busy beeHey there!

Welcome to the second post in the Stepping Up Your Game series.

Take a good long look at the picture above. Are you a busy bee or a busy beaver? Which one is more like you? I am a mix of both. Some days I am a busy bee and some days I am more like a beaver.

Confused? Let me explain-

I do not question that you are busy. Most of us when questioned would say that we are TOO busy and don’t have time for anything. This means that most of us are either a busy bee or a busy beaver.

Busy bees are the ones who spend their time flitting about accomplishing task after task after task. They don’t bother to stop until they hit their head on their pillow in the beehive. Busy bees feel accomplished and yet exhausted, as they feel like they don’t have time for much of anything other than completing important tasks. These bees do not know how to enjoy life because it flutters by them without much of a thought.

On the other hand, busy beavers are the ones that tell everyone they are busy. They act busy when they are building dams, but they do not truly feel accomplished. To the busy beaver, life is going by way too fast, and their accomplishments are few. Beavers do love to watch TV and are often known to immerse themselves in fun activities, but their busyness seems to yield few long term results.

As I stated above, I am a mix of the bee and the beaver.

Some days I act like a busy bee and flutter about from task to task, without stopping to really appreciate the work that I did, and other days I enjoy playing sports, watching tv, and playing video games all day long.

All joking aside here, we must either get busy living or get busy dying. As Steve Kamb says in his book Level Up Your Life, we really can’t say “I’m too busy” because in reality all that really means is “It is not a priority.”

Digest those words for a second. Take them to heart.

If you desire to do something you will find the time to get it done. Being too busy is just an excuse that we tell other people and ourselves.

I recently found myself in the busiest work environment of my life. My wife and I got a new job with a retirement company and we were both working 50+ hours per week, plus being on call overnight.

This was exhausting, and yet during the months of January and February I worked my butt off to finish a book. Despite the chaos I was able to write over 30,000 words in February alone in order to finish my goal. I did not let my busyness stop me, and I fought through the exhaustion in order to finish by February which was my goal.

I truly believe that there is always time if you want it bad enough. Regardless of your situation you can find a way to accomplish your goals if you realize that you are never too busy. At the risk of offending someone I hesitate to say this but what the heck- if you think you are too busy you are only lying to yourself. Nobody is too busy to live the life they always dreamed about.

Set your priorities and determine what you deem important. Figure out which tasks you need to do to not only feel accomplished, but to also enjoy life.

Don’t be just a busy beaver or a busy bee. Be a mix of the two.

-Jordan, Your Fiber Guardian