Workweek
author Tim Ferriss drove the point home recently when he said,
“Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate
action.” (And that’s not the good type of laziness I was promoting