How to Stop Drowning in Busy

When working harder stopped compounding and started costing

00:00Bill Gallagher: Have you ever had a week when you're completely slammed, but somehow nothing actually moved? Is this one of those weeks? That's not really a time problem. It's a busyness habit problem. My new book, Busy Is Broken: Do Less, Scale More, is all about growing by doing less, not more. Read or listen to a sample chapter over at busyisbroken.com. That's busyisbroken.com. It's also on Amazon and other booksellers.

00:29Bill Gallagher: I used to wear 80-hour weeks like a badge of honour, until I realised I was running in place. That's what we're going to get into right now. Hey everybody, I'm Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of this Scaling Up Business podcast. We bring our show to you every week. We've got more than 650 episodes now and you'll find them all wherever you're getting this right now. So like, subscribe, all that. Or go to scalingcoach.com where you'll find downloads, tools, workshops, things like that. You can join one of our cohorts. You can get a free assessment of the growth possibilities, the way we would see it, for your business. All that and more, scalingcoach.com.

01:08Bill Gallagher: All right, so let's get into it. Listen, years ago I was running a jewellery company with my wife and really working hard to grow it. And I was filling all my days. So I'd get up in the morning, I'd do a little bit of work, then we'd get the kids off to school. I may or may not work out. And then I'd put in, maybe I'd work till 7 p.m. Then I'd go home and I'd do some more work. And then I'd do a little work on Saturday and Sunday as well. Before you know it, 80 hours is chewed up that I've spent on all kinds of time. And I'm not having great family time—it's compromised. I'm missing some things, or I'm going to a soccer game but I'm looking at my device the whole time. My brain's not in the game.

01:55Bill Gallagher: I remember I came home one day on the phone, and I continued to be on the phone as the kids were running around. Some dinner was getting prepared or something like that. And I finally hung up the phone after resolving whatever it was that I was working on. And my wife looked at me and said coldly, "Look, if you're going to be on the phone, maybe you should just stay out. You're not really here."

02:23Bill Gallagher: And I was crushed. Like, it cut me deeply. I'm not actually really here, am I? So just bringing home and doing work at home doesn't have me be present in my marriage, in my family, doesn't have me be with the kids. I'm just at work in their proximity, in their environment. And it cut me. It's almost amusing today, but at the time, oh, it cut me deeply. And I'm like, "Okay, I've got to figure out how to narrow things in and do that."

02:47Bill Gallagher: Now, the other thing that happened is we realised that we were supposed to take serious time off to travel with our kids, to do great, fun family things at some point, because we were entrepreneurs. We had our own business and we could do things differently. We didn't have to be a slave to somebody else's schedule—we could design it. Well, that wasn't how it was going. And I had to shift the way that I operated as a leader to make a difference. And I've had to do the same kind of thing with many of the companies that I've coached, not all successful. Like, this is not so much a leadership shift, it's an identity shift. Right? The way that you see yourself as a human being constitutes your leadership and then affects the way you interact. So we want to shift the way you see yourself to move into some new territories that makes all the difference.

The moment his wife said he was not really present

03:43Bill Gallagher: So the first thing I had to figure out is that I was deeply embedded in everything. That meant that I hadn't delegated. I hadn't passed the baton. I still didn't trust people. I didn't give them permission. I hadn't developed them to trust themselves or to feel like it was okay, that I trusted them—it wasn't done. There was no clear accountability. So giving things away, changing my view of myself—and I had to create a vision for the future where I was away and the company was still operating. That meant people made their own decisions. People owned their own plans. They followed through on things. I wasn't central in everything. That meant that I wasn't the biggest, coolest, whatever in the world. And that notion is interesting. Right? I think it's useful to start to look at: how do you see yourself relative to the team, the company? And how do you see other people? Are they capable? Are they brilliant? Are they talented? Really? Enough that you could let them go? Or do you secretly think of yourself as better, smarter, more reliable? Right? So there's a shift there in how you see yourself and how you see them. How you see other people, how you see yourself—they're deeply related.

04:58Bill Gallagher: There's a time to stop and then to think about what's actually strategic and important versus what is the fire that I'm putting out today and training other people to put out fires. Right? So I was busy and I was uncomfortable not being busy, and I think you're like that too. I'm a busy person. People I work with are busy. The people who listen and watch our shows are busy. We're busy people. And there's something about that that we like. Right? So it's going to take a shift in how you see yourself and what you do. So sitting around, you could take up meditation. I meditate in some form every day, sometimes more than once a day. And you could do that, but it doesn't mean you're going to be a chilled-out monk dude. I still am kind of high-energy and I'm over 60 now.

Why being embedded in everything prevents delegation

05:50Bill Gallagher: So you have to start to deal with the fear that's running the show, the habits and the fear and all that kind of thing, and then looking at activities. Look, even as I wrap up this year, the first thing that I went to is: how many days did I work? How many flights did I take? How many trips did I go? How many countries did I visit? How many clients did I work? I looked at activity metrics first versus results. Now, I'm trained enough that I did that, then I started to look at, "Okay, how many companies sold? How many companies did we start?" What are the sort of graduation or the impact metrics? Right? Then I start to go to that piece of it. And I think that's the next shift: looking at the actual productivity and impact, and then starting to notice where is your health affected. Right? When do you have good night's sleep and bad night's sleep? Where have you gained weight? Where has your romantic life suffered? Where has your quality time with your kids suffered? Where have you found yourself texting, messaging on the phone when you're with your kids or your family, your husband, your wife? What is it that you're doing that's actually getting in the way of your quality of life, your stress, that kind of thing?

06:56Bill Gallagher: Then also look at: what are the moments that are fantastic, where you're productive and in the zone, where you're doing things that nobody else can or should do? So I think this is the key that's really useful. So I started to look at what did I need to give away in order to be able to leave my business. I spent almost a year, not quite a whole year, training my company, the leaders on my team, my direct reports, to take things away from me, and I just started asking variations on this question: what are you going to do when I'm gone? So I set a date. "Hey, I'm leaving in June," and that was like ten months away.

07:41Bill Gallagher: Roughly. And I said, what are you going to do in June when I'm not here? When I can't answer this? How will you handle this when I'm not here? What would you do if I wasn't here? Variations of that with an actual firm thing. So both of us had a push to do something compelling, a deadline in the future where this had to happen.

08:01Bill Gallagher: And I just asked the question, then I listened. I didn't have an exact answer. I wasn't angling for something. I was just looking for them to step up, to grapple with it. And sometimes I would give them feedback like, I don't agree, or I think you should do this, or whatever. But over time, more and more, they said things that worked. So that's the key: pulling back from what you should do and then starting to figure out how to automate or delegate, to give away the kinds of things you shouldn't do. You could also be straight and let go of some things. So then I'm left with the most quality things, the creative things, the things that I love doing, that I enjoy, that I wouldn't trade away because I just so enjoy them.

08:49Bill Gallagher: And then, of course, I have some time to fill. So what did I add in? Well, after my trip—I went away in the end just for a month, but a month for a business owner in North America is a big deal. It's not so much maybe in other parts of the world, but I went away for a month. And I came back and I started taking 90-minute lunches all the time. I started doing more quality travel. When I traveled, I didn't rush out or rush back. I left half a day or a day to do something else for myself. I started adding in classes or other kinds of things that did leveling up. It helped me be better, develop as a human being, develop new capacities and strengths and that kind of thing. All that stuff made a massive world of difference and then brought into all the other things I was doing.

Filling freed time with quality instead of more busyness

09:25Bill Gallagher: So I had to let go of things, but then I also had to fill in because I am probably like you—have a certain amount of energy, need to fill my time with some busyness. So let's just make it then quality busyness, not just busy-busy. And I didn't solve then every problem with leaning into it, being more busy. I started putting people on things. So I see a problem—hey, I would ask this manager, would you look into this? I think this is right up your alley or I think this is in your world. Would you take a look at this? Or do you already know about this? Are you already working on it? So that was the shift. Finding things to give up and then finding new things to fill in my natural time. But I ended up with a lot better, you could say, balanced kind of life perspective, and I started leveling up more as a human being.

10:13Bill Gallagher: Now, during those couple few years, we doubled, we doubled. Like we went through some periods of significant growth in that time frame, and that's kind of priceless. So we want to look for: where are you avoiding things with busyness? Where do you think you're being productive but you're actually just filling time? And what are the costs on you personally? And then you might also look at the costs in your organization. Where are people suppressed or not leveling up themselves because you're too involved in everything?

Four questions to diagnose where busy is broken

10:56Bill Gallagher: And then, we want you—so those are four things to look at. Are you avoiding things by being busy? Where are you focusing on activity rather than outcomes or productivity? What are the personal impacts on you, and what are the impacts on your team and your company? So four things to look at.

11:15Bill Gallagher: And then, we want to start to keep a list of the kinds of things that you'd love to give up. So start making a list. Friday is a great day of the week to do this. End of the week for most of us. So at some point on your Friday or whatever your end of week is, make a list. Think about: what did I spend my time on this week that I would love to get rid of? And then keep another list. So this is your stop-doing list, the things that you want to begin to stop doing even if you haven't figured it out yet. And then find some things that you'd love to do. So now you can take on something as you give something away, and you'll box yourself into something that makes a bigger difference in the long run.

11:50Bill Gallagher: And give it time. So this will take time. This is a shift, like I said, in your identity, which then includes certain practices, rituals, that kind of thing. It's going to take time. So you want to start to figure out where busy is broken for you, replace that with some new quality kinds of things, and start to retrain yourself out of that. It also really helps to bring your team in on the game, to tell them yourself, to say, hey, I noticed I'm doing this and I'm moving into this new area. Please partner with me. Support me. I think it's better for both of us. They'll love that.

12:27Bill Gallagher: Anyway, love to see what you do with this. Go run with it. It's made a massive difference in my life. It's been a lot of years since I did that. Let's see. Well, more than 15 years since I took on those practices, and it made a massive difference, and it's helped the clients that have actually worked on it. It's made a massive difference for them too. So look forward to hearing what you do with it. Please let me know. Drop us a line. Let us know. If you want to get in touch with us, if you want to get our growth assessment, if you want to join one of our workshops or know about our cohorts, all that, scalingcoach.com. Like, subscribe, wherever this is right now. Share it with somebody else and do somebody else a solid, do us a solid by sharing the show around.

13:11Bill Gallagher: Thanks to my friend and mentor Verne Harnish, to our producers, and my assistant for getting the show ready and out the door every week. We'll talk to you again next time. Keep scaling.

13:23Bill Gallagher: Thanks for listening today. One last thing. If anything in this episode hit home, my book digs into it further: Busy Is Broken: Do Less, Scale More. It's all about how to stop drowning in work and build a business and a team that scales without you. Available right now with content samples at busyisbroken.com. Go grab it. Be less busy.