Week 28 — A Mountain of Work
Being busy is a blessing and a curse
For week 28 of my weeknotes, I wanted to focus on the thoughts and perceptions we place on “being busy”. The concept of being busy is one that has fascinated me for some time. For a number of years when asked about work, my go-to response was “busy”. Not many will ever admit to not being busy. To some extent, we are busy in all aspects of our lives between work, family, social lives, hobbies and the endless stream of things we choose to stay on top of. However, I wanted to narrow down on why being busy is a “badge of honour” and whether we are doing ourselves harm by not being busy every once and awhile.
Being Busy is a Blessing and a Curse
Whether one is busy or not is largely subjective. I do not buy into any definition of busy because everyone has a different capacity of “busy” they can handle. Modern life also demands more out of us between being connected to the workplace at all hours (hello work email) and an increasingly structured extra-circular life we want to offer to our children (e.g. organized sports). Add on maintaining a social life and any other extra-circular activities you decide to take on (side gig, networking, blogging etc.) and suddenly you are starting to run out of hours in the day. Without a doubt, we have a lot of things that occupy our time. Now we can go down a rabbit hole of arguing what is an effective use of one’s time and what is not but for the purposes of this post, I want to focus on what always being busy is doing.
Throughout my adult life, I have tried to fill up all my time with work whether paid or volunteer, learning new things, networking and a social life. It left very little time for me to enjoy any alone time and it created an irrational fear of not being busy. As a result, I sought out opportunities both paid and volunteer that were challenging, demanding and most importantly would keep me busy. I thrived in these environments (for a time). However, I’m now 33, still young but old enough to reflect on my 20s and realize being busy is not the be all and end all. Re-evaluating my priorities and understanding that time away from being busy would mean making me do a better job at the things that mattered to me. Making time to not be busy should have been a priority. Taking time to enjoy the crisp wind while walking down the street. Admiring the architecture of a classical building. Appreciating how many things had to align just right to allow for life on Earth. I needed to take one step back and appreciate life rather than staying busy.
This realization has changed how I approach life. I’m evaluating what I’ve decided to take on and don’t default to yes when asked about taking on new things. I’m more self-aware of what my limit is and what a right balance between a healthy busy and a soon to burnout busy. My advice to anyone struggling with always being busy and feeling like they are “keeping their head above water but barely”: re-evaluate your priorities, intentionally make time for “not busy” time and start saying no to things.
Easier said than done but on reflection an important lesson and one which I could tell 21 year old myself to learn fast.
AI Demonstrator Projects (Incorporation by Reference and Regulatory Evaluation Platform)
Incorporation by Reference: The process to evaluate and accept phase 1 of the project has started. By the end of September, we will be ready to start phase 2.
Regulatory Evaluation Platform: Engagement with regulators continue to move fast. Topics like how regulations are analyzed to determine whether they need to be modernized and how cumulative impact of regulations are determined are interesting topics of discussion. Some initial early wireframes are appearing which show the potential of this tool. There is a broader discussion to be had around issues like the ethical use of AI, reducing bias etc. but I will save those for later when work has advanced further so stay tuned for more soon.
Rebuilding the Public Service From The Ground Up: Week 15
Week 15 is inspired by the mid year performance measurement process that is underway in many public servant offices right now. Is there a way to improve this process so it has value and meaning?
Idea 15: Better Performance Measurement for Employees
For those lucky enough to have a manager who cares (for the record I do) the performance measurement process for employees can be an effective and insightful process. Feedback is always welcome (and really the best managers give it year round and not only at certain times of the year) so the process has good intentions and built off something that has merit. However, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. For many, it becomes a checkbox exercise largely done to satisfy those higher on the food chain who want higher ratios of completion to support their at risk pay and hopefully also to support employee development (as in all systems there are good and bad people).
This exercise could be so much more. As it stands, there isn’t a material difference in perks, pay, opportunity or anything else noticeable between the employee who does a stellar job and gets a stellar review and one who does just enough and gets an average review. Talent management plans are only for those who get the highest marks (which in some Departments can be a very low number). So can we improve this process by giving it meaning? Can we reward people in non-conventional ways for doing a good job? What if your performance review was tied to receiving a one time leave credit to take a few days off, an opportunity to do more training above and beyond the Departmental limits, an opportunity to work on a project that is above your level.
What if we fixed this process so the narrative managers and employees produce focuses less on output (which is often beyond the control of an individual employee) and more on outcomes, competencies displayed and other signs of an employee who is contributing to the team, directorate, branch and department. Outputs are often the easiest to identify but if we took the time to reflect on what kind of employee we want to do the job (e.g. empathic, works great with others, considerate, creative etc.) then tied that to tangible and desirable rewards could we start encouraging more of what will make our teams stronger?
Week 28 is in the books. Hope you have a great week and I’ll see you next time.
