In this episode, I talk to corporate performance expert Peggy Sullivan about time poverty (aka being too busy) and what to do about it. Employ her 3-Step Busy-Busting Process to experience less stress and have more time for the things that matter.
"78% of people end the day feeling like they didn't have enough time."
Our guest today is author, speaker, and corporate performance expert, Peggy Sullivan who talks to us about time poverty (aka being too busy) and what we can do about it.
We discuss:
- The dangers of multitasking
- Being busy vs productive
- The importance of values
- How to get off the hamster wheel
- Peggy's 3-Step Busy-Busting Process for taking micro action to change your habits
Want less stress, more spaciousness, and "more good stuff in your life"?! Join us for a conversation about our most important asset: time.
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Peggy Sullivan is an author, keynote speaker, and corporate performance expert dedicated to eradicating Time Poverty (not having time for what is most important). Her research, as presented in her proprietary 2023 Busy Report, reveals that 78% of people are over the top busy and that over-packed schedules lead to burnout, decreased productivity, and unhappiness.
As a busyness addict in recovery, Peggy has found that there is a huge price tag that comes with busyness. Her book, "Beyond Busyness: How to Achieve More by Doing Less," provides actionable strategies and introduces her 3-Step Busy-Busting Method. This process helps people achieve peak performance, self-care, and happiness without compromising one for the other. Recognized by Forbes, FOX, CBS, and NBC, Peggy's data-driven strategies have helped individuals from global organizations like Bank of America, Google, Merrill Lynch, and BlueCross BlueShield break the cycle of busyness.
Peggy, also the founder of the nonprofit organization "SheCAN!", delivers her powerful message through speaking engagements and corporate consultations. She covers various topics, from breaking through the busyness trap to personal happiness as your superpower. Her mission is to help you take back control of your life and find the sweet spot between productivity and happiness.
To learn more about Peggy and her work visit peggysullivanspeaker.com or connect with her on LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/peggyasullivan/), Facebook, or Instagram (@peggysullivanspeaker).
- I am Celine Williams and welcome to the "Leading Through Crisis" podcast, a conversation series, exploring resiliency and leadership in challenging times. My guest today is Peggy Sullivan, who is an author, speaker, performance management consultant, and busyness addict in recovery. Welcome Peggy.
Thank you, it's awesome to be here.
I'm very excited to talk to you today. I, I love the topic of busyness in general. I have thoughts on it. I'm sure you do as well, obviously, you do as well. But before we jump into that, the question I always start with is, the name of the podcast is "Leading Through Crisis". When you hear that phrase, what comes up for you, or what does that mean to you?
Take a deep breath. Think about your priorities, what is most important, and focus on those. And most of all, focus on the people around you to make sure they have what they need, and make sure you focus on your self-care. Too many times we don't realize that we cut off our, we put self-care on the back burner. We don't do the things we need to nourish our minds and nourish our energy and set ourselves up for success. You know, we over-schedule, a lot of things that come with busyness. And so for me it's about being strategic. Be thoughtful, take a step and really think about what is most important and focus on that. It's usually one thing at a time.
I think it's really, I mean, I think it's very challenging for people to take a step back and be intentional in not crisis change moments, right? To say like what is the best next thing? What's the best next thing? What to do that one step at a time, let alone in moments of crisis or change. And I think that comes from many people, myself included, I'll fully own this, confusing and conflating busyness with productivity, or intentionally choosing things that are going to move the needle forward with just like filling time. And so--
You just nailed it. You just nailed it. It's pretty crazy, 'cause I spent a good portion of last year looking into and putting together a process that, really, I call subtraction, and it's about a eliminating low value activities. We always think as though more is better, and ironically, you know, my husband came home and he was so excited. I needed sugar. He bought two pounds of sugar. He tried to fit it into a one pound container and it spilled out all over. And you know, I love to repeat that visual because that's what happens. We get so focused on low value activities, we don't have time to focus on what is most important. And there are low value activities, I call them busy traps, everywhere you look. And when we get very conscious of what are the busy traps and we can start to eliminate them, we can really start to step into productivity. And there's nothing worse than ending your day saying, I was busy but I wasn't productive, or even worse, I didn't have time for the things I love, the people I love, or a moment to breathe, and to really be intentional about the choices I'm gonna make. As a busyness addict in recovery, I know for me it's a challenge every single day to take a step back and to really think about what is most important and not to get stuck on those low value activities. But the reality is we have so many choices. You know, do we really need to look at that email, just because you've got mail. Doesn't mean that that's going to be the most important thing of your day and you need to check it 50 times. And just because your organization has a number of meetings doesn't mean they're right for you to go. You know, you need to make sure that you have time to spend on your work. 65%, and I'm a research geek, so I'm gonna quote research every which way we go. But 65% of people get up every day, they look at their calendar and they know they don't have time to get done what is most important to them. They over-schedule themselves. And for me, that's self-sabotage. You know, I've gotten into the discipline of leaving space for the unexpected because in today's world, it always happens. And so if you don't plan for the unexpected, then you don't have time to absorb it. And over-scheduling is definitely a really big hole in the ground that people often stumble into and get lost into.
So I have a lot of questions, but I wanna start with this one. It's based on what you just said, and that is, how much of the over-scheduling that people get stuck in or that busyness trap is because they aren't leaving space for the unexpected, versus, they're just putting too much in the calendar to start with? Does that make sense as a differentiator?
It does, and I have to think that the answer is a little bit of both. And I know for me, I always encourage the people that I consult with, talk to your manager, be really clear on your priorities. If they've got a project that is really important with a deadline, they're probably not gonna care if you go to this meeting or that meeting. What they're gonna care about is that you do a quality job and you get that project done on time. So I think a lot of times we think we need to juggle everything, but it's really impossible. Or we'll do that multitask syndrome where I can go to the meeting, I can half-listen, I can work on my report, and people don't understand that multitasking, when you multitask, it actually takes you three times longer to complete a task and you have twice as many mistakes. So, you know, a lot of what we've been conditioned to think and to do is really not the right thing. Our society is hustle, hustle, hustle. The more you do, the better you are. The more successful you are, the more important you are. That doctor, you know, I can't get in to see him for six months, he must be really good, and we just don't question our current state. And I think it's really important. I know for me, the way that I decide what is most important in my life is I have a values filter. About four or five years ago, I started speaking a lot on values and I realized that I was really spending a lot of time on time management, not values management. So I'd get to the end of the day, busy, not productive, or more importantly, I didn't feel fulfilled, I didn't feel rich, I didn't have the time to do the things that nourish me and that really make a difference in my organization, and so, you know, push the reset button for me. So I'm really big on, you know, making sure that you have a filter for making your decisions. And I did some market research not too long ago and really interviewed about 10,000 people to understand what are the core values that lead us to get to the end of the day and feel like we had a great day and a well-lived life. And you know, it's pretty simple when you get right down to it. You know, one of them is connection and how important it is to connect to people. One is growth and challenge and change, and when we have growth as a value, we become more resilient and we can handle change more. The other is what I call energy management. And I think too many times, and especially women, we don't fill the gas tank, and that's pretty cliche to say. But the reality is when you don't get a good night's sleep, when you don't drink water, when you don't nourish, your brain cannot function on its utmost capacity. You actually make yourself dumber. One of my favorite busyness stories was when I was working for a healthcare company and I was a single mother and it was an amazing job and I loved it, but it was very, very time consuming. So I would work 10 hour days and I can remember one day in particular where I came home and I was exhausted and I hadn't eaten lunch, and I was kind of in this mindless haze, and so I decided I'm gonna grab something to eat and I'm gonna feed my cat. And we were just talking about about cats. So I grabbed the only thing I could find, a bag of pistachio nuts and kind of wolfed down a handful, and I fed my cat, and fell asleep on the couch. And I woke up a couple of hours later to this like horrific noise. And I look up and is my cat throwing up pistachio nuts, and me looking down, realizing I was such a zombie. I ate a whole handful of cat food without even realizing it. I was not in the present moment, and I had said to myself, wow, these are salty, these are stale. But I just kept on going and doing and eating because I knew that I needed nourishment. And so I think, you know, it's just so important for us to realize we can't be our best and that self-care is on the top. You can run on empty, you can keep up crazy behavior for a short period of time, but at some point it's really gonna deteriorate your capacity to think, to get things done and to contribute and be happy.
So how do you, okay, again, I have so many questions that I wanna ask. I wanna go back to the values filter for a second as a, because I think for decisions, 'cause I think that it's an important topic, it's come up before and I'm curious if someone is listening and says, like the, you know, you named connection and growth and--
Energy and--
Energy management.
Authenticity is the fourth one.
I was gonna say time management, I'm like, it's not time management, energy management. And so if someone hears those, they're like, great, but those, you know, maybe one of those is one of what I would consider a value. I wouldn't necessarily consider the other's values if even that one, right? Because mine are, whatever someone might say. So this clearly doesn't apply to me because my values are, 'cause we know, we know there's gonna be people who have that kind of reaction, 'cause there always are. What would you say to someone who is immediately thinking that or saying that when they hear it.
Logical.
Yeah.
I'm a research geek and when you have statistics like 98%, 96% have a more meaningful life when they have these four things in their life, I tend to think there's something to it. And you know, for me, I spent about 25 years really being a busyness addict, and I would get to the end of the day, and I had an awesome career, I traveled the world, I had people reporting to me, I had everything from the outside that looked amazing, but I didn't have time to enjoy my family, I didn't have time to enjoy my self-care. There was a point in time where I had Post-It notes next to my bed stand telling me what time zone it was and where I was and what was the next city I needed to get back in. And when I started thinking about making sure that I connected every day, and it could be something as simple as a sideways conversation with somebody in your office, you know, giving somebody a call saying, you know, How you doing today? How can I help you? What do you need? You know, How can I help you get to the end results? What are your challenges? You know, connection is is all about that, but it's also about connecting to things that make us feel good. I was traveling the other week and I was in Charleston and it was at a really busy conference and I for a second, isolated. And so I decided I wanted to call up my son and talk to somebody who knew me, who loved me, where it would just be easy and uber-comforting. And I called him up and he says, "Mom, I'm working on a deadline. "Mom, I don't have time to talk to you. "I'm too busy. "My deadline doesn't end for a couple of days. "Let's talk over the weekend." And I'm thinking to myself, you know what, I need to connect right now. I need to get outta my head right now. I need to feel good and to, you know, just have this rewarding, fulfilling conversation. And you know, if people don't understand the value of any of these values, they can go to the "Harvard Business Review," they can go to "Forbes," they can go to "Inc." There's so much research. 43% of people today feel disconnected and it results in them not being able to function on a team, tell their employers or their managers what they need, tell their spouses what they need, tell their friends when they need their support. You know, connection is so, it's not a would-be-nice-to-have. It's really better together. And we've gotten so isolated in COVID and really believe that we can do everything on our own and we don't need to be connected. But do you ever sit in a room where somebody has an idea and somebody makes a contribution and adds a little, and then the idea starts to flow and change and shape. And that's what happens when we work together and when we're connected. And that's what happens, you know, when you connect with your family. You know, my husband, I've had a long week, my husband wants to go out to dinner tonight. I know he definitely is looking forward to a great meal, but you know what, I don't wanna go out to dinner tonight. So I texted him a half an hour saying, you know, I'll go if it's really important to you, but this is what I need, and I think that that is part of connecting with somebody is just being able to say, this is what I need right here, right now. And the same with the other values. You know, if you think that energy management isn't something that you need to be doing, I'll tell you it's wrong. You know, I get back to the trip that I was on recently, and you know, I do a lot of traveling, a lot of long plane rides, and I tend not to hydrate on these long plane rides, especially, if I book 'em last minute. And I'm in the middle seat, I don't wanna bother, you know, Can you get up, 20 zillion times? So this particular trip, I didn't get to hydrate as much, and I was staying in a villa where there was no takeout and the restaurant was really far away. So I wasn't nourishing myself either. And after a couple of days I felt like I was in a brain fog. And I'm like, I'm sleeping. Why am I in a brain fog? And then when I sat down and I really drank my water and I ate a nutritious meal, my brain started to function so much better. And truly, there are so many studies that show that when you take care of yourself, so anybody, getting back to your question, that says that these values aren't important, I say they're focused on getting it done and not adding true value, true meaning, and truly, you know, making a difference in the world because this how we do it. We do it through connection, we do it through teamwork, we do it through taking care of ourselves. We only have one, ourselves. How many times have you heard about somebody who has worked their whole life and then they have a heart attack, or then they get cancer, and they look back and they're like, woulda, shoulda, coulda. I had a heart attack when I was 40 years old because of stress, because of working too hard, because of not taking care of myself. And it was at that pivotal moment where I said to myself, busyness is controlling my life. I wanna take back control. I am not giving power to anybody or anything. I am stepping into my own power and making choices that are right for me. And it does not mean you cannot be an effective employee. You know, it doesn't mean that you can't be focused on your career and making a difference. It's quite the opposite. It means that you're gonna focus on those strategic things that let you get the job done and make progress.
Okay, so the first thing I heard that I wanna point out, which I think is really important is when you're talking about the four values, I think that what would be a really important reframe for people to hear is that this is not about, these are my personal values in the sense that, 'cause I think a lot of times, and that's where I was coming from. People think, they hear values and they go, Well, that's not my personal values, right? My personal values are A, B, C. These are more like values for living life or priorities to focus on. Like, use a different term to the audience, whoever's listening.
Yeah. So lemme shed some light on that that I think will make it make more sense. You know, so many people focus on time management and the reality is most people in the workforce has taken anywhere from six to eight time management courses. And yet 78% of the population ends every day saying, I didn't have time for the work that was most important. So I don't believe that time management is a secret sauce, and that's why I believe that values management is. But values is pretty, it's like an obtuse thing. It's very hard for people to latch on. And when I used to speak about values and I would walk into an audience and ask people, you know, what are your top values, and what I noticed was that people would start to Google, they'd write down trust or respect or a couple of things that came really easily, and then they got lost, or they look at their neighbors. If they're good enough for her, they're good enough for me, so they're gonna be my values. And what I discovered, and I probably didn't frame this right, is when you have an architecture for your values, then it is a great way to make sure you are having a meaningful life. So for example, I talk about connection, energy, growth, and authenticity. At the end of every single day, I write those four words down and I ask myself, did I learn something new today? Did I grow, did I stretch myself? Did I take on a challenge? Check the box. Did I connect? You know, did I self-care? Did I do things to make me happy? Did I ignore my inner voice, my authentic voice, or even worse, did I not listen when somebody else had a different opinion? And so for me, you know, after all the research I've done, you know, over 10,000 people had said, these are the values that lead to quality of life. That's a pretty significant number. You know, I don't wanna get to the end of my day saying, I got a lot of stuff done. I wanna get to the end of my day saying, I made a difference. I was happy, I had energy, I helped somebody. And so connection may be something very different to you than it is to me. Energy may be something, you can personalize these things and they may not be the four that work for you. But for most people, and I do a lot of corporate training, for most people, this is a great way and infrastructure for them to be able to make decisions and decide, yes or no. You know, is this a low value activity? I'm not gonna do it. You know, it doesn't add value and it's just a great way. So when I think about values, I think about, very simply, decision, where I can decide if something is the right thing for the right reason at the right time. It's just as simple as that. That to me is what the definition of values are, and that values are a filter for your decisions, and that we all gotta get off this busy treadmill, this hamster wheel, this state of exhaustion where we're not able to be our best selves. God didn't put us here on earth to have no time for fun and family and creative thinking. And you know, you think about what is most important to a business, and that is, you know, meaningful growth. And when you spend your day on things that aren't strategic, checking off the list, doing all the low value things, you are usually not innovative, you are usually not creative, you are usually not focused on your strategic priorities. And so we gotta start by being very focused on what we can eliminate and subtracting those low value answers. And for me, you know, I'm a business addict. I had wake up call after wake up call. My life had so many twists and turns and I paid so many price tags and I decided I was done with that. And so over the last 10 years I've been experimenting, doing a lot of lectures, going into a lot of organizations and I've come up with a process that works for most people, and it's really what I call the three-step busy-busting process. You know, step one is about subtraction. Know what your low value activities are and make sure that you're not spending too much time mindless scrolling, social media, going to your email 50 times a day, you know, going to too many meetings. Your time is valuable. Spend it on what's important. Step number two is, my first book that I wrote was about happiness and the neuroscience of happiness, and at that particular time I really started to understand what happens to your brain when you're happy and how it sends neurotransmitters to the rest of your body, basically saying, I'm smarter, I've got more brain power, I've got more energy, I have an ability to fight chronic disease. I'm more positive, you know, I feel like I have more power. And so I always tell people, don't think about happiness as a thing, a destination, I will be happy when I get the job, when I get to six o'clock and I'm done with work, when I get to the weekend, I get pregnant, whatever, you know, it is that you're working towards and create these little happiness rituals that give you a reset every single day, these little five minute things that you can do. When I worked at United Healthcare, I managed 7,500 customer service employees and I was charged with improving customer service metrics, and everything in me said, focus on the technology, focus in on the processes. But that was just when I was really starting to dance into these concept of happiness rituals. And I started seeing what happened when you gave people little five minute segments to refresh and enjoy themselves. So we started doing that as a department. Within five weeks, we saw customer service metrics improve 33%, employee engagement improve. But my favorite thing was my employees left every day, 'cause we do a happiness ritual before they go home for the day. And they would come to me and say, "Peggy, I have so much more energy. "I'm excited to go home to my family. "I don't feel exhausted. "I pushed reset." And these things that we do would be, let's make paperclip animals, or let's watch some "Seinfeld" reruns, or anybody got a joke, you know, or, let's end our day with cookies and milk. They were never expensive things. They were things we could do virtually. But we came together as a team and we laughed and we improved our energy and our focus and our concentration. So that was a long story about step number two. But step number three is what I call values vibing, and that is knowing your values, and whenever you decide whether something is a yes or a no, think about your values, and if it doesn't align with your values, then why are you doing it?
I love that there's three steps that are that clear and that easy to remember. I'm just gonna call it what it is, those are easy to remember. And, 'cause I always think about the people who are like, I can, but those low value, you know, meetings, email, whatever low value, and I'm sure there's a hundred other examples of what a low value item would be,
21 of them to be exact, busy traps we fall into. It's pretty crazy.
So for the person who's like, I can't not look at my email, you know, I can't do anything about those, they're out of my control, what would you say to those people who immediately resist, because you know that they're, I'm sure you know people who immediately are like, I can't not look at my email.
with that. And the thing about busyness is it's habitual. And if you wanna learn to change your habits, you know, a lot of people know that, you know, I'm pretty focused at certain points in the day. So a lot of time people will call me very early in the morning or after five o'clock, and I have chosen not to take those phone calls because that's when I reset and I think about what are my priorities today, or at the end of the day, I love to reflect, and what can I do differently, or where should my focus be tomorrow? And as much as it's like, oh my god, my friend is calling me, my husband is calling me, not taking those calls gives me power back. And we have the power, we have so much power. We control what's in our head. We control the choices we make. And so don't give the power away. When you take your power back, and they're small little decisions. So you know, what I started out doing with email, 'cause I used to be that person. I once checked for a week how many times I checked during a day and on average it was 46 times. No one needs to check their email or their always-on communications, you know, or Slack that many times a day. You can check three or four times a day. You're not gonna miss anything. I started to tell everybody I work with, these are the times that I check, I will check it, I will get to it. But the stop-start, stop-start, stop-start, you get to the end of the day and nothing gets done. You know, you wanna be able to focus and do your best work. You can't let these little interruptions in or else you're gonna have a day full of interruptions and have nothing meaningful to show for your day.
It's changing those habits. As you said, they're habits. It's just being intentional and willing to change them and do something about them and not just do the thing that we have been, you know, when you work with organizations, you hear all the time like, Well, that's the way we've always done it so we're just gonna keep doing it that way, 'cause it's easy. That's what a habit is. That's the way I've done it. I've just checked my email 46 times so I'm gonna keep doing it, as opposed to, here's the three times. What do we always tell people, is that okay? Is what you're doing working? Are you happy? Are you healthy? Are you productive? Are you stepping into your power? Are you making a difference? And if they say yes, then God bless you. Keep up your habits. But you know what? I think it's about 96%, and I ask this question all the time, say no. I say then let a different weigh in, and you know what, do it one micro step at a time. Start with eliminating one low value activity. Maybe you say no to meetings, maybe you put a Post-It note on your computer that says, Okay, Peggy, you're gonna check emails four times today, not 57 times today. And I look at that and I'm like, it's just a daily goal. I can do this today. And then tomorrow it gets easier and the next day it gets easier. And you know, what happens is your work gets better and your mind gets sharper and you're have more fun and more enjoyment, and you know, I think that's what's missing in life. We're just so busy, we're losing out on the good stuff, and don't you want more good stuff in your life? I do.
Absolutely. I hope everyone wants more good stuff in their life, Peggy. I hope that is just across the board, we want more good stuff. Before we wrap this up, I wanna ask a question. Is there anything that we didn't get to or something that we talked about that you wanna emphasize before we end this? Because I think there's, first off, so, so many things that are of value in what you said. Also, I have so many more questions 'cause this is such an interesting topic. So if there's something that you do wanna emphasize or that you're like, we didn't talk about this, but I wanna make sure that I say this, I'd like to give you the opportunity to do that.
I think the thing I want to say to people is there is a way off the hamster wheel. You know, and if you can visualize what it's like running on a hamster wheel and remember that hamster is running hard, but they're really not making any progress and they're not able to enjoy the fruits of their labor. So just take one micro step, commit to one small thing. Maybe you're gonna have happiness rituals tomorrow. You know, you're gonna say three times tomorrow I'm gonna set my clock and I'm gonna cuddle with my fur baby. Or for me, I take dark chocolate breaks. I love dark chocolate breaks and closing my eyes and doing box breathing. There are so many little, go for a walk, so many little micro steps you can do that can change your life. So just pick one and do it and feel better, and then pick another and do it and feel better. And I always tell people, reach out to me. I am your advocate because I am a busyness advocate in recovery and I know that every day I fight my addiction because I love getting things done and I love raising the bar. I'm a type A personality. So if I can do it, anybody can do it, and just choose one thing. So that would be my biggest word of advice.
Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to chat with me. For anyone who does want Peggy to advocate for them, there will be all the ways you can reach her in the show notes. There will be links to her books. I encourage you to reach out to her because as you can see from this episode, she's amazing. So Peggy, thank you. I really appreciate everything that you shared and your candor and sharing some of your stories, 'cause that always lands with people when they know, oh hey, this isn't just someone who's talking about it and has no experience in it. You know what--
Yeah, and I saved some of the good ones that we can talk about some other time, potentially, because I'm a storyteller and I have lots of stories, and I always find myself in hot water or doing funny, ridiculous things, but we learn from them.
It makes life interesting. That's one of the things that makes life interesting. Thank you for chatting with me today. I really appreciate that.
You're so welcome. This was a pleasure and a joy.
[Celine] Thanks for joining me today on the "Leading Through Crisis" podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a minute to rate and review us on your podcast app. If you're interested in learning more about any of our guests, you can find us online at www.leadingthroughcrisis.ca.