Are You Winning the Busy Olympics?
Anyone: "How are you?"
You: "Oh my gosh. So crazy busy."
If you've said that this week, you might be competing in the Busy Olympics. It's the event nobody signed up for, where we compete to see who can do the most. And it's secretly wrecking your productivity.
What the Busy Olympics Cost You
It’s not like you’re lazy. You're one of the hardest-working people you know.
But you're busy in a way that doesn't feel good.
You answer "how are you?" with "busy" before you even thought about it.
You end most days exhausted, with the one thing that really mattered still sitting on your list.
You rewrite your to-do list, clear your inbox, clean out a drawer. It feels more busy than productive.
You feel guilty when you rest, so you mostly don't.
Busy Is Not the Same as Productive
Busy is measured by activity. Productive is measured by outcomes.
lots of activity + no clear priority = busy
a clear priority + focused action = productive
The good news is you don't need more hours or a better app to make the switch. You need to learn how to choose what matters and let the rest go without guilt.
That's what I teach in 1:1 coaching. You become the woman who knows exactly what matters, gets it done, leaves work on time, and doesn't feel guilty about the rest.
Why I Know This One From the Inside
In 2017, I was a Busy Olympics gold medalist. It led straight to burnout, and it took rebuilding my whole life to find a better way.
Now I help women step off that podium with simple, practical tools like:
The To-Don't List, so you decide what you won't do before it lands on your calendar
The Love and Fit Test, for deciding what actually deserves your yes
The "What am I avoiding?" check, to catch busy work in the moment
A client recently stopped rewriting her to-do list over and over. She outsourced what didn't need her and picked her top three priorities. Same job. Same family. Same 24 hours. But a MUCH better week.
Welcome to the Fully Present Olympics
Here's the event I'd rather you win.
You close your laptop at 5, and the big project actually moved forward today.
Dinner happens with your phone in the other room.
Saturday has one thing on the calendar, and it's something you want to do.
Someone asks how you are, and you say, "Good, actually." And you mean it.
Busy fills your day. Productive changes it. 🥇
PS If you're ready to trade the Busy Olympics for the Fully Present Olympics, this is exactly what we work on together in 1:1 coaching. Book a free, no-pressure consultation here and we'll figure out what's keeping you stuck on the podium.
HOT OFF THE PRESS
“Not now, Gladys.”
We’ve all got an inner critic who loves to offer up negative commentary. But you don't have to prove your inner critic wrong. You just have to stop giving it your attention.
The more you argue with the critic, the more important you make it, so the skill is learning to recognize, “Oh. There’s that voice again.” And then deciding you don't have to give it the microphone.
This episode will help you turn down the volume on that inner critic so you can get back to the things that actually matter. If that voice in your head has been stealing your confidence, and you're tired of wasting time arguing with it, listen now and learn how to stop giving your inner critic so much airtime.
Check out episode 294 here: https://tinyurl.com/OWWPod.
“Busy has become a status symbol.”
The tricky thing about busyness is that it doesn't always feel like a problem.
It feels responsible. It feels productive. It feels like you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, even when it’s not. That's why you can work all day and still feel like you accomplished nothing.
We've gotten really good at measuring how much we're doing.
How many emails we answered.
How many meetings we attended.
How many things we crossed off the list.
How full our calendar is.
But none of those things necessarily tell us whether we're actually moving forward. And that's where so many overwhelmed working women get stuck. They're measuring activity instead of progress.
This episode will help you recognize the difference between being busy and actually being productive, and understand why your brain keeps pulling you toward the urgent stuff even when you know something more important deserves your attention. Listen now!
Listen to episode 295 here: https://tinyurl.com/OWWPod!
WORK WITH ME
1:1 Coaching Spot Open 📅
Ready to start being productive instead of just busy? Set up a free one-hour discovery session with me. You can end the day feeling satisfied, not continually behind.
