Busy isn’t respectable anymore.

Why busyness isn't all it's cracked up to be and a challenge to put it behind us.

Author TY WARD

12 Min Read

“The trouble with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.” | Lily Tomlin

busyisnt

Being busy used to make me feel important. It made me feel like the world needed me, like somehow I was more valuable or valid when busy. Perhaps that’s why I wore it like a badge and quickly resorted to it when people asked how life was. Yet in all reality, busyness was just another addiction I clung to so I could avoid things that made me uncomfortable.

Sadly, the things I often stayed busy to avoid happened to be some of the more worth while things in life.

I recently shared an article by one of my favorite columnists, Tim Kreider, in which he divulges on the vanity of always being busy. The general gist of his rant can be caught when he says,

“I did make a conscious decision, a long time ago, to choose time over money, since I’ve always understood that the best investment of my limited time on earth was to spend it with people I love. I suppose it’s possible I’ll lie on my deathbed regretting that I didn’t work harder and say everything I had to say, but I think what I’ll really wish is that I could have one more beer with Chris, another long talk with Megan, one last good hard laugh with Boyd. Life is too short to be busy.”

Tim’s article is one of many pieces in a recent and widespread frustration with the perpetual busyness of life. As of late, there seems to be a general suspicion growing about the, once viable, value of always being busy. And because more questions are being asked, more answers are being found.

As it turns out, always being busy isn’t a virtue, nor is it something to respect anymore. Among many reasons for this, there are a few that stand out to me.

It can actually be a sign of an inability to manage our lives well. Though we all have seasons of crazy schedules, few people have a legitimate need to be busy ALL of the time. For the rest of us, we simply don’t know how to live within our means, prioritize correctly, or say no. “Being busy is not the same as being productive,” says Tim Ferriss, “…and is more often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions. Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.”

It can be indicative of a lack of confidence and self-worth. Often we stay busy to subconsciously feel important and valuable to the world around us. Sadly, this points to an ignorance of our inherent value, in that regardless of our performance in life, we are important, loved and valuable. This slippery slope typically makes us too uncomfortable with ourselves or the reality of our lives to slow down.

Busyness actually restricts professional performance and limits mental capacity. With plenty of recently published psychological and biological evidence of this, Kreider seems to capture it well in the previously cited Busy Trap when he says,

“Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice. It is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.”

Busy often keeps us from the finer things in life. Though being busy can make us feel more alive than anything else for a time, the sensation is not sustainable long term. We will inevitably, whether tomorrow or on our deathbed, come to wish that we spent less time in the buzz of the rat race and more time actually living. Or as Seneca says in Letters from a Stoic, “There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living, and there is nothing harder to learn.”

An Experiment & Challenge in Resisting Busy.

Paul E. Ralph is a fundraising, copywriting & marketing expert living outside of Toronto. He’s recently launched PathwaysFund, an online tool which assists non-profits to cultivate spontaneous generosity. He also happens to be a longtime friend.

I’ll never forget when I was young seeing Paul standing outside in the freezing cold after evacuating my house with nothing but his boxers, a toothbrush in his mouth, and a pet parakeet under his shirt. This was after another friend and I, in attempt to clean up around the house, emptied hot coals from the fireplace into the plastic trashcan and returned it to it’s respective place: in the garage between two Lexus’. Long story short, six firetrucks later, we were able to salvage the cars and laugh about the incident today.

Shortly after I posted the previously mentioned article, Paul reached out to me about an experiment he and his wife did last year revolving around the issue of busyness. I thought it too good not to share.

Enter Paul.

My wife and I began noticing that everybody in our circle of influence, including ourselves, responded to virtually any question with “busy.” Normal questions? busy. Normal life? busy. It was evident that the new normal was a declaration of busy. It became the new mantra for living in the 21st century. ‘I am busy. Hear me roar!’

So, we decided to conduct an experiment.

We decided to never use the phrase BUSY as an answer for an entire year and to see if there were any changes in attitude and/or behaviour. Ours. Theirs.

We noticed alright. Instantly.

We were forced to describe our own situations with more clarity, and without our best friend ‘busy’ to blame, we engaged with people more authentically. As we did, we noticed the general depth of conversations increase as we and those we were sharing with, were invited to communicate differently about our actual states of being.

We stopped manipulating our friends. We weren’t actually aware that we were doing it before, however with that little four letter word excommunicated, we no longer predetermined the ubiquitous auto-response – “me too.”

We also quit guilting other people with all of our so called busy-ness. There’s nothing quite like the overachiever in the crowd diminishing everybody else efforts. Our busyness somehow validated us in the minds of our peers. So we thought. When we stopped using the word, we were free to be happy with our efforts for the day – and free to let others be comfortable with their own accomplishments.

‘The devil made me do it’ was a well-worn phrase when I was a kid. Perhaps ‘busy’ is its new iteration. An unintended consequence of our banishment of all things busy was that we stopped justifying our poor behaviors & choices. As we practiced choosing better words to describe our circumstances, we noticed a steady decline in the blame game. It included saying things like “we choose to take on too much…our bad.”

And most importantly, when we quit using the word BUSY, we noticed that others did the same. It was refreshing, for all of the aforementioned reasons.

Busy, it would seem, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more we said it – the more we felt it. The more we felt – the more we acted like it. The more we acted like it – (well, you know the rest). Guess what? When we quit saying it, we reversed SOME (not all) of the craziness.

Exit Paul.

So, here’s the challenge. Regardless of our love or hate of busyness, let’s experiment with what it’s absence does for us.

There are several ways we could go about doing this. Elimination using the 20/80 rule, or a good dose of Parkinson’s law, or any one of a number of popular methods. However, I like Paul’s approach.

For one month, I’m going to stop using the word “busy.” I’m going to resist the comfort of it to try and dig deeper to explain how things really are. If I feel busy, my hope is to be aware enough to discover why and to learn how I can change it.

Join me. Or at the very least, remember that being busy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and often isn’t as necessary as we think.

Disclaimer: Being busy, in this context, is not synonymous with being hard working or productive or effective. (read more about this here) Also, this article is calling into question busyness for busyness sake. Busyness by necessity, at least for a season, is an entirely different conversation.

Also, I’ve recently been fascinated by the impact of our daily routines. Rhythms is a series of short weekly emails on how to design your daily rhythms, in cooperation with your biology, to increase energy, productivity & margin. If interested, learn more here.

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gfair2

Oh no, don’t throw in the “by necessity” clause, you serve up the loophole excuse used by every busy person on a silver platter. Let’s talk tough about “busy”. We in the always-busy world equate free time with laziness and lack of productivity. We try to present the illusion of competence and being charged with some important task, yet we cast away balance for the sake of focus. There’s no time for taking stock when you’re too busy being busy. We in the western world are plagued by the quest to be perceived as productive, and cast off on the highway of productivity are a great many worthy and noble ideas and goals, such as working *smarter*, rather than harder, and finding ways to do it. Here’s an example: have you ever thought about the productivity-enhancing benefits of a siesta? A lot of Mediterranean Latin cultures (And most-assuredly others as well) have been napping during mid-day for centuries. We scoff at the very notion of anything more than a 30 minute break to scarf food down. We’re so busy being busy that even fundamental research into productivity is deemed excess spending and, therefore, never budgeted for. So our act of being busy sacrifices productivity over the long term for perception in the short; that’s a crap trade if you ask me. This busy culture has created vision-less people, awful leaders, and ruins companies by imposing a peer pressure mentality on cost and creative thinking. Abandon it, I urge you.
Eve

My husband recently passed away… He was a very active & productive man. He would work 24/7 if you let him… He got diagnosed in April of 2011 with Lou Gehrig’s Disease aka ALS… His world change but not his attitude… Bill always had time for people… he never met a stranger… he loved people. When you would ask him how he was… His response was “I’m living the dream” And he did just that. He laughed, loved and gave much to others but his main objective was to leave them smiling. This man touched many people. He passed this Nov. 21, 2013. I strive to be able to have the same attitude. Just living the dream. I believe your words are powerful and that you are what you speak. I believe this is a great challenge. Stop and smell the roses then move on to your next challenge… Living the Dream. Thanks Tyler for reminding me of that!
MBDElf

More than a few times, I’ve JUST finished a job at work, taken a deep breath, only to encounter a manager with the ubiquitous words, “If you need something to DO, I can find you something.” (Followed by the inevitable mental tongue-biting to keep you from lashing out with some profane whip of words.) There are none so demanding that every second be “productive” as those who WATCH others do the work.

Fortunately, over the years, I’ve instilled in “my managers” the awareness that not only am I a self-starter, but that I see things they often DON’T. It doesn’t ALWAYS works, but usually keeps me off the radar. Now, over recent months, due to a physical limitation, I’ve been FORCED to slow down some; it hasn’t affected how they deal with me, oe how I deal with my job. But it HAS enhanced my RESISTANCE to being constantly busy.

Call me a slacker if you will, but I’ve always felt that MY time is just that — MY TIME. I answer to NO ONE about its use, and have no need to justify piling up pillows on my bed and relaxing with a cold one. I’ve said for years now (about the act of RUNNING): “I run ONLY if my kids are spurting blood or on fire.” Otherwise, the pace is “measured”.

I DO feel sometimes that I’ve cheated my kids a little bit, because I COULD have elevated my professional status at a younger age, thus providing more for them. But they are happy, interact positively with me DAILY, and have a drive to succeed that I did not at their ages. I was dedicated at a young age to never be “just a wallet” to my kids, to be a part of their lives. I’ll not be one of those with those regrets on my deathbed. If I regret ANYTHING then, it’ll be items not marked off the bucket list — like that weeklong mountain bike trip to the Maah Daah Hey Trail. I figure I have 5-6 more years to do that…..
Carcinomic

Isn’t respectable by whose standards again? Importance of action is dictated by the time you put into your own life to do good things for others. I can never see the purpose of life as “being happy”. No. It is to be useful. It is to be remembered. It is to make good of your actions and have your own real convictions behind them, not those from some archaic/irrelevant text or article. It is what you sacrifice to do what you think is best for humanity. Money is and always will be, means to an end, and nothing more– as long as work leaves you content. I will always choose to rule money rather than have it rule me. I once worked with a camper with severe neurological issues. All he wanted to do was start a recycling facility at camp. If he can dream of saving just a little bit of this amazing planet with his condition anyone can do anything, maybe with more “doing” instead of getting philosophical about money and work.
cls

i was going to pass by this article because i thought to myself i’m too busy to read this ;p glad i paused and read it, reminded me i have a life. thanks for the reminder!
Lee

Busy is a term of prosperity from Generation X’ers. It was a good thing back then to be busy and this generation is still transforming away from that. I still think that it is good to be busy sometimes, or what ever word you use for doing your masters, working full-time, and planning major events in your life; all at the same time. I will get out my Thesaurus and pick another word for how the next 8 months are going to be, since they can’t be “busy”
jim

The words below tell the story through words. How much more important to have a glimpse of the words from the standpoint of the meaning.

Mary and Martha

As they continued their travel, Jesus entered a village. A woman by the name of Martha welcomed him and made him feel quite at home. She had a sister, Mary, who sat before the Master, hanging on every word he said. But Martha was pulled away by all she had to do in the kitchen. Later, she stepped in, interrupting them. “Master, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to lend me a hand.”

The Master said, “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it—it’s the main course, and won’t be taken from her.”
Tracy Lees

I think BUSY is a sin ( for me anyway). BUSY keeps us from LIFE and living it to the fullest. If course we work / have obligations and occupy . BUT “BUSY” puts up a wall for all to see. “Oh….. Tracy
Sounds busy or says she’s busy…… was gonna talk to her but she is too busy” .
Too busy keeps us too busy – and doesn’t allow our loved ones to FELLOWSHIP as we were made to do – to commune with the LORD and one another. I encourage everyone to extend yourselves and be open to what GOD wants you to do and where GOD wants you to go…… don’t get TOO BUSY. Love in CHRIST , Tracy Lees
Cliff Almond

Very true and very well said. Interesting experiment as well.
Jo Musgrove

Wow. I may try this too. Busy is a word that trips off the younger way too easily and without any real thought.
http://phenomenalyouthcanada.ca/ LC

I hate people who says “I’m busy.” Like really? Too busy to pick up phone to call me? Too busy to reply to me SMS? Too busy to reply to an email? Oh, but you’re not so busy to watch a Breaking Bad marathon. Okay.
https://www.tylerwardis.com/ tyler ward

Try a 2.5 year old and a 6 month old. 🙂
https://www.tylerwardis.com/ tyler ward

Beautiful Tracy. Thanks for sharing.
https://www.tylerwardis.com/ tyler ward

Beautiful Jim. Thanks for sharing.
https://www.tylerwardis.com/ tyler ward

“Busy is a term of prosperity from Generation X’ers.”

Great language. And I agree.
https://www.tylerwardis.com/ tyler ward

“I can never see the purpose of life as “being happy”. No. It is to be useful.”

I love this. In fact, an article Im working on currently confronts the issue.

Also, the point of staying away from being busy all the time is to actually be useful. Often times, I think busy can be useful’s greatest enemy.
Jules Design

I wonder if this writer has a family to support and love,
has a business he’s trying to take off the ground, with limited resources in a
competitive world? I do; and I am busy.

There is no vanity in being busy indeed; who would even give
a crap about that? Being busy is (sometimes) just a circumstantial necessity to
survive in life.
Heike

My husband too passed away just 5 months ago from cancer. He was only 52. The first time he had cancer about 9 years ago we decided to make some major changes in our lives….less stuff less work and more time for relationships. His moto was… Live life with passion, integrity, adventure. He died as well as he lived. He always reminded everyone he met to value relationships and God above material possessions and busyness. He challenged people to think about the legacy they wanted to leave behind.
beziermedia

I’m not sure you read the article. It says “Being busy, in this context, is not synonymous with being hard working or productive or effective.” Have you not noticed the rash of people who pretend to be busy now. Whether that is sticking their heads in their phones, being stressed out about time, and just an overall “busy” culture that has popped up in the past decade. NO one is that busy! If you do have a “family to support and love”, the solution is to slow life down and spend more time with them without pretending to be busy.
ooo

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jasykaur

Well, this has to be one of the best things I have read in awhile. To hold myself accountable that I will NOT use the word busy for one month, I have told my friends/family on Facebook that I will pay $25 to the charity of their choice if they catch me using that awful word in the month of January. I realize that when I don’t use that word, I do tend to have a higher level of understanding or clarity of what’s going on in my life because I think through things whereas once I use that word, it stops all thought and ends conversations. Good stuff. Thanks for sharing this.
beej

When I ask how someone is and her or she says, “busy”, my response is always, “I am sorry to hear that, I hope things get better for you.” That always generates great conversation…and awkward pauses while the comment is digested.
DrDonzo

Great post! On a similar but slightly different note, I have stopped using the excuse “I don’t/didn’t have time” because I do not consider it to be a valid excuse. If you really want to do something, you will make time for it, so saying “I’m busy” or “I don’t have time” is just polite shothand for “whatever you are suggesting is not important to me”. Which is fine, but don’t blame it on time – time can be managed and one of the few constants in this life is that every day has only 24 hours.
Lin

I am also a recovering busiholic. The key to my deliverance was “balance”!
itsawonderfilledlife.net

Delightful! As a mom, wife, work full time in a school, etc., etc., I too fall back on “busy” as my response to “how are you.” It is as though “busy” is the new “fine” … and is gives the same amount of information … none.
Carole
Tonya Rapley

This is an excellent article. I am beyond guilty of this. I like the fact of being completely honest with yourself with why you haven’t accomplished certain task. It’s a common misconception in the culture of my peers and I that busy means you’re making stuff happen which is not always the case. Here’s to a busy-less 2014 🙂
Guest

The author’s mortgage is paid by his father. His inheritance is all the retirement plan that he’ll need.

His advice is good, but it’s easy to not be busy when someone else pays your way.
http://www.reasonredefined.com/ Dylan Dodson

Couldn’t agree more. When I hear people say they are too busy for something I really just hear one of two things: that it is not a priority, or that they are too lazy to do it!
Grant

I have to question how anyone can judge a person as ‘busy for the sake of being busy’ as this article condemns while not ‘walking a mile in their shoes’ . Pretty tough to make a definitive judgement if you are not them, and don’t know their motivations, or more importantly their struggles. But sure, if a person is working a single job and has no commitments, go ahead and offer them the advice offered here. Otherwise, might be good to try to understand what the real issues are at hand. Might be able to help them, rather than ‘diss’ them. Good article otherwise – just need to make sure we are being sensitive to real life issues, and not applying our own ‘coffee and newspaper in the morning’ bliss to their situation.
From Seattle

Did some of you people even read the article?
Grant

You apparently live a comfortable life with all the things us ‘busy’ people strive for. Good for you! UnBusy on! Hope all continues to be what you fictionalise it to be.
Grant

Sure did. And cannot fathom a life that does not demand my time 24/.7. Accolades to you that can!
http://www.reasonredefined.com/ Dylan Dodson

You seem to be making judgements about me the same way you are condemning the author of this post for doing… As well as missing the point of this post.
Evan_Juventas

When someone tells me they’re busy, I sometimes interpret it as they’re not really doing anything productive, but are too embarrassed to admit it. Ask any government worker about their job.
Ros

I have been doing my own experiment on busyness lately. When I ask people ‘how have you been?’ the standard response is ‘busy’. Now instead of saying the standard response of ‘me too’, I ask them what have you been busy doing?
You know, the most common answer I get is ‘you know – working and stuff’. Many just don’t seem to know what they’ve been so busy doing. I find that intriguing.
I was one that was caught up in the ‘busyness’ – everyone was so busy all the time, it actually felt like I had to be too – I felt guilty if I wasn’t busy.
Now, after some reading and watching people – many people (myself included) were busy going nowhere. Busy doing the exact same things week in, week out – year in, year out. It’s insane!
I have done a lot of decluttering in my life, home and work. Many of the things I made myself so busy with were absolutely irrelevant in the importance of living life.
I can no longer say the same answer every time of busy, I only say it sometimes now when I am actually busy. I can now often say that I’ve been away for a weekend, made a new garden, built a garden shed, went out and took pictures, went to the movies etc. Yes, I work, I’m a mum and am starting a new business and look after my elderly father. To fit all this in, I have learned to balance things much better and to say NO.
Happy New Year everyone, I hope you all have more time for whatever it is that is important to you.
Tony

This is a bit intrusive for those of us with great time management skills. Maybe a better definer would be “out of sorts” or “all over the place”. This article is, in fact, despite the disclaimer at the end, kind of judgey. Brings back the addage of “work smarter, not harder”. Why not both?
Bee

Couldn’t agree more!
Mrs Common Sense

“Work hard in silence. Let success make the noise.”
Mrs Common Sense

Love this response. I am going to try this. Thanks!
Mrs Common Sense

Great comparison Jim. I just finished reading “Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World”. Great correlation to this article.
FatherTimex

…I’m too busy.
Stephane Fayd’herbe

Brilliant response Ros. ‘Busy’ is an ill conceived lazy persons answer. Granted one may well be very busy, however learn to articulate what that consists of.
Stephane Fayd’herbe

I’m guilty also. Very happy to have read this post so early in the new year. Thanks.
Karen

I think it’s good to be busy and also to organize off time. I have the privilege of being an M.A. student, which has a pretty hefty workload. I go to school 10 hours a day and had better be very busy in that time. I am a tutor, a research assistant, taking my classes and writing my thesis. All of this I need to maintain Ina schedule of only 10 hours per day. I would argue that, although most full time jobs are 8 hours a day, many people actually are “working” much longer than that. My reward for a ten-hour day? When I go home I don’t even have to think about school. I make supper with my boyfriend. We watch Pokemon. I play with my cats. Same goes for weekends. Being very busy and productive allows me to take real time off, not go out with my friends and worry the whole time about a looming paper. The trick is, I guess as per usual, balance.
NickC

“Hey how have you been?”
“Pretty balanced thanks”
https://www.tylerwardis.com/ tyler ward

Grant, while I appreciate you expressing honestly, there was never any intent to condemn or diss. Only to question the value of being busy just to be busy and to expose some of the deeper lining issues that keep us, MYSELF INCLUDED, that way.

Im aware of the struggles and motivators that contribute to the busy trap, mostly because I’m their number one victim. The inspiration for the article came from me reevaluating my own issues with a hope to offer some light for others.

Though it seems to have done that for many, I’m sorry it failed to hit home for you.

TY WARD

I write to make sense of life, business & relationships. I publish in hopes of helping you do the same.

http://tyward.co

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