Do you brush your teeth in the shower, just to save time? Or in the car do you constantly make calls, take notes and maybe eat breakfast while trying to keep on top of work?

If so, you're what Valerie MacLeod likes to call "stupid busy" - as opposed to just normal or crazy busy.

MacLeod understands stupid busy well. As a recovering workaholic, it sparked her to write Get Me Off The Treadmill!: Using Ordinary Magic to Live an Extraordinary Life (Trafford Publishing, 2004).

A Calgary-based partner with the Centre for Strategic Management, MacLeod says there's nothing wrong with being busy.

Mike Dempster, Business Edge
Valerie MacLeod says employees sometimes fear telling their supervisors that they are unacceptably overworked.

"It's all right, as long as you are busy on the right things," she says. "If people don't stop and ask what's important - their family or a cause they believe in - they may be busy with things that aren't important to them in life."

The trouble today is that many people don't know just how fast they are going. And while some have an inkling, they don't know how to change, or are afraid to do so, she says.

Through her book and supplementary workshops, she helps people better understand themselves so they can adjust the speed of their personal treadmills.

To find answers, she begins with a simple question: "How busy are you?" Normal busy is OK, she says. It means a person's life is full. But if things crop up, it's not a problem. When the car breaks down, for example, a person has time to take it in for repairs without totally disrupting his or her life.

Then there's crazy busy, when a person is on the treadmill, things are moving fast, and the individual can't catch up with what her or she should be doing.

"It's when people are scrambling, forgetting some things and missing some things like family events or community events because they're busy with work."

Finally, there's stupid busy. That's when life swirls by like a speeding merry-go-round. People don't see what's going on around them because they're spinning out of control, doing three things at once.

"If you start brushing your teeth in the shower to save time, I think that's a really bad sign," she laughs. "It's time to think about shifting those priorities."

To do so, MacLeod poses another question. Think about a milestone in the future - your 60th birthday, 30th wedding anniversary, your retirement dinner, and ask yourself what would you want people to say about you on that occasion.

It's a powerful question, because the answer implies what a person needs to do.

If they want to make an impact in the community, the environment, as a volunteer, a parent, it's up to such individuals to examine the barriers keeping them from taking the steps to accomplish those goals.

MacLeod says her strength is in asking good questions so people can find answers about their own physical, intellectual and spiritual well-being.

Her book guides the reader through practical exercises to find personal success, while her workshops are more interactive, where she and participants examine case studies and share their personal accounts.

MacLeod remembers dropping into a "slow spiral" of spending huge amounts of time at work, a seven-to-seven day, in a job she loved.

Then one night in January 1996, her husband Frank waited outside her downtown office to drive her home. He was there 90 minutes. MacLeod, an HR consultant in the oilpatch, had got caught up in something.

It wasn't the first time.

"I remember thinking there was something wrong with this picture," she says. "That was the beginning."

Fortunately, Frank "is a supportive guy," she adds.

Later that summer she took voluntary retirement when her company offered severance packages.

Today, MacLeod works a four-day workweek as an independent consultant, makes more money that she ever did, reads, exercises, travels and has important family time.

The shift didn't come without challenge, because old habits die hard. She felt guilty having free time. It took her months to feel all right about taking Fridays off, or spending 30 minutes each morning to exercise.

"It takes time to change the head space, to say, 'This is fine, this is what I do.' And to be real clear that this is OK, that I don't have to be busy all the time."

She calls quitting a job an extreme step. Few people she consults with actually quit work. Instead they find new roles within their companies, or create ways to fine-tune their jobs.

That in itself can be daunting, she acknowledges. Employees considering change tell her the biggest fear they have is approaching their boss to say they're overloaded, and that they find it unacceptable.

Quite naturally, they worry they'll be fired or labelled a non-team player.

"I ask people what they really want to do and how do they remove barriers to get there. If they want to be physically fit, but never leave work until eight o'clock at night, they won't do it."

MacLeod believes people should give their managers more credit. There are bosses who will ask the employee to develop a strategy to lessen their workload. Remember that supervisors are racing just as hard, she says, so it sometimes just takes one person in the group to say, wait a second.

"When everyone steps back and thinks about it ... and looks at how they have been doing business, they do see ways they can change the job."

Perhaps the easiest answer is for the individual to begin taking small steps. Don't work through lunch, MacLeod says. Instead, take a walk with a friend, read a book or meet someone for lunch outside the workplace.

"It's your time. And you are much more productive for the organization if you do take the break."

To cure old habits, pencil breaks into your daily calendar, or make a deal with your spouse that you'll leave work by 6 p.m. every night of the week.

"I think a big thing to do is just ask people for help. Ask someone to go for a walk at lunch with you. If you want to lose weight, ask a friend to call you once a week to make sure you're eating properly.

"Take those small steps and ask for support. It's amazing. People will help you. They want you to succeed."

MacLeod, too, takes her own advice. She has a business coach and a vitality (nutrition/exercise) coach, two men she's hired to "nag" her.

"I'm in a job that I really enjoy and I could easily work seven days a week if I chose to," she says.

"They help keep me off the treadmill."

Web watch: www.valeriemacleod.com (Mike Dempster can be reached at miked@businessedge.ca)