what i don't understand about "busy" people

Sawra values sleeping, eating, and chewing on everything in sight. And it shows. (please do not reproduce without permission)

Everyone has 24 hours in a day. No more. No less. Everyone, or at least, the fully functional adults among us, has a choice of what they get to do with their 24 hours. Some value sleep. Some value work. Some value family, or friends, or athletics. We choose what those values are, and we choose how we manifest them. Which is why it amazes me that people still use the excuse "I'm too busy!" (read the part about being addicted to "busy")

No, you're not too busy. You just don't value what I'm asking you more than you value what else you're doing. And that's fine. They're your values, not mine. Trust me; I get it. I've been "busy." I've had (and still sometimes do have) 18- and 19- hour days, back to back (to back). I've been through engineering school and a political campaign (at the same time). But in each of those situations, I still had the choice of designing my life to fit those things that I valued.

Case in point: the traditional workplace is designed by people who value early mornings (and apparently going to bed at 9 PM). Unfortunately, I value late evenings with family and friends, and I value sleep. I value waking up and going for a run. I value having 30 minutes, before I do anything else - before I shower, before I take the dog out, before I check my email - to have time to write and sketch and ideate. And I value doing all of those things before I leave for work at 7:45 AM. So I design my mornings to accommodate for them. But I also value my work, and sometimes, these other things that I value get sacrificed to maintain the trust of my team and the integrity of my work.

The point is, what we value comes out in our actions. We are no busier than anyone else, our actions no harder, our lives no more challenging. We value what we value, and we put those things first, and we can't force those thoughts or priorities on anyone else. I think Stephen Covey says it best:

"... You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage - pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically - to say 'no' to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger 'yes' burning inside. The enemy of the 'best' is often the 'good'.

So it's worth asking yourself if you really live in a way that promotes those values. If you value your family, do you regularly make time for them each day or week? If you value your relationship with God (Shivji, Allah, Jesus, Yeshua, nonbelief, etc.), do you actively pray and make time for reflection? If you value your health, do you exercise routinely?

Or, are you too "busy"?

learning to say no

Something I've struggled with for a long time. I think lots of people do - they know they should, they want to say no, but they end up saying yes anyway.

From Covey:

"I don't mean to imply that you shouldn't be involved in significant service projects. Those things are important. But you have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage - pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically - to say 'no' to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger 'yes' burning inside. The enemy of the 'best' is often the 'good'.

Keep in mind you are always saying 'no' to something. If it isn't to the apparent, urgent things in your life, it is probably to the more fundamental, highly important things. Even when the urgent is good, the good can keep you from your best, keep you from your unique contribution, if you let it."

... it's that nonapologetically bit that gets me.

what is the gap between stimulus and response?

Buried in the back of Stephen Covey’s book, in the last chapter, he writes about an experience he had while on sabbatical of walking into a library, opening a book, and reading one sentence that changed his life. The sentence essentially reads (and here I quote Covey): “There is a gap between stimulus and response, and the key to both our growth and happiness is how we utilize that space.”

(image courtesy of...)

Essentially, we are confronted with many stimuli in our lives. Some are obvious – temperature, sound, light, actions. Others are more subtle – emotions, interactions, wayward blog postings. But each of these stimuli changes our course in some way, and the mindfulness of our actions in shaping what our response is, makes all the difference in who we become. Crafting appropriate responses to the events, people, and other stimuli in our lives is the essence of maturity.

It’s this thought that spurred my idea for a blog. There are always gaps between the stimulus and the response, and being able to capture the thoughts that fill that space is challenging. For example, there is a gap between consumption (of say, a blog post) and creation (a comment... so think about what’s happening in your gap). But consumption always leads to smarter consumption, and if I do my job well, better creation.

Great design means that you give the appropriate stimuli to elicit the desired response. Great designers, then, can anticipate the space between stimulus and response, and can assess what will happen in that space to guide a user to that outcome. When we design medical technology, we’re mindful of how patient care is affected. A good design is a device that improves the health or reduces the injury of the patient. But a great design has to be one that is also easy and intuitive for a clinician, nurse, assistant, or caregiver to use. Which isn’t an easy order to fill.

So there you have it - the gap between stimulus and response.