Getting down to business is more than being busy. Busy focuses on getting things done and checking off items on a To Do List. It is easy to confuse being busy with being productive. As an entrepreneur, you’ve got an organization to manage, a product or service to market, and a team to lead but if you’re tied up dowsing fires, and making checkmarks, then your productivity level is probably waning. Put the fire chief hat on the shelf and consider results-oriented actions to produce measurable outcomes.

Busy is transactional behavior, a quick fix, not a long-term solution for success. Think in terms of transformation.

Transformational thought processes generate a foundation for infinite strength and durable business achievement. Productive people establish viable systems and processes to direct their attention to single tasks, minimizing diversions and distractions.

Busy people touch everything that comes across their desk, check email at every ping, lend an ear for text messages, maintain a side-eye on social media posts, fiddle here and there, and at the end of the day, have managed to spread themselves so thin, wondering where did the time go.

Choose to reach peak productivity levels on any given workday by forgetting about looking and feeling like a busy donkey and transform yourself into a productive unicorn today. Larry Kim

Busy people tend to ask, ‘What else can I do?’ Filling their day with a whirlwind of activities that can fuel the ego and make for great conversation at the (virtual) watercooler. The busy bees are intent on doing more, perhaps in a chaotic and unfocused fashion, accomplishing a myriad of micro-tasks to fill their day. Maintaining the busyness is also another tactic for avoidance and possibly not eating the frog.

In How Being Busy Makes You Unproductive, Travis Bradberry stated, The truth is, busyness makes you less productive.

Productive people ask, ‘What else can I remove?’ Productive people hone in on their talents, top priorities and core genius to drive their results. Fueled by purpose, they often check in with themselves, thinking about what they can do, dump or delegate.

I received an email from an exceptionally valued long-time client who shared her To Do list with me.  She stated:  “These are just a few of the things I need to grow my business – and I am failing at doing them, but when I do, it totally pulls me away from the work I NEED to do that is billable.”

Determining the greatest value of your time requires a little taste of honesty. While you may enjoy many of the daily business operations and social media fun, they aren’t your ticket to paradise. They are required fillers to help fortify your business structure but are hardly the top dollar shakers.

Everything we do is an investment of our time. In many ways, time is more valuable than money, as you always have the opportunity to make more money, but you cannot recreate lost or wasted time. It is gone forever. If you think of time as a commodity and all of your actions/choices as an investment, it may change the manner in which you approach your business operations and your life.

Stop doing stuff that isn’t valuable. So much of what people do in attempting to be productive involves just trying to fit more low-value tasks into the same amount of time. Being productive means accomplishing more with the same or less effort. Mark Shead, Productivity 501.

Transform your life and your business by not being busy. Be productive.