You may be burning yourself out. How do you know if you are burning yourself out? Reflect on these activities, how many do you do on a regular basis?
- Checking emails while talking to someone in person
- Checking emails while talking to someone on the phone
- Frustration at checkout lineups
- Other activities while brushing your teeth
- Eating standing up, driving or on the move
- Push the elevator button more than once
- Walked into someone while texting
- On your smartphone while on the toilet
- Forgot where you parked your car (which happened to me today)
- Or the dreaded, “I forgot to pick up my child from……..”
How many of the above activities resonate with your daily behaviour at work or at home? Well, if you are experiencing many of above activities on a regular basis, you, my friend have got it: “Hurry Sickness.”
Hurry Sickness is fast becoming an epidemic. I believe it started with the invention of the fax machine and has spread exponentially with smartphones, social media and working couples with financial pressures.
Click here to read a fortune 500 article on the topic.
According to Richard Jolly, Adjunct Professor of Organizational Behaviour at London Business School (LBS) 95% of all people suffer from “Hurry Sickness.”
But here’s the rub: when everyone is infected, society accepts it as the norm and the behaviours reinforce themselves and infect the remaining members of society. Richard Jolly recommends three things to stop the spread and negative effects of Hurry Sickness:
- Stop
- Think
- Sleep
First of all stop and slow down. We are very proud of being busy. We have to stop being busy and start being more effective. Next, we need to start planning time for just thinking instead of just reacting to the most obvious problem that has caught our attention. Lastly, according to Professor Jolley, we all need more sleep in order for us to think and process information more effectively.
Perhaps it is time to fight the Hurry Sickness that has infected our daily home and work lives.
Discussion Questions:
- Your VP of HR has asked you to research and review some wellness program initiatives. Which wellness programs would you recommend to reduce the concept of Hurry Sickness?
- Research and review the benefits of having use of a mobile device/smartphone policy in all companies that expect employees to communicate with mobile devices.