Lizzie Carr

Do any of these statements ring true ….
- Do you get impatient when you have to wait inline to buy a sandwich at lunchtime?
- Do you go off and do something else whilst you’re waiting for the kettle to boil?
- Do you friends or partner tell you to slow down when you’re speaking to them?
- Do you finish off people’s sentences?
- Do you think multi-tasking is ‘the best’ thing since sliced bread?

If you’ve nodded your head to a few of these, you might be suffering from ‘Hurry Sickness’. I first heard of this term when I attended a Merlin Lecture held by the Marketing Academy back in January and since then I’ve really tried to reduce my ‘sickness’.

The true definition of Hurry Sickness, according to dictionary.com is: “A behavioral pattern characterised by continual rushing and anxiousness; an overwhelming sense of urgency.”

Apparently, the term was first coined about 40 years ago when a cardiologist noticed that the patients who were suffering with heart disease generally all had a common behavioral characteristic – they were all in a chronic rush, all the time.

So, how can you break this habit?

Here are top of my two tips that I have been trying, and if you know me, you’ll know I pride myself on ‘getting things done’! Now days, these are my new mantras:

Learn to enjoy the experience rather than focusing on the end goal of getting something done. Enjoy the journey and you may even learn things along the way.

Stop multi-tasking and just focus on one thing at once. It means you’ll make fewer errors first time and will actually get through things faster (believe it or not).