Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

Verb To make somebody busy, to keep busy with, to occupy, to make occupied. Transitive verb To make or keep busy; to employ; to engage or keep engaged; to occupy. She is busy reading blog posts, newsletters, tweeting, and talking on the telephone, All of these are time wasters that keep her from the important things she is trying to do. The notion of “anxiousness” has drained from the word since Middle English.

I taught no fewer than two courses a year — and as many as seven — even though Dean’s have a ‘teaching load’ of zero, because I wanted to lead other professors by example. They couldn’t claim their other work was too busy for them to teach when the person with the heaviest non-teaching schedule in the School taught when he had zero obligation to do so. The organizational challenge intensifies as the non-fungibility of the unit of production increases. If the unit of production is Julia Roberts, Warren Buffett, Taylor Swift, or Patrick Mahomes, there isn’t another unit of production that is even remotely close. The organization in question has exactly one unit of production and it won’t be getting another any time soon. As he enters what he calls his busy season, Young is preparing for some trade shows and hopes to have even more announcements as his small company expands its market.

Playing To Win

When a supervisor is around, employees need to look busy. If you’re too busy playing basketball to finish your homework, your grades might suffer. It’s good to be busy, but when people are too busy, they get stressed out. Busy, industrious, diligent, assiduous, sedulous mean actively engaged or occupied. BLF increases phone system visibility and maintains the flow of office communication.

It is not impossible to do in the knowledge economy. Organizations expand capacity by adding another unit of production — i.e., another person — but as much as the organization would wish, the addition isn’t homogenous or seamless. At a minimum, both the original person and the new person have to spend lots of time meeting with one another to coordinate their activities. Sometimes ‘too busy’ is used as a sign of success of a flourishing career or a full life.

Slots, especially at peak times of day and in busy corridors like the Northeast, are valuable to airlines. Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word busy. ’ I make a conscious effort to give a positive response. I talk about something in my life that is enjoyable or rewarding. Today, I answered the question by saying simply, “i’m happy”. ‘Too busy’ is a response that indicates priorities that supersede.

(as) busy as a bee

Guapo was busy plucking his macaws, but at the word tapir he sprang to his feet, making the feathers fly in all directions. Adjective Engaged in another activity or by someone else. Pertaining or due to energetic action; manifesting constant or rapid movement. Adjective Characterized by or sustaining much activity.

By the end of my time as Dean, it was 120 FTTS professors and another 50 adjuncts and it took eight weeks of my year. But I still felt it was one of the very most valuable uses of my time as Dean. Observers often asked me how much time I spent on fundraising. One was 100% because I worked 100% of my time on making the School worthy of donations. The other was 5% because I spent only a couple of hours a week meeting with rich people and asking them for money. When I was appointed Dean of the Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto in 1998, it was my first academic job of any sort.

Other functions of BLF

View full size photo uploaded June 1, 2009 Donovan McNabb posted an update over on his Yardbarker blog about what he calls his busy time of year. Donovan McNabb posted an update over on his Yardbarker blog about what he calls his busy time of year. In my career days I was often overwhelmed with projects, meetings, and other work commitments. It left me too busy to have much of a personal life. Being ‘too busy’ is a good response when I want to avoid doing something — especially something that will take a lot of time. I can tell a friend that I’ve been ‘too busy’ to call her.

She was stunned and a bit taken aback, thinking that I was telling her it was a low priority for me. I explained that I thought that she was so talented and knowledgeable in university finances and University of Toronto’s in particular , that she was better equipped than me. I had specific things in mind for finance at Rotman, including a fundamentally different funding model for the faculty — so it was really important. But her MHC were as good or better than mine and my hours were needed elsewhere.

• While the color schemes differ between original equipment manufacturers , green, red and orange are commonly used to designate an available, busy or error status, respectively.
• This is the British English definition of busy.View American English definition of busy.
• On newer phones, the lamp is a small light-emitting diode that changes color based on the line status.
• Perhaps ‘too busy’makes you seem better to someone else.
• I explained that I thought that she was so talented and knowledgeable in university finances and University of Toronto’s in particular , that she was better equipped than me.

I will be hanged if some eternal villain, / Some busy and insinuating rogue, / Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office, / Have not devised this slander; I’ll be hanged else. In fact she was so busy doing all the things that anyone might, who finds themselves alone in an empty house, that she did not notice at first when it began to turn dusk and the rooms to grow dim. His hands were busy with his garments all this time; turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance. Find similar words to busy using the buttons below. He was probably too busy with school to pay attention to politics. Full of activity; characterized by much action or motion.

The Strand is one of London’s busiest and most affluent streets…, The ward was busy and Amy hardly had time to talk. This is our busiest time…, Even with her busy schedule she finds time to watch TV…, I had a busy day and was rather tired. A busy time is a period of time during which you have a lot of things to do. I’m busy…, They are busy preparing for a hectic day’s activity on Saturday…, Rachel said she would be too busy to come…, Phil Martin is an exceptionally busy man.

I have been far too busy to think about taking time off. I busied myself with voluntary work and, in time, forgot that I was miserable. I busied myself in the kitchen and tried hard not to worry.

I needed to motivate our professors and give them something to believe in. I had to fix the economics of the School to be able to hire a cadre of world-class professors. I needed to build the reputation of Rotman for intellectual property leadership, especially in the areas of Integrative Thinking and Business Design. I had to establish a culture of student service — and, in particular, having a culture in which professors valued teach alongside research. Adjective Crowded with business or activities; — said of places and times. Adjective Engaged in some business; hard at work ; occupied with serious affairs; not idle nor at leisure.

My fundamental personal strategy problem was that I couldn’t do all those things while spending my time on the things the previous Dean had. So, I embarked on a project to eliminate 100 status quo days from my annual schedule to replace them with 100 days of higher-value activities for which I had the MHC to excel. So, when the unit of production is relatively high-end talent — like a CEO, a head of R&D, a guru of branding — an individual can become the gating function of the entire organization. Hence personal strategy is very important in the knowledge economy. The essential unit of production in the knowledge economy is the human, and that unit has a couple of tricky features.

• We raised a quarter billion dollars in my 15 years as Dean.
• Diligent suggests earnest application to some specific object or pursuit.
• Transitive verb To make or keep busy; to employ; to engage or keep engaged; to occupy.
• Telling someone you are ‘too busy’ is a handy excuse.

Unlike a factory or mine or farm that can be expanded, its capacity is fixed. Second, each debits and credits is unique, and hence not entirely fungible. When you expand a factory, you can add another production line that is identical to the other lines in the factory and thereby increase capacity in a homogeneous, seamless way.

It’s a status badge — being super busy means that you are in demand — it’s cool to be busy. To make somebody busy or active; to occupy.On my vacation I’ll busy myself with gardening. Look up any word in the dictionary offline, anytime, anywhere with the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app. DisclaimerAll content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional. I don’t like the busyness of stores around the holidays.

Employee engagement is the emotional and professional connection an employee feels toward their organization, colleagues and work. Continuous performance management, in a human resource management context, is the supervision of an employee’s performance … Total Quality Management is a management framework based on the belief that an organization can build long-term success by … Another example of BLF use is for teams working on a specific project. Using BLF, supervisors can monitor team members’ extensions and vice versa so all team members are aware of each other’s current status.