This article was supposed to get posted months ago.
It didn’t.
Because we chose to be Good Busy.
We’ve been not-so-secret admirers of Kate from The Good Busy for a while. So, when she asked if we wanted to collaborate on a newsletter and blog post together, we enthusiastically said yes.
Around the same time, we took on an exciting contract: facilitating a series of conversations for 300 leaders to help shift the way they lead and work. We were thrilled. We rolled up our sleeves and got to work.
Then the wheels started coming off.
We were feeling tired and weary. Our usual self-care routines were faltering. And we were struggling to get to all the things that we had previously committed to, like this collaboration with Kate.
We’d love to tell you we sat down, had one honest conversation, and sorted it all out. But that’s not how it unfolds in real life. Not for us, and probably not for you either.
Instead, it was a series of small decisions, day after day, week after week. Regular check-ins with each other. Hard conversations about what to prioritize, and what to drop. Our social media content, monthly newsletters, this collaboration, and many more, all went to the back burner.
On paper, that sounds straightforward. In practice, we hesitated and agonized over those decisions more than we’d like to admit. Because underneath them were scarier questions:
- What if they choose someone else if we ask for a later start date?
- If we say yes and then pull back, who would trust us again?
- Are we missing out on important opportunities by saying no or not right now?
As entrepreneurs, these questions are closely tied to our livelihood, which can paralyze us in analysis and deliberation, no matter how logical and sensible the decisions sound on paper.
Why are we telling you this?
Because what we went through is exactly what we see in the leaders and teams we work with every day.
Most of us already know what we need to do. We know we should say no to that meeting. We know we should push the deadline. We know what needs to drop to make space for what truly matters.
And yet, we don’t do it.
That gap between knowing and doing is where bad busy work lives. And in our work with leaders and teams, we’ve learnt the importance of naming the thoughts and beliefs that lie in the chasm between the two.
Here are a few we’ve heard (in ourselves, and in many of the leaders and teams we work with):
If I say no, opportunities like this won’t come again any time soon.
Things will calm down soon… I just need to get through this stretch.
If I slow down or take a break, I will let others down.
If I push back, people wouldn’t want to work with me or promote me in the future.
Sound familiar? What these beliefs have in common is this: they all make overcommitting feel like the safer, smarter choice. And as long as they go unnamed, they will keep running the show.
We love this powerful visualization of the OOO cycle from Good Busy’s Kate Sotsenko. As Kate puts it, “When you’re overwhelmed, you can’t think clearly, so you overcommit. You overcommit, so you overwork because you feel shame and guilt not following through. And because you’re overworked, you’re overwhelmed even more. Somewhere inside this OOO cycle, the work that shouldn’t exist keeps appearing and remains unquestioned because the world is sprinting, and you sprint with it.”
So how do you close the gap?
Start by noticing the hesitation. When you know what needs to happen but you’re not doing it, take a pause and get curious.
Ask yourself:
What am I afraid will happen if I do this?
What do I think or believe about myself (and about others) in this situation?
Then follow that thread. Don’t let it live rent-free in your head—write it down or say it out loud to someone you trust.
The moment you name the belief, it starts to lose its grip. What previously felt like certainty starts to reveal itself as a story that you’ve been telling yourself. And once you can see the story, you have the power to shift it.
In our work, we love taking this practice and scaling it up to the team level.
Because none of us operate in isolation. We work within systems – a team, an organization, an industry – each with their own norms and cultures. And those norms can either support this practice, or work against it.
When a team builds the conditions where anyone can question the beliefs driving the team’s sense of urgency, something shifts. The whole team takes a pause and evaluates. They become more focused and intentional. Work stops feeling like firefighting and starts to feel purposeful.
This is Good Busy at scale.
And like any practice worth having, it’s not a one-and-done. It’s more like driving: keep your eyes focused on where you’re going and make small adjustments along the way, so you stay on the road and keep moving toward the destination you actually chose.
Ready to bring this approach to your own team? Book a chat and let’s talk about how we can help you make it happen.
Angela & Huong