The One word you need to stop saying to win control of your time.

As a property investor from Hong Kong, I make use of the limited time in the UK to go to networking meetings. People always wonder how I manage my property business while living far away in Hong Kong , having four young kids, and at the same time managing two businesses. Almost all of the investors who have just started out to invest in properties (which is a new business in itself) told me that they’re too busy and they can hardly find time for doing deal sourcing or stack deals. Life always gets in the way.

It is almost a global phenomenon that people simply use “busy” to dismiss their life without any reflection on where did the time go. Busy is the word I hear on a daily basis. People seem to just try top fill their day with all sorts of different things and consider themselves to be busy. Because the sound of "busy" seems to make a person more important or have a higher social status because you’re needed somewhere. Does being busy really increase your level of importance? In Chinese, the word “busy" looks like this: 

忙(mang2).

The left hand side is the radical of the word (忄）, which is derived from the word “heart”. On the right hand side you can see the word（亡）, which means “deceased, to die” when stand alone. Put the two parts together and the word “busy” literally means “the heart is dead” or “the heart has died”. Time and again I'm fascinated by how spot on Chinese words are. The word itself doesn't carry any positivity. By saying the sentence “I’m busy”, you’ve just unconsciously admitted that you’ve given up the control of your life. You just do whatever you’re requested to.

Further facts support the argument that being busy, or saying that you’re busy, is indeed a form of procrastination. Many of us overuse the word “busy”, partly because it implies that you’re a person demanded by your job or family. But the truth is, busyness does not translate into successful productivity. James Clear said it in his book Atomic Habits: “You will not rise to the level of your ambition, you will actually fall to the level of your systems.” If you don’t have a system in your life, you’d just be running around pointlessly, getting closer to nowhere.

The other brutal truth is that being busy to a degree that stresses yourself out can have negative effects on our well-being. Research shows that people who feel stressed, or like there's not enough time in the day, report poor mental and physical health. These people report eating unhealthier foods, having signs of depression, and feeling burnt out or emotionally exhausted. For those who are parents, the stress level increases with having young children.

Now if saying “I’m busy” not only would it not help you reflect on your time management, nor will it help you plan, because it is simply a form of procrastination, it’s time to be mindful of using it. I don’t mean that you should never ever use it again (I get it if I ask someone out for dinner and that person says, “I’m busy.” I’m probably just not important enough to matter). But by being mindful and reducing the frequency of using it, you gain back control and admit that you take full responsibility for your time. This will empower you and will definitely change your mindset. You can eventually become a more proactive and happy person if you tweak the way you describe your state of being.

The next time you wanted to dismiss someone or describe your current life status, instead of saying “I’m busy”, consider saying “I didn’t plan my time wisely”. This powerful sentence conveys three messages:

1. I admit that I’m fully responsible (ownership).

2. But I’m also the one who has 100% control over my time (even though I haven’t perfectly managed it).

3. There’s room for improvement (I can plan it better tomorrow!).

If you have already formed a habit, you might find it hard to change. But I have a few tips for you. There are three steps in total. Aware, replace and plan. First on the list, aware. You’d want to know how often you abuse the B word. It’s difficult to keep count of the word. But there's a trick that I find quite easy to apply. The next time you say the “B” word, you call a false number that doesn’t lead anywhere. Every time you say that word, you’ll call that number once. At the end of the week, you can count in the call log how many times you spoke that word. You’d be surprised how often you abuse the word.

The next tip is to replace. The next time when you want to say “I’m busy”, say “I haven’t planned my time wisely, but I’m working on it”. You can replace the second half of the sentence with something else, but it needs to imply proactiveness, which shows that you’re working on a change.

The last one is plan. Think of ways you can better plan your time so that you don’t feel overwhelmed or stressed. To prevent stress from coming in is more sustainable and enjoyable than to cope with the stress. Every week a day before your workday begins, put together a weekly or a daily plan with no more than 3 focuses. Fulfilling the most important 3 tasks allows you to feel more empowered, and that’d give you more confidence to cope with more complex tasks.

The next thing is to find out what’s wasting your time. The easiest way is to ask yourself if that task that you’ve been busy with would add value to your life. Does it contribute to any of your 3 focuses? Does it improve your relationships in general? Does it at least make you feel better? Abandon those people of relationships or tasks that don’t add value to your life.

Take control of your own time now!