Are you productive or busy? Joseph Chivayo explores the difference.

Are you busy or productive?
How many times do we speak to friends, colleagues and family and all they say is they have been extremely busy? Have you ever thought you can’t exercise because you are busy, you can’t pray because you don’t have time?Maybe you can’t start your business because you are running someone else’s business. Possibly you don’t have time to spend with your family because your time is needed elsewhere? These are some of the questions we all ask ourselves at one point or another. However, the answer is found in how we decide to utilise our time and what we feel is the purpose of our lives.

Life is all about how we can effectively utilise the limited time that we have to achieve the desired goals. Now, we all have 24hours each day and how we decide to invest those hours is based on the choices we have to make each day. So many people are busy yet when it comes down to it they have nothing to show for all they have been doing. Look outside your office, house or classroom and you will see people walking confidently up and down the street. Everyone will be walking with confidence; some seem very sure of their intention, others very happy. For some people, you can see they are running their day while for others the day is running them.

PRODUCTIVE VS BUSY
There is one key difference between busy people and productive people. Busy people want to look like they have a mission. Productive people have a mission for their lives. Busy people hide their doubt about the destination of their lives by acting confident in their little steps. Productive people allow others to see the doubt in their little steps because they are clear on the destination. They look so sure in their intention, although they take small steps they know those steps are moving towards their destination.

Being productive, means accomplishing those tasks that will get you closer to meeting your goals. Any other tasks that don’t help you to do so are just clutter. While physical clutter is easily noticeable, be careful of mental and psychological clutter.

Occupying your mind and day with issues without substance, issues that don’t bring your closer to your desired life will keep you busy but you won’t be productive. Now there’s a time for everything and sometimes trivia is just what’s needed to lighten up the day but don’t stay there. Someone once said the two most powerful warriors are patience and time. These virtues cannot be measured or limited but each person will take these as far as they are willing and prepared to go.

We could look at the difference between being busy and being productive based on time management. I think we can never manage time but we can manage what we do with the limited time that we have each day. Some of the skills of effective event management within limited time include setting clear goals then breaking your goals down into small steps, and reviewing your progress towards your goals.

Other skills include prioritising – focusing on urgent and important tasks rather than those that are not important or don’t move you towards your goals; organising your work schedule; list making to remind you of what you need to do when; persevering when things are not working out and avoiding procrastination.

Look at yourself and consider what you are doing each day; if you are a busy person you will find that you have many priorities. Having many priorities essentially limits the amount of time you can dedicate to each priority. You need to be clear on what’s more important and which aspect of your life you need to dedicate more time and attention. In order to be productive you need few clear priorities. You can break it down to what tasks that you need to accomplish in a day, week, month or year and identify what steps you are taking each day to move closer to that goal. Being clear about what your goals are is the easiest way to tell if you’re being productive or being busy.

Now before you jump on that next task for the day, think about whether you are being busy or productive with your life. Until next time, keep a close eye on how you invest your time and always make sure each step is moving you closer to your life goals and objectives.