Episode 160 - Why Your Busy Schedule Is Actually Sabotaging Growth

In this episode, we explore a myth that quietly shapes far too many businesses: the belief that being busy equals being successful. We reflect on our own recent experiences of overloaded diaries, cancelled strategy time, the strong pull of client “emergencies”, and ask a difficult question; if our calendars are full, is our business actually thriving, or quietly starving? We discuss the tension between delivery and direction, and how easily important thinking time gets sacrificed in favour of urgent activity.

We examine the deeper drivers behind busyness: the hero complex, the dopamine hit of clearing emails, the comfort of firefighting over strategy, and the fear that if we slow down, everything might collapse. Along the way, we share practical ways to step off the “dance floor” and onto the “balcony”, carving out space to think, delegate properly, and design a business that doesn’t depend on constant personal effort to survive.

You can listen to the full episode here 

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Key Topics Discussed:

• The myth that “I’m slammed, therefore I must be valuable”
• Why a full diary can signal a weak business model rather than a strong one
• The difference between urgent and important work (and how false urgency creeps in)
• The “dance floor vs balcony” metaphor for tactical vs strategic leadership
• The hero complex and the addiction to firefighting
• Delegating outcomes, not just tasks
• Meeting overload and the illusion of productivity
• Why clearing your inbox can feel productive but achieve very little
• Designing the organisation intentionally rather than inheriting it by accident
• Simple “rules of thumb” every business owner should know (win rates, cycle times, margins, etc.)

Who Is This Episode For:

This episode is for business owners, managing directors and senior leaders in small and medium-sized enterprises who feel permanently stretched. It will resonate with those juggling sales, delivery, people management and strategy, and wondering why, despite being flat out, the business still feels fragile. It is equally relevant for sales leaders, operations managers and anyone stepping up into a leadership role who needs to shift from doing the work to designing the work.

Quotes to Remember:

“If your diary is full, your business is probably starving”.

"If you’re overloaded, it’s the first sign that something’s wrong with your business model”.

“Your job is not to work harder. It’s to remove work”.

Actionable Takeaways:

1. Audit your time honestly: Review your calendar and ask: which of these meetings and tasks truly required me?
2. Schedule “balcony time”: Block regular thinking time as firmly as you would a client meeting, and treat it as non-negotiable.
3. Create a NOT-To-Do list: Identify low-value habits and activities you will consciously stop.
4. Delegate outcomes, not instructions: Give people ownership of results, not just tasks, and resist the urge to check every detail.
5. Define clear rules of thumb: Know your win rates, deal cycle times, margins and cut-off points for chasing work.
6. Systemise repeatable tasks: Reduce handcrafted processes where a standard approach would suffice.
7. Challenge false urgency: Ask whether deadlines are genuinely business-critical or simply inherited pressure.
8. Limit email availability: Protect deep work time by not being permanently “on”.
9. Design your organisation deliberately: Map roles and responsibilities to ensure key outcomes are owned, not assumed.
10. Resist the hero complex: Build a business that works without you solving every problem personally.
    

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