'It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?'
H D Thoreau

In my holidays from College I took a number of random jobs. I distributed law reports around Chancery Lane (beautiful buildings). I delivered the Christmas post around Romford (great canteen). I dug holes in Harold Hill (excellent for sun tan and body tone). And I did a fair amount of filing - which was a major occupation in the pre-digital age (not good for anything really, other than mind control).

My most stressful employment was in the kitchens of the Debenhams Department Store in Romford Town Centre.

I was stationed on my own alongside some large stainless steel sinks and industrial dishwashers. A conveyer belt brought me dirty crockery, cutlery and glasses in a steady stream from the adjacent customer restaurant. All I had to do was sort and stack the items as they came through.

The problem was that I had no control of the speed of the conveyer belt or the volume of the dishes. And I couldn’t prevent myself pausing occasionally to finish off an attractive unwanted pastry. 

As the lunchtime rush accelerated, I struggled to keep up. Pots and plates, mugs and jugs, saucers, soup bowls and serving spoons presented themselves to me in an ever more confused, messy muddle. I piled and loaded with diminishing care and increasing anxiety, spilling gravy on the floor, dropping the occasional glass. I became somewhat flustered, which hampered me even more. 

And the conveyor belt kept on rolling. And the dirty dishes kept on arriving, unrelenting, unforgiving. 

It all got a bit too much. I shouted through the plastic flap to the restaurant, begging the nearby waiters to slow things down. But they carried on regardless, pacing the floor in a catatonic stupor.

I read somewhere once that stress derives in large part from lack of control. The problem is out of our hands, beyond our ability. There’s nothing we can do. Well, dishwashing at Debenhams was the very definition of a stressful occupation.

Eventually, as lunch turned towards afternoon tea, the volume of crockery declined and I recovered my composure. 

I helped myself to one last custard tart.

President Dwight Eisenhower made a celebrated distinction regarding the challenges he faced in office (quoting Dr J R Miller, president of Northwestern University):

'I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.’ 

This sentiment should resonate with many people in modern business. We know that we should really be applying ourselves to the big long-term issues that loom on the horizon. But we just can’t quite get around to them, because pressing short-term problems keep demanding our attention.

The truth is that some of these short-term concerns are not as urgent as they may seem. They’re a distraction, and they should probably be dealt with by someone else. Indeed a few of them may be entirely superfluous. What’s more, some of those long-term issues really need to be addressed right now. 

'Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.'
Peter Drucker

Smart business people learn to concentrate on the urgent issues that are really important, and the important issues that are actually urgent. They have the ability to differentiate and delegate, categorise and schedule. Prioritisation of tasks and challenges is a critical skill in life and business.

'Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment, and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.'
Thomas Edison

Gwyn and I left BBH at the same time, and we both embarked on a stage in our careers that is more plural in nature. BBH Founder John Bartle, wary of the pitfalls of such a path, offered Gwyn the following concise advice: ‘Don’t be a busy fool.’

'Got to have a job to put the food on the table.
Got to have a job to keep that party able.
Got to have a job to bring home the bread.
Got to have a job to keep that family fed.

Sometimes your business is all messed up.
Sometimes you don't have your thing together.
And when your thing is all messed up,
Somebody will take that fire, yeah!
So, if you don't give a doggone about it,
If you don't give a doggone about it,
Then they—
They won't give a damn!’

James Brown, 'If You Don't Give A Doggone About It'

No. 317