In this powerful session from ES Global 25, Abigail Barnes challenges the belief that being busy leads to career success, revealing how executive support professionals can shift from constant task completion to strategic value, recognition, and sustainable performance
Introduction
Busyness has become a badge of honour in modern work culture, particularly for executive support professionals who pride themselves on being indispensable. Abigail Barnes, the founder of Success By Design Training, challenges the belief that doing more leads to career progression and instead reframes success around strategic impact, visibility, and sustainability. Drawing on neuroscience, lived experience, and practical frameworks, she invites you to rethink how you work, how you are perceived, and how you measure your contribution. This is a call to move beyond survival mode and into deliberate, recognised career growth.
“The primary function of the brain is to keep us alive. It is not designed for success. Your brain loves busyness for three reasons: it signals importance, it delivers dopamine from task completion, and it conserves energy.”
Heading to the Next Level
I’m so excited that we get to talk about why being busy is killing your career development and what you can do about it. I’m going to give you a clear understanding of what you need to do in order to get recognised, remunerated, and requested, plus so much more. Leave it to me to give you the tips, the tools, the strategies that you need to take your career to the next level.
During our time together, we’re going to cover these five areas.
We’re going to talk about:
- The science of busyness
- Efficiency versus effectiveness
- Prioritising like an executive
- Measuring what matters
- The 888 formula – how you can create the work-life balance you want for yourself
Prior to starting my business, I worked in financial services marketing for over 10 years, but I always knew there was another path for me, only I couldn’t see it. So I was forced to copy what everybody else was doing. And each time I did something that was copying, I just felt more and more hopeless.
So I did what everybody else did. Then, to make the hopeless feeling go away, I bought a handbag, I booked a weekend break, I went out drinking with my friend, but it never made it better.
Then one day I was offered a work business trip to Boston, America, and I felt excited for the first time in a long time. I didn’t even mind all of the long hours that I had to put in in order to prep for the trip. Although I did have a catchphrase at the time; I used to repeat it to myself daily: This job is killing me.
Fast forward to the day after I landed in Boston. It was a cold February morning as the sun streamed in through the guest bedroom window at my friend’s parents’ house. I didn’t feel well. Something wasn’t right. Black-and-white lights flashing in front of my eyes, throwing up in a dustbin. Thank goodness the ambulance arrived when it did. I don’t think I’d be here today if those things hadn’t happened, because 24 hours after I arrived in America, I was being woken up by a doctor and told that at the age of 32, I’d actually had a stroke.
“If you don’t make time for your health and wellbeing, you will need to make time for your illness.”
I’m sharing my story to impress upon you: time is valuable. Regret is real. And the only thing that truly matters is that you enjoy your life experience. Your job is so incredibly valuable. As you manage the schedule of the executives that you support, you are enabling ripple effects you will never even see.
Question 1
Would you like to be appreciated, recognised, and remunerated for the value that you add?
Question 2
Would you like to be invited, included, and consulted for your expertise?
Question 3
Would you like to be promoted, rewarded, and paid more for your contribution?
I invite you to approach this training like a strategist, like an executive, not like a hungry wolf scared their dinner will be taken away.
1. The Science of Busyness
The primary function of the brain is to keep us alive. It is not designed for success. Your brain loves busyness for three reasons: it signals importance, it delivers dopamine from task completion, and it conserves energy.
Your brain is an efficiency machine, not a success engine. Stress hijacks decision-making and keeps you stuck in what’s familiar, not what’s best.
So here are five ways to work with your brain.
- Start small.
- Make old habits harder.
- Design your success plan.
- Schedule downtime.
- Accept that discomfort equals progress.
This is how you rewire your brain for sustainable success.
2. Efficiency Versus Effectiveness
Efficiency is about process. Effectiveness is about outcome. And when people can’t clearly understand the value that you’re adding, they can’t reward you for it.
Ask yourself: What are you doing out of habit? What is adding value? What is just busy work?
3. Prioritising Like an Executive
This is where we talk about prioritising like an executive and using frameworks such as the Eisenhower Matrix: do, decide, delegate, delete. Deleting low-value work is how you free up time to add strategic value.
4. Measuring What Matters
Can you articulate the value of your role clearly? With data? With outcomes?
I invite you to audit your time for five working days. Track what you do, who you do it for, and the value it creates. This data becomes your dashboard.
You are not doing this to prove your worth. You are doing this to know your worth.
5. The 888 Formula
Eight hours’ rest. Eight hours’ work. Eight hours’ life.
You were not born to work. You were born to live.
If you don’t make time for your health and wellbeing, you will need to make time for your illness.
So let’s recap. We’ve covered the science of busyness, efficiency versus effectiveness, prioritising like an executive, measuring what matters, and the 888 formula.
This strategic value is how you get promoted, consulted, invited, and paid for the contribution you make.
It’s been amazing to spend time with you. Until next time, stay safe, stay well, and remember: it is your time.
