The pace of life

We all know that time is precious. If you are like me you will sometimes complain that there is not enough time in the day to do everything you want or need to do. There are times when trying to fix a date for a meeting between more than two people seems almost impossible. What is it that fills our lives so completely?

When I visited my sister and her husband in Zambia a while back, I was struck by how little time they had available to do the things that would earn them money, and how much time was devoted to fixing things that did not work properly. In that part of Africa at least, there are not enough skilled people that you can just pick up the telephone and recruit the services which may be needed.

Instead of readily available expertise and spare parts, resourcefulness and making-do thrives - but so does inefficiency. I was taken aback to discover that despite a seemingly slow pace of life, people can still suffer enormous anxiety.worrying, for instance, that the notoriously un-kept road might be impassable in the morning because of a deluge of rain - and how will they get to the airport to collect their clients on time?

I heard a talk recently about the difference between being busy and being hurried and it got me thinking about the culture and work ethic that we set at work - and whether it is right or not. Being busy seems to me to be a good thing. It suggests purpose and being constructive. The axiom, "If you want something done, give it to a busy person" has been proven correct in my experience. Busy people are invariably organised and disciplined. As a school boy I worked in a shoe shop part time and recall how time dragged interminably if we were not "busy".

It is being hurried that can cause the problems. Hurried is rushing to do things. It is taking short cuts, going too fast. Hurried causes mistakes and stress. We value thoughtful planning, thoroughness and attention so detail, so I am prompted ask myself, who in this business is hurried? Because that cannot be good for them personally or for the quality of their work. Strategically, this could be a workload issue or an approach to work that we should attempt to fix. And I ask myself that same question - and know that certainly at times I am at fault.