There’s a seductive dark side to The Builder’s High. The high afforded us by our brain when we are productive is delicious. For me, it’s comparable to the endorphin rush after a good workout. A foul mood vanishes, the weight of stress is lightened, and what was complex and difficult to fathom appears knowable.

Of course, I want more.

The issue, just like exercise, is that each time you build, the high becomes slightly harder to achieve. Part of your hormonal reward is based on the fact the thing you just built has never been built before. It’s novel and your brain commensurately rewards the new because it has learned after millions of years of evolution that doing so is collectively good for our species.

The situation arises: you enjoy the highs, but you are unable to create enough new to support these highs, so you trick your brain into rewarding you for doing far less – you convince your brain of the dubious value of being busy.

Gosh, I Feel… Great

Monday morning. I roll over to my nightstand and grab my iPad. Has anything blown up in the last six hours? No texts and no urgent emails. A quick scan of news sites shows me what the planet currently cares about and then I head into my cave after making a pot of coffee. Another deeper email scan to deal with the first round of mails that need attention followed by a glance at my calendar – the day is full. Nine meetings, blocked out for lunch, currently done at 6pm. Another quick scan of the planet and I’m in the car.

After decades of following this protocol, I’m certain of what I’m doing – I’m building mental momentum. I’m convincing my brain through a constant firehose of content of one thing: We are going to be super busy today – it’s going to be awesome. How about a hit of the good stuff? Now, I can rationalize this morning preparation as gathering context and mentally preparing for the day but what I’m really doing is overclocking my brain. This is why I’m drinking coffee. I want to make sure by the time I hit the office, I’m working at 112%, I’m walking fast in the hallways of the office with a smile on my face, I am ready to fully crush this day.

What I am really describing is a chemical addiction to the endorphins produced by my body that are supposed to reward productivity, but I have figured out how to force their creation via my advanced state of busy.

On the Topic of Busy

Rands, I’m a manager. I want to be a exemplar of the behavior I want to inspire in others. We need to have a sense of urgency and I am the living breathing example of that urgency. There are a great many forms of healthy busy. Yes, you can have a calendar packed full of meetings, but in your hurry to be urgent inspiration to others, give me your honest opinion. Are you happy that your day is going to be spent in conference rooms? Are you content knowing that the day will pass and, chances are, you’re not going to write a single line of code because your time will be spent dealing with the humans?

Engineers start their leadership journey hating meetings because of the questions like the ones I ask above, but over time, we start to convince ourselves of the value of these meetings. Like writing code, we start to associate our value with being invited to and attending these meetings. Admit it, if you’ve been a leader for while, it’s a source of pride that you’re booked all day – you’re important – you’re so… busy.

What I am describing is how I’ve lived years of my life. I’ve replaced the concrete act of building with a vast array of abstract tasks and acts that I believe are strategically important to the team, the product, and the company, but I’ve also learned to constantly question the motivation being the busy: Am I doing this because it’s actually important? Or because I like the rush with being busy?

4am

For me, I know when I crossed a threshold into unhealthy busy. It happens at 4am. My eyes open and I’m deeply worried about… something. Let’s be clear what is happening here: at a time when my body should be resting and repairing, my brain believes the correct course of action is to wake-up in the middle of the night to work. These 4am worry sessions are a clear sign that I’m am losing the chemical arms race with my brain.

As an industry, we’ve created an impressive amount of institutionalized drama around getting things done. In large companies, we’ve got armies of people whose job it is to make sure that we understand the importance of that critical deadline. We’ve got leadership motivating us by telling us someone is going to eat us, so we better hurry. There are important people who’ve invested their money and are eager to see a return on their investment. We are surround by stimuli built to drive us harder and faster.

My advice is not that we should eagerly and fervently build the next thing, my advice is to constantly take the time to stop and understand the true nature of your busy.