Stop! Right now! Stop!

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTITIONER

Title: Crazy/Busy

Competencies: self-development, managing self, stress management, cognitive hardiness, psychological well-being,type A behavior

Who benefits: this book was written especially for you

Consultant Usage: executive coaches, time management trainers, career and life coaches

What’s it about? “Crazy”.  I am going to use that word a lot in this post.  We are deep into the Holiday Season … whatever your holidays maybe.  If you are like most folks, you are currently feeling something akin to Frantic or, dare I say, Crazy.

Try this little experiment at work.  Note the reply you get when you pass a co-worker and say “How are you?”  There was a time the reply was an automatic “Fine”.  Now listen closely to the replies you get.  How many reply with “Busy”?   Or “Unbelievably busy”.  Or even “Crazy busy”.

Listen to yourself the next time someone asks you “How are you?”  Do you reply with a similar “busy” answer. 

Today’s book recommendation is CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap! Strategies for Handling Your Fast-Paced Life.  I have deliberately picked this book for this time of the year.  I want you to stop.  Get this book.  Today.  And start reading it. 

You are probably reading these words and either thinking or saying out loud “Are you Crazy?”  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Make you a deal.  Read the next paragraph (the words are from the book).  If the paragraph resonates with you, follow my advice.  If not, stop reading and delete this post.

“Being too busy, which can seem necessary and unavoidable, can become a habit so entrenched that it leads you to postpone or cut short what really matters to you, making you a slave to a lifestyle you don’t like but can’t escape.  You can be so busy that you don’t even take the time to decide what actually does matter most to you, let alone make the time to do it.”

Delete now or read on.

The author goes on to retell the familiar story of the frog and hot water.  Put the frog in boiling water, it jumps out.  Put the frog in room temperature water and turn on the heat and the frog boils to death.  Not a nice story, especially during the holiday season, but effective in illustrating the main point of the book: “Someone turned up the burner on us in the mid-1990s.  We’re not boiled yet, but definitely feeling the heat….  The greatest damage from being too busy is that it prevents people from setting their own temperature, controlling their own lives.  It does other harm as well, like increasing toxic stress, making people sick, causing accidents and errors, turning otherwise polite people rude, and reducing the general level of happiness in the population.  But the greatest damage it does is that it keeps a person from what’s most important.”

We live in an Attention Deficit World (ADW).  If we are not multitasking we feel like we are falling behind.  I don’t know if ADW is a real disease, but it feels like it.  This book offers some cures.  It is well written, the first page will grab you, you won’t want to put it down and you will feel great after just a few pages.

During this season of gift giving, give yourself the greatest gift.  Give yourself this book.  Today.  Don’t wait, you will never have time.  Sounds Crazy, I know.  But what better gift than peace of mind.

Catch you later.

[tags]self-development, managing self, type A behavior, attention deficit world, adw, happiness, stress management, crazy busy, cognitive hardiness, psychological well-being, bill bradley, william bradley, bradley[/tags]

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.