Busy Is Not the Same as Moving
This was one of those weeks that felt full in the best possible way. Betty finished her first year of school on Friday, which I am still emotionally processing because apparently time is fake and TK lasts for approximately four minutes. Earlier in the week, she had her TK performance wearing her favorite dress and cowgirl boots, both from Texas, because she knows her brand and honestly I respect it.
I officially launched Motive, and for the first time in a long time, I feel like I am moving with real clarity. I also got to attend the BBB Industrious Women’s Summit with one of my great friends and former assistant, which gave us the kind of quality time we used to get every day before life and work changed shape.
It was a good week. A really good week. It was also a week where I noticed something: a full week can be meaningful and still require discernment. I didn’t get my workouts in. I sat more than I wanted. I ate out more than makes my body feel good. And I spent more time than I probably should have thinking about social media.
Social media matters. It helps me share ideas, build trust, and let people know what I am building. It is also very good at pretending to be the main thing. It can look like momentum. But visibility is not always movement.
So let’s start there.
TL;DR Leadership
This week’s idea comes from Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez’s Harvard Business Review article, “Your Company Needs to Focus on Fewer Projects. Here’s How.” The part leaders should actually use is this: most organizations do not need more projects. They need more courage to stop, pause, simplify, or redirect the projects that are no longer creating enough value.
Nieto-Rodriguez gives the example of a global nonprofit association with 900 employees and more than 1,200 active projects, which is not ambition. It is a recipe for scattered attention and diluted impact. Starting things feels good because new projects create energy and make leaders feel responsive. Stopping things is harder because it requires someone to say, “This is no longer the best use of our time.”
That is why so many teams keep adding: another initiative, another committee, another priority, another effort to solve the problem. But what if the real problem is that no one has had the courage to stop what is no longer moving the right work?
The challenge is that projects are not the only place this shows up. It can look like a calendar packed with meetings, a running list of ideas that never become decisions, a nonprofit trying to say yes to every good opportunity, a founder chasing every marketing tactic, or a family schedule so full that no one has room to breathe. The pattern is the same: we keep adding good things without asking which things deserve our best attention.
The problem is not activity. Activity is necessary. The problem is when activity becomes the evidence we use to avoid asking what is actually moving. A leadership team can be very busy and still unclear. A meeting can be thoughtful and still fail to produce a decision. A project can have updates and still not be worth continuing. A team can be exhausted and still not be any closer to the outcome that matters most.
This is where leaders are tempted to call it a follow-through problem. Sometimes that is true. But often, follow-through is the symptom. The deeper issue is too much work without enough clarity: too many priorities, too many half-alive projects, too many meetings that exist because they have always existed, and too many ideas that were added without anyone deciding whether they deserve the time, people, and attention they require.
The cost of too much is not just inefficiency. It is trust. When everything is a priority, people stop believing the priority language. When every initiative keeps going, people stop believing leaders will make hard choices. When every meeting stays on the calendar, people stop believing their time is being protected. When leaders keep adding without subtracting, the organization learns that clarity is optional.
That is where teams start to drift, but not because people do not care. Usually, they care a lot. Good people will keep trying to carry too much for a long time. Then one day, the leader looks around and wonders why everyone is tired, guarded, reactive, or quietly disengaged.
The answer may be simpler than we want it to be. The team may not need more motivation. They may need fewer priorities and clearer decisions. They may need permission to stop doing work that no longer deserves their best energy.
That is true in organizations, and this week reminded me it is true in my own life too. I can celebrate a beautiful week and still notice what needs to be adjusted. I can love creating content and still refuse to let social media become the center of gravity. I can be proud of launching Motive and still remember that the point is not to look busy building a business. The point is to build a business that helps the right work move, including in my own life.
Leaders need that same posture. Not panic. Not blame. Just honest attention. What is moving? What is stuck? What is taking energy without creating value? What deserves more of our best attention?
Busy can hide unclear priorities, weak ownership, avoided decisions, and the fact that everyone is trying hard inside a system that has not made the right work clear enough. But busy can also be interrupted. Sometimes the work finally starts moving when we stop feeding what no longer matters.
One move to try this week
Before your next leadership meeting ends, take five minutes and ask: What are we doing right now that looks productive, but may not be moving what matters most?
Then do not let everyone nod thoughtfully and leave with absolutely nothing changed. Pick one thing. One project to pause. One meeting to cancel. One priority to clarify. One owner to name. One decision to stop revisiting. One “we should really…” idea to move out of the active pile. This does not have to be dramatic. In fact, it probably should not be. Small, honest subtraction is still leadership.
Because winning does not come from starting more. Sometimes it comes from finally telling the truth about what no longer needs to keep going.
Still Good in the World
This week’s good thing comes from Good Morning America, and it involves Girl Scouts, cookie money, and the kind of practical kindness that makes me want to believe we are not all doomed after all.
A troop of eight third-grade Girl Scouts in Dorchester, Massachusetts used part of their cookie sale proceeds to build a 3D-printed mobility trainer for a toddler with mobility challenges. It was not just a sweet symbolic project. It had an adjustable headrest, a cup holder, and a removable push handle, which is the kind of detail that makes the whole thing feel even more tender to me. They were not just building “a wheelchair.” They were building something child-sized, useful, and thoughtfully made for a little one’s actual life.
That is the part that got me. These girls did not just hear a nice lesson about helping people. They got to watch their effort become useful. The cookie booths, the asking, the selling, the counting, and the follow-through turned into something that could help another child move through the world with more support.
That matters because it is one thing to teach kids generosity as a sweet idea. It is another thing to let them experience generosity as something they can build with their own hands. And apparently, they are already talking about making more.
That is the kind of good I want to keep noticing.
Not because the world is simple. It is not.
But because there are still third-grade girls using cookie money, a 3D printer, and their own little hands to help another child move.
That feels worth carrying into the week.
Fuel for the Week
“Winning doesn’t come from starting more.” Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez
Not because starting is bad. Because starting is easier than choosing.
Until next Monday, go move the good work,
Nikki
Sources
Good Morning America: “Girl Scouts use cookie sale money to make 3D-printed wheelchair.”
