Busyness

“So how have you been?”

“Good…busy..”

How many conversations have you had like this in the last week? Kids back in school, catching up with parents, colleagues, etc.

“Busy”, or its close friends, “slammed”, “non-stop”, “runnin-runnin”, “swamped” (usually from my UF friends), or if you want some street cred with wait staff and maybe extra onion rings when you take the family out to dinner, “in the weeds”.

When did “busy” become good?

How many people do you know that love busywork? Usually they all have the same mantra…”I have 300 hundred emails in my inbox…”, “Back to back conference calls all week..”; “Have to get all of these reports done so that I can roll them up to a singular report and prepare a 10 minute presentation..” Good grief! Sounds important, better not stop you from your “busy” to discuss something important like the weather..

Cell phones, Ipads, laptops, wifi, have made us accessible from everywhere at all times. That wasn’t the case 20 years ago.

The stuff that used to take us days, now takes minutes. We have Sig Sigma’d our way to bliss! Or have we?

What good is the 12 hour work day if the work can be done in 2 after all? Hours still have to be billed.

So we enter “the grind”. More stuff has to go in the funnel to overcome the efficiencies. That is either productive or unproductive stuff.

“Good…busy” is what I hear from attorneys that usually are neither. Because my next questions revolve around how much business they generate and it’s always low. Then they wonder why they are not happy at their current firm, feel undervalued, and tell me how they are the best attorney in that practice area in the area.

The rainmakers that I know have a process and don’t get caught up in busy. They can tell you how they generate business, don’t tolerate average, and seem to have time for a standing tee time in the week, or coach their kids sports.

Busy, I would assert, is the new “special” or depending on perspective, “victim”. It’s where people hide out. There is a reason, as the saying goes, if you want something done, give it to a busy person. They need it to fill calendar space. They need to be copied on every email so that they can hit 300 every day. Conference calls sound very important, until you realize that most people on them are probably checking their Facebook posts.

Well if that is busy…that’s not good.

For more information on client development best practices contact please call Andrew Wilcox at (850) 629-9073, or Andrew@Wilcox-legal.com.