T I M E M A N AG E M E N T
26
to take on additional or alternative duties. It allows one to ignore
without guilt the needs of colleagues, and resist without fear of
reprisal the requests of supervisors. Other tasks may be more dif-
ficult or demanding, require interaction with strangers or other
unpleasant individuals, involve activities that are unfamiliar and
awkward, or have an uncertain outcome. Busywork, by contrast,
offers many of the benefits of valuable work without the nasty side
effects.
“Those who have least to do are generally the most busy peo-
ple in the world.”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761),
British novelist
Most workers believe that it’s important to look busy to their
bosses, and far too many bosses feel comforted when their direct
reports appear as if they’re working hard. No one wants to be
thought of as a “slacker”
by her colleagues, either.
Being engaged in busywork allows us to feel productive with-
out the fear and uncertainty created by changes in duties. By look-
ing busy, we may fool others as well as ourselves, because many
people mistake activity for productivity. It would be possible to put
a bunch of busywork tasks on your to-do list, use the time-saving
techniques in this book, and accomplish your tasks in record time.
But, will you have moved forward, accomplished your
real
duties,
and reduced your feelings of stress? No. In too many cases then,
“busy” is an unacceptable substitute for “productive.”
Some observers have suggested that busywork is a creation by
upper management made necessary by modern business organi-
zation structure to occupy middle managers. This idea has been
around for some time.
In this view, middle managers must keep busy when they are
not performing their primary duty, which is to monitor the activi-
ties of the lower-level production laborers who do the actual work.
Fluctuations in workload create soft periods during which obsta-
cles to discontent must be placed in the managers’ way. Reports
27
are created, plans are developed, systems are optimized, and
meaningless projects completed so that middle managers are kept
busy and the basic organizational hierarchy does not collapse.
A molehill man is a pseudo-busy executive who comes to work
at 9 a.m. and finds a molehill on his desk. He has until 5 p.m.
to make this molehill into a mountain. An accomplished mole-
hill man will often have his mountain finished before lunch.
—Fred Allen (1894–1957), U.S.
radio comic
This rather cynical and conspiratorial viewpoint of the con-
temporary corporation does not reflect modern business manage-
ment practices. However, it does appear to be reinforced by the
frequency with which large corporations, in an effort to reduce
expenses and improve their bottom line, lay off a significant seg-
ment of their middle managers and continue to operate, seemingly
without interruption. These events makes one wonder what all of
those middle managers were accomplishing prior to their layoff if
the organizations can get along so successfully (better, according
to their press releases) after such drastic downsizing.
Whether busywork is an operational tool created by upper man-
agement to help maintain the pyramidal organization structure, or
a device employed by the individual to avoid other more important
tasks, it reduces productivity in direct proportion to the time it
consumes. Unfortunately, while busywork may act as a temporary
substitute for higher value or necessary work, it does not replace it.
Those other tasks will still be there, waiting, and probably becom-
ing more imperative and more complicated as time passes. Con-
centrating on tasks of limited value can be a real threat to our
efforts to manage time by preventing us from working on more
important tasks. Yet we feel busy. We feel the stress and pressure
of attempting to fit all of our busywork tasks into their allotted
time slots, but don’t have the sense of accomplishment that would
result from completing essential duties.
B U S Y O R P RO D U C T I V E ?
T I M E M A N AG E M E N T
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