Many assume that being busy means being productive, and being extremely busy means being highly productive. However, this isn't always true a lesson even the highly successful Bill Gates came to understand later in life.
In a Bloomberg interview, Gates shared that Warren Buffett once showed him his calendar, which stunned Gates with its emptiness some days had no appointments at all. This taught Gates that busyness isn't a measure of seriousness.
I can buy almost anything, but I can’t buy time," Buffett emphasized.The takeaway? A packed calendar doesn’t always equate to greater productivity. This insight resonated deeply with Gates, no stranger to achievement, who reflected on it in a Threads post last year. Here’s a closer look at Buffett’s straightforward yet powerful approach.
Like most, you've likely had a day where you were frantically busy skipping lunch, rushing from meeting to meeting, task to task only to end feeling like you accomplished little of significance. Your calendar was full, every box checked, every meeting attended, yet you’re left thinking you’ll need to wake up early tomorrow to tackle the truly important work.
To address this, Gates adopted a system, as reported by Inc.com, where he divided his working hours into four buckets, each representing a distinct area of his business. Each bucket accounted for roughly 25% of his time, allowing him to quickly spot and adjust if one area dominated his calendar.