'Busy-ness' is a Choice; Not a Compulsion

We live in the epoch of workaholics. Not only is compulsive work admired; it is encouraged. Worst still, it is used as a yardstick of success for all future would-be professionals.

Some say that being ‘busy’ all the time is necessary to simply get sh^t done. Others might say it is an essential precondition to surviving in their industry. If I don’t be the workaholic and work excessive overtime or 12-hour days, someone else will.

Rubbish, rubbish and rubbish.

Allow me do drop the following truth bombs on you.

Truth #1: Being busy is something we choose to do whether we realise it or not.
Truth #2: Busy-ness is an excuse we use to mask things we’re not doing properly.
Truth #3: People would much rather be busy rather than go insane from having too much free time.

Let me explain this from several angles.

The first point I’ll mention is that the excuse of ‘being too busy’ is often used to mask critical tasks we fear doing. It becomes a form of procrastination. Too busy to pick up the phone and have that difficult conversation? Too busy to have to put effort into seeing that friend? In essence, being ‘too busy’ becomes a nicer, more socially accepted way of saying “I really don’t want to do this”.

Here’s what Tim Ferriss has to say on this:

 “Busy is a decision.” Here’s why: Of the many, many excuses people use to rationalize why they can’t do something, the excuse “I am too busy” is not only the most inauthentic, it is also the laziest. I don’t believe in “too busy.” Like I said, busy is a decision. We do the things we want to do, period. If we say we are too busy, it is shorthand for “not important enough.”

So not only is being ‘busy’ a way of saying that something else is ‘not important enough’, but it is also a lazy way of us shirking responsibility for properly interrogating ourselves and the things we prioritise. Bluntly, you don’t want to change what you’re doing because change is too difficult – Emotionally, physically, mentally.

Let me give you a few examples:

• You would rather indulge in your work rather than resolving tensions in your relationship with your significant other.
• You would rather work overtime rather that seeing friends you know you haven’t seen in ages; perhaps friends you really don't want to see but don't have the heart to confront.
• You would rather continue working as usual, trying to do ‘everything’, rather than stopping to ask yourself if you really need to do ‘everything’.

It’s also helpful to remember the well-known Pareto Principle: That 80% of the outputs come from 20% of the work. By accepting your "busy-ness", you’re deliberately choosing to not analyse your workflow and prioritise the ‘select few’ rather than the ‘pointless many’. Deep down, you know that being busy isn’t necessary to get stuff done. It’s a form of laziness.

Indeed, cutting down your workload and honing in on ‘simplicity’ is the ultimate form of sophistication. See Steve Jobs on this.

In short, “busy-ness” is us dodging the important task of properly interrogating ourselves and what we do; a task that is uncomfortable no doubt. What do we fear: Judgement? Having too much free time? These are choices to be made; not decisions we're forced to make.

“BUSY-NESS” IS A CHOICE; NOT A COMPULSION

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If I were to be brutal, I would say that work occupies more of our time, our mental stamina and mental bandwidth than anything else, whether it be family, relationships or hobbies. No sooner are we asked, “what do you do?” when people first strike a conversation with us. Work is more than just an activity we leave behind after 5pm; it is our passion, and more fundamentally, our identity.

Perhaps it is more apt to think of work as its own living ‘thing’; a living, breathing monster in and of itself. We become that monster.

How, then, do we tame the monster of work so it does not consume us? That is something we shall attempt to answer in the next five letters. This is the third of five letters that I shall be writing on work.

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