"You're not busy. You're just scared."
Often times in business, we try to get all the small things right because we haven't yet figured out what our area of expertise truly is.
Until you understand what your business's differentiating factor is, you cannot possibly prioritize one task over another. So you end up with a lot of tasks and no clear vision.
I spoke with a private equity executive who wants to get greater control of his schedule. I.e. increase his output while reducing inputs. The problem was that nothing his firm did seemed scalable. Their sources of funding were not streamlined. Their deal flow was scattered across multiple sectors. And they would perform client work outside of their traditional scope, simply because it generated fees.
This might seem strange, but it's actually symptomatic of a firm that is unwilling to make concentrated bets on its strengths. And they can't make concentrated bets on their strengths because they haven't sat down to determine where they can be truly elite.
Until you are able to understand what makes you elite, you can never sensibly make a concentrated bet on any set of actions you are taking, so you will ALWAYS feel overwhelmed with busy work.
Have you figured out what separates you from the back? Freeing up your schedule depends on it.