Why Busyness Is The Thief Of Clarity

For three decades, I worked at full tilt. Nobody told me to, nobody cracked a whip, but I couldn’t stop myself. Promotions arrived one after another — pay rises, titles, responsibilities, they all came. But what really drove me wasn’t any of that. It was the thrill of delivering results, the adrenaline of pushing something forward. And because I enjoyed it, I told myself it wasn’t a problem.

By my early thirties, I was the youngest director to sit in Sir Philip Green’s boardroom. You’d think that would have been enough, but instead I found myself restless, craving more stimulation. So I packed my bags and moved to Mumbai, where I spent five years building a lingerie business in a market that wasn’t quite ready for Western retail. After returning to the UK for a few years, off I went again — this time to Berlin, where I worked with Zalando and H&M. I was always excited, always grateful for the opportunities, but the truth is I was an “always-on” person.

What I didn’t realise was that the harder I pushed, the more the quality of my thinking was being eroded. I was running on momentum, not clarity. Holidays should have been restful, but instead they turned into board meetings in my head. My mind, finally given space, would start presenting me with the ideas and insights I had been too busy to process. It was like having the most diligent assistant whispering in my ear — and instead of listening, I kept pushing it away.

For me, a normal day meant waking up and going straight into meetings, with no pause and no reflection. At school they used to say: don’t pick up your pen in an exam straight away, stop and think first. That advice never stuck with me. I was so results-driven I dived in head first, every single time. And yes, the results came. At Zalando, I doubled womenswear turnover from €1 billion to €2.2 billion in four years. The growth was extraordinary, the promotions followed, and on paper, it was success.

But what I know now is that if I had switched off properly in the evenings, respected weekends as downtime, and allowed myself more space, I would have been sharper. Rest would have given me clarity. Space would have brought better strategy. I didn’t need to push harder — I just needed to pause.

Here’s the truth: busyness is not a flex. It’s a thief. A vandal that smashes up your clarity, steals your best thinking, and leaves you frazzled.

You don’t need to sprint yourself ragged to succeed. You need to pause. Breathe. Think. I wish I’d learnt that earlier. Because the power to transform your life isn’t in doing more — it’s in daring to stop.