Too Busy for Your Own Good

Get More Done in Less Time—with Even More Energy

CONNIE MERRITT

Copyright © 2009 by Connie Merritt. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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This book is dedicated to all of you
who are too busy and want more out of your life—
you know who you are
.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1 The New Culture of Busyness

Chapter 1 Are You in over Your Head?

Chapter 2 What Are Your Reasons for Being Too Busy?

Chapter 3 The Dangers of Being Too Busy

Chapter 4 Preparing to Leave the “Island of Too Busy”

Part 2
Work Is Great, Except I'm So Busy

Chapter 5 Strategies for Working Smarter, Not Harder

Chapter 6 Getting De-Stressed at Work

Chapter 7 Dissecting Disharmony at Work

Chapter 8 The Care and Feeding of Coworkers and Bosses

Chapter 9 Finding Your Balance at Work

Part 3
Dealing with Busyness at Home

Chapter 10 Making Your Home a Sanctuary from “Busy”

Chapter 11 Getting De-Stressed at Home

Chapter 12 Putting Balance Back into Your Life

Conclusion: Raiders of the Lost Spark

Index

At the many turning points of my life there were guides who gave me hope, support, and love. To recognize all of them would take another book but, like an eagerly anticipated child being born, this book has many special godparents. A big thank-you goes to John Aherne, Joe Berkowitz, and their colleagues at McGraw-Hill for encouraging me to write this, along with their wise and thoughtful guidance in clarifying my voice on paper.

Foremost, I want to thank my husband, Lynn Hughes, for keeping me and the critters safe and warm all these years: you're my rock, my love, my life. To Nancy Brundage, whose constant friendship all these years (decades!) I value: I admire your sensibility and strength. To Lola Gillebaard, whom I admire because she lives life not only heroically but also hilariously: I'm grateful for your love and friendship. To Luke Yankee, whose friendship I treasure not only for its loyalty: you help me dream the impossible and believe in its manifestation.

To all those in my minichurch group, my appreciation abounds for your love, spiritual support, and constant prayers: Jim Aten, Valerie and Bill Garrett, Susan Lindstrom, Helen and Geoff Gilchrist, Lola and Hank Gillebaard, Linda and Jim Loomis, Gretchen and Dick Miller, and Glyn and
Jeanna Riley. Lots of pats and love go to my barn buddies: Janice Posnikoff, D.V.M.; Marcy Bisson; Victoria Rea; and Dana Butler-Moberg and her staff and volunteers at the Shea Therapeutic Riding Center. For support in lots of ways, I thank June Stockdale, Liz Yapp, and Beverly St. Clair. I am so blessed!

The trouble with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat
.

—Lily Tomlin

While standing in line for a cup of coffee recently, I witnessed a reunion between two women who obviously knew each other well. After their initial greetings, they proceeded to try to top each other as to who was the busiest. One had a job with lots of overtime under the threat of unemployment, along with a family to feed and clothe and a house to keep tidy and maintained. The other had one of those “gifted” preschoolers who required every kind of over-the-top activity and special tutoring to get into Harvard. I found myself thinking, “Pffffft, try working my schedule, then you'd know what busy really is.” Then I realized that, just like these women, I had fallen into the “competition for busyness” trap. Since when did busy become the latest status symbol?

Our society seems to have changed more in the past thirty years than it did in the entire previous millennium; we've become wired, not just in the digital sense, but wired in the activity sense. In our efforts to have it all, we've created a culture of busyness. But is it working? Do we lead balanced lives with a sense of purpose, or do we just have a to-do list that we'll never get completed?

I've always been in a hurry. I was born in less than an hour and premature to boot. By age twelve, I knew by heart the formula for my father's foamless detergent manufacturing
process, and I balanced the company books. I never walked anywhere in high school—I ran or did a cross between the military march and modern dance to get where I was going. I completed my five-year college program in four years. The only thing that mattered to me was what was next.

When I got my first computer in the mid-eighties, I was thrilled at how much time it saved me writing letters, keeping track of people, and organizing my finances. Then I got a fax machine. Whoopee, I didn't have to wait on the postal service to get things done quickly. Then came the Internet, cable, cell phones, PDAs, and a caffeine-delivery system on every corner. Earth had become heaven, custom-made for a zoom freak like me.

My “busy” started to become
too
busy almost imperceptibly, and soon all the time-saving technology convinced me to use my extra time to do extra work. Gradually I became a slave to the speed at which newer technology and new gadgets allowed me to work. I was living the multitasker's dream—more speed, more work, more stimuli, more responses required. Faster! Better! More!

I became a poster child and champion of the overbooked, overcommitted, and overstressed control freak. This became strikingly clear the morning I woke up with a massive pressure in my chest and the inability to catch my breath. The more I tried to calm myself down, the worse my symptoms got. I had a fleeting thought that I should probably see a doctor, but how could I find the time?

My husband kept asking, “What's wrong? Should I call 911?” As a former trauma nurse, I went through the checklist. Shortness of breath? Chest pain? Left arm numbness? Indigestion? Light-headedness? Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Egads, I was diagnosing my own heart attack! My thought right before I passed out was, “This can't be happening to me—I'm barely fifty!”

When I woke up, four burly firemen in my bedroom were strapping me to a gurney. Ever the control freak, I was barking orders at them even as they negotiated our stairwell: “Watch the handrail! Easy on the new paint! Tip me this way.”

As one rookie paramedic attempted to start an IV line in my arm, I pointed to my left arm and said, “No, not that vein, it was blown years ago. Use this one.” As they attached me to the heart monitor, I twisted around, practically upside down, to check the EKG tracing.

“Normal sinus rhythm, run another lead!” I barked between shrieks of pain.

We finally arrived at the emergency room, after what was probably the most irritating ambulance ride of the attendants' careers. This was the same ER I'd worked in years ago, before I became a full-time professional speaker and road warrior.

Thanks to the wonders of modern pharmacology, the staff was finally able to calm me down, and they ran several tests. After a few hours, the doctor came in with
that
look on his face. You know, the look that says, “I need to deliver bad news, and I'm not looking forward to it.”

He leaned against the end of my bed and said, “I believe you have had a massive . . . panic attack.”

What? This diagnosis just did not seem possible. I was in total control of my life. I couldn't possibly be having a panic attack. Or so I thought.

Before being discharged, I was given strong warnings to slow down, eat better, and get some rest. It was suggested that I follow up with my doctor to find a professional trained in stress reduction. My fellow nurses were also kind enough to remind me that, as a former nurse myself, I'd
once cared for many of those who didn't heed these kinds of warnings. They jogged my memory of treating victims of terrible accidents caused by driving while drowsy, young executives having dreadful heart attacks, and witnessing other patients' psychiatric stays for emotional collapse.