Part 1 – Back to school
The hustle and bustle of the week before the new school year affects all families differently. This morning, for example, I tried squeezing last year’s school shoes onto my daughter’s feet. Neither of us particularly enjoyed the experience.
As parents, we know that we have to sort out things like bags, packed lunches, stationery, the right-sized uniforms, the right size and colour of shoes, pick-up arrangements, checking the school reminders and lists… it’s immensely busy, busy, busy for everyone. And it’s even worse when it has to be done on top of all the other stuff we have to do that hasn’t miraculously disappeared this week.
Honestly, even those super-efficient families (we always think we know who they are) who are always ready weeks before school are very busy too. They believe they are ahead of the game but are undoubtedly busy on Pinterest (gleaning clever fruit hacks to fill those packed lunch boxes).
That, or scanning the parent WhatsApp groups and either revelling in the flurry of questions pinging through from other anxious parents about what needs to be readied or conversely being sent in a spin by another (even more organised) parent who has just casually dropped a link for where we can pick up name tags to stitch into everything (including a few photos of their impressive needlework), or details of the latest microfibre swimming towel that we should pack in our kids swimming bags to make sure that our kids are not being sent into school with bags weighing over 5kg.
5kg? Who said that? Did the school send something out about bag weight? I didn’t see it. I’ll have to check on WhatsApp when I return from Decathlon with those damn towels!
The kids (and they are lovely) are not in any hurry, by the way. Even if we aren’t, they are still on their (entitled) holiday. So when they show no enthusiasm about measuring their feet or putting on a jumper to see if it still fits from last year, or they are touchy about some hand-me-down, I’ve not got much compassion to give. You will unlikely hear these words in our household: “So you are not feeling like a trip to the shops today, let me know when you are ready, and we can go then”. We are far too busy for any of that nonsense!
Part 2 – Back to work
Having demonstrated my full range of compassion at home last week, I now find myself back at work this week. If last week was busy, this week is on another level. Everyone is in a hurry to set things up so that we are ready to welcome thousands of new students and staff to the start of the new academic year. There is so much to do: I’m bouncing from meeting to meeting – about timetables, class lists, finances, resources, admissions, communications – at the same time as helping to run an orientation programme for new staff, writing letters, checking classrooms…all of which is busy and essential administration and management work to ensure that the school opens and runs efficiently.
I actually enjoy this busyness (and the dopamine). I feel productive and like working under pressure; my mind is stretched, and I can problem-solve and quickly get through my task lists. I am not alone, of course. My colleagues are also working at a high tempo, and even if we don’t necessarily tell each other how busy we are, we all know it because the group chats are still going on late into the evening.
And when I have finished my list of things to do, do I stop and relax? I do nowadays. But that has only sometimes been the case for me. I would add more to the list. If I was not busy doing something, I would feel that I was not working hard enough and would find myself in a constant state of busyness. I rarely took the time to question the impact of my busyness: mainly as the opposite of being busy was not something I valued. Over time, through COVID, and experience, I now have a different perspective on busyness. I enjoy being busy, but it now has to be the right sort of busy.
Henry David Thoreau shares this beautiful quote:
“It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?”
That’s a great question. As a school principal, I would like to be busy being a compassionate leader who does hard things in a human way.
In the brilliant book The Compassionate Leader, there is a chapter called Busyness Kills Your Heart, which I have riffed for the title of this article and also a source of inspiration for my evolving feelings towards superfluous busyness. The big spoiler is this – if you want to be a compassionate leader (and I said I do), I need to value busylessness.
Busyness kills your heart
Is it the case that we will always go out of our way to help others? Apparently not.
Whatever we think, however pure of heart we feel we might be, social psychologists have amassed a significant dossier of evidence suggesting that we are not always the “Good Samaritans” we would wish to be.
Specifically, when we find ourselves in a hurry, with something we need to get done, we become blinkered and, sadly, much less likely to help another. Being busy, or busyness in itself is an impediment to our compassion. There’s a great case study here for more on this.
This has been at the forefront of my mind this week. Why? Being a school leader is the epitome of busyness, and I want to know if it is possible to be the leader I would like to be.
So what can I do?
- Productivity Hacks. I am at the stage of my career where I’m OK to leverage the advice of not-so-subtle books such as The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less…and many others. I have also worked hard to leverage AI and Google to do things and automate my work more efficiently. However, this is not my article’s focus, so I will leave it there; suffice it to say that I recommend leaning into time-saving and priority hacks. They don’t all work; you need to find the ones that work for you. Personally, it has usually been a lot of faff and experimentation. But it has proved to be some of my best busyness, where I have found ways to make much more time and space for people. Of course, you must then have the discipline to not fill these new gaps with new busyness.
- Radical Acceptance. The authors of The Compassionate Leader suggest that the more senior you are in an organisation, the more difficult it is not to feel the pressure to make decisions when there is so much complexity. Sometimes it can be essential to resist the urge to make a quick decision, endure that pressure, and stay in the ambiguity. To do so requires radical acceptance. This is where we accept the things we really want to be different but can not change, sitting with the discomfort of uncomfortable things. It means overcoming our urge towards busyness. Instead, if we can slow down in these situations and asses what is really important, we have a greater chance to respond with more wisdom and compassion.
Get comfortable with being busylessness
We always need more time to do what needs to get done, so we have to continually make choices on what we do. But if we value people and believe that leading requires us to be present, vulnerable, and compassionate, then we must choose how we want to be busy.
And…
Ultimately, if I want to be a more compassionate leader, someone who does hard things in a human way, then I’ll need to become more comfortable with being busylessness.
Which is easier said than done!
Serendipities 