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time management

to take on additional or alternative duties. It allows one to ignore
without guilt the needs of colleagues, and resist without fear of
reprisal the requests of supervisors. Other tasks may be more dif-
ficult or demanding, require interaction with strangers or other
unpleasant individuals, involve activities that are unfamiliar and
awkward, or have an uncertain outcome. Busywork, by contrast,
offers many of the benefits of valuable work without the nasty side
effects.

“Those who have least to do are generally the most busy peo-
ple in the world.”

—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761), British novelist

Most workers believe that it’s important to look busy to their
bosses, and far too many bosses feel comforted when their direct
reports appear as if they’re working hard. No one wants to be
thought of as a “slacker” by her colleagues, either.

Being engaged in busywork allows us to feel productive with-
out the fear and uncertainty created by changes in duties. By look-
ing busy, we may fool others as well as ourselves, because many
people mistake activity for productivity. It would be possible to put
a bunch of busywork tasks on your to-do list, use the time-saving
techniques in this book, and accomplish your tasks in record time.
But, will you have moved forward, accomplished your real duties,
and reduced your feelings of stress? No. In too many cases then,
“busy” is an unacceptable substitute for “productive.”

Some observers have suggested that busywork is a creation by
upper management made necessary by modern business organi-
zation structure to occupy middle managers. This idea has been
around for some time.

In this view, middle managers must keep busy when they are
not performing their primary duty, which is to monitor the activi-
ties of the lower-level production laborers who do the actual work.
Fluctuations in workload create soft periods during which obsta-
cles to discontent must be placed in the managers’ way. Reports

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