Three words. Huge power. Say those three words and you’re excused in most cultures. It’s a message that people immediately get. Like traffic jams in L.A.

Those three words are: I’m so busy.

Always works. And in some work cultures people say that a lot to each other.

I’m so busy.

Busy at work, busy at home… no moment for yourself.

You might feel overwhelmed or too busy right now.

Feeling like you’re just running around from one meeting to another. And that free moment between meetings is quickly filled with checking emails.

If you feel this way, you’re not the only one. According to a Gallup study, 61 percent of working Americans said they don’t have enough time to do the things they want to do. And for working mothers this figure is 9 in 10.

Oops.

A lot of frenzy is going on.

However, is this busyness always true?

According to Laura Vanderkam – who writes about time management – professionals overestimate their work hours. They do so because:

  1. A negative experience like a crazy busy week sticks in the brain longer than a positive one – that one week vacation on the beach
  1. Professionals like to see themselves as hard working.

Result, we remember our busiest weeks as typical.

Vanderkam was wondering how busy her life really was. She kept track of her hours for a whole year. And looking back at the figures collected in that year she realized that her life is not as busy as she tells herself.

She is not the only person who comes to that conclusion after keeping track of their hours. Other people have the same outcome after time tracking.

It’s good to realize that what we tell ourselves is mostly based on how we experience something but that doesn’t mean that data will support that narrative.

So, what to do about this?

How can we change the narrative of “overwhelmed”?

I recommend starting with tracking your time for a week.

Track for a certain period of time how you spent your time. And then be honest: is your life as busy as you tell yourself or not? Or is your narrative about how busy you are exactly that, a narrative that can be changed.

This is a reality check. It could be that you are as busy as you tell yourself. The result could could be that you need to make some other choices. You check if that “so busy” assessment is true. Just check your busy story telling, don’t judge.

Three possible outcomes:

 

  1. Your data supports your narrative. You have too many projects and just too much to do. The solution is to prioritize.

 

  1. Your data shows that you’re even busier than you thought. Again this requires going back to your real priorities.

 

  1. Your data doesn’t support your narrative. Then look at how you work. One remedy is to start mono-tasking.

As much as you might like to believe otherwise, we humans like multi-tasking. Somehow multi-tasking gives us a feeling that we get more done.

But – as you probably know – research shows that the opposite is true. Paying attention to one task, i.e., mono-tasking, leads to higher productivity. According to Keny MacConigal – author of The Willpower Instinct – giving your full attention is one way your brain decides if the task on hand is interesting or worthwhile. Result, you not only get more done, but experience going through your daily To Do-list also as more enjoyable.