As a management consultant, I have frequent and ongoing exposure to a broad variety of business environments, and I usually get to know the respective cultures in some depth. One common characteristic is that ‘busy –ness’ is valued and rewarded by most managers.

I wonder why? Busy-ness is not effectiveness, efficiency or productivity in most cases, nor is it effective contribution. Recently I caught myself becoming increasingly busy! For no good reason I felt compelled to intensify my activity levels – suddenly, there seemed to be so much to get done. I’d fallen into the “Activity Trap”!

This is not good! My life motto is “You only live once but, if you do it right, that’s enough”. Doing things just for the sake of ‘being busy doing things’ doesn’t fit with this philosophy. Rushing around frantically, as I’d started to do, made no sense in terms of developing and sustaining quality of life.

I want more out of life. If I continue to think (and act) the way I’ve always thought (and acted), I’ll continue to get what I’ve always got – but I want more! Rushing around, being busy, doesn’t help me to get more out of life. I need to make some selective changes to what I do – and as I go.

The most effective way to create substantial change, I’ve discovered, is to leverage my efforts through other people. To do this, I need to work on my relationships with focused intent. My relationships won’t improve and emerge if I don’t make specific efforts.

I learned some years ago that relationships develop through a series of deliberate steps or phases. The initial condition is “Isolation” where people ‘protect’ themselves by holding themselves and others apart deliberately. You never do this? Consider how you behave in an elevator, whether you’d approach another, unknown diner to share a table in a restaurant if there were just the two of you, or if you’d have the courage to go and sit next to a ‘perfect stranger’ in a cinema or bus given that there were other seats available. There’re millions of these incidents in our lives, too many to count.

We’re all more comfortable with ‘step 2’ – “Ritual” relationships – where we say “Morning!”, “Nice Day!” and “How’re you?”. Just don’t answer me with anything meaningful. I’m really not interested in hearing about your gall bladder operation, I was only asking to be polite. On occasions, I’ve responded with some outlandish answers to these ritualistic enquiries, and no one even noticed! I have hundreds of thousands of these ritual encounters in my life. How about you?

The third step of relationships is seemingly more comfortable. It’s “Pastimes” – where we discover that we have some common areas of interest. Perhaps we both live in the same town, work in the same field or support the Blue Jays. We can talk openly on these things, even become passionate, argue and disagree on occasions.

We must restrict ourselves to these specific topics though. They are ‘safe’ and comfortable areas for relating. Don’t assume that you can enquire about other areas of my life with the same intensity. If you attempt this, I’ll bring you up short, believe me! We’re talking of tens of thousands such relationships in our lifetime. The tragedy is that such relationships are commonplace, especially at work, and can seem to fill our lives with real purpose.

All that we’ve considered so far is simply “bubblegum” existence – much activity, some flavor but no nourishment for our relationships whatsoever. Our interactions can be very active, busy even, but they’re generally meaningless – no ‘value-added’ component! This doesn’t help us to get more out of life. We’re simply not doing it right!

If I want more out of life, I need to invest a little more effort in my relationships. I must seek opportunities for investing or ‘giving’ of myself in the creation of something new and enduring together with some significant other person(s). In so doing, I leave a small part of me with others, and they leave a part of themselves with me, as a legacy. Such legacies create permanent bonds between us, bonds which will withstand the tests of time. This is step 4 – “Shared Activities” – something which I’m likely to share with only a few thousand others in a lifetime.

The fifth and final step in relationship building is centered on “Intimacy” – where we care, share and extend ourselves for other persons, and they with us, to the point that there’s confidence and trust sufficient to outweigh any difficulties and setbacks. This is achieved with only a few, very select persons in my life, perhaps ten or twenty in total. Yet this is the highest form of relationship, to be devoutly pursued.

Clearly, if we want more out of life, all we need to do is to move a few of the “Pastimes” (step 3) relationships over to “Shared Activities” (step 4) relationships - it’s that easy!

Well, the theory is easy. The challenge is that all relationships are bilateral - it takes two to tango. On the other hand, the rewards are truly substantial. We not only get things done, we create something that we could not have achieved alone, we create something unique - the product of two or more unique personalities, and on top of all this, we build a permanent bond or relationship. I benefit myself, and I’m adding value to someone else’s life at the same time.

Experience has shown me too, that I need just a few of these ‘shared activities’ in my life to give it real meaning and substance – just two or three a year. It’s not ‘rocket science’ nor is it overly demanding.

We don’t just want to be busy, we want more out of life. So, what’re we waiting for?