Eight Simple Ways to De-busy Your Life

How long are you willing to live a life that’s too busy?
A life that overflows with unfulfilling activities?
A life that doesn’t get enough rest?

A life that doesn’t have enough time for relationships?

Busyness makes you exhausted. But it also makes you feel important. That’s one reason why it’s so hard to de-busy your life. If busyness makes you feel important, then unbusyness makes you feel unimportant.

But at some point, you need to decide that busyness is no longer going to be a condition of your life. No longer will you settle for driving the kids around to everything instead of engaging them at the dinner table. No longer will you settle for volunteering for a dozen activities and not doing any of them well or in a fulfilling way. No longer will you settle for going to bed and waking up exhausted.

You have to decide to change. You have to decide that busyness will no longer rule your life. You have to make a commitment to become un-busy. Here are 8 strategies to de-busy your life.

1. Say “no” more often

Busyness happens when you develop the habit of making “yes” your default answer. You must accept this hard truth: there are more good opportunities than you have time to do. So you have to say “no” to good opportunities.

Make “no” your default.

Decide that there must be a compelling reason for you to say “yes.” Determine that you will listen to God about whether He wants you to say “yes.” If He doesn’t lead to a “yes,” then your answer should be “no.”

Saying “no” stops you from taking on more busyness. “No” cuts busyness off at the roots.

2. Remind yourself of the damage busyness does

You will not de-busy your life unless you are convinced that it will do damage to you — and everyone around you. Remind yourself regularly of the damage that it causes:

• Anxiety
• Inability to hear God
• Exhaustion
• Self-deprecation
• Shallow relationships
• Non-stop urgency
• Failure to plan priorities
• Burnout
• Devaluing of yourself and others

Nothing good comes from chronic busyness. If you want to de-busy your life, remind yourself of all the damage busyness does.

3. Imagine a life with margin

Spend a few minutes imagining your life with margin. Margin, a concept articulated by Dr. Richard Swenson, occurs when you have more time than you have commitments.

Imagine reading the books you want to read.
Having dinner-time conversations with your kids and neighbors.
Feeling fulfilled by the few things you’ve said yes to.
Hearing the voice of God regularly.

Only when you imagine a life with margin will you make the hard choices to de-busy your life.

4. Pick a daily stop-time

Kevin DeYoung writes, “It’s because you can do so much that you do so much.”

Busyness happens when you get to the end of the day and say, “I’ll just do one more thing.” When you finish that one thing, you decide to do one more thing. You repeat this until you crumble into bed exhausted — yet feeling guilty that you didn’t complete one more thing.

De-busy your life by choosing a daily stop-time when work ceases — even if there is more to do. Make this decision in conjunction with your family or roommates. Make the time early enough to still have time for rest and relationships. The key is to have a consistent stop time every night. “Every night at 9 pm, we stop work.”

This forces you to prioritize and select the activities that you are going to do rather than believing falsely that you can do everything.

5. Take a regular Sabbath

Have you ever had a computer that had too many programs opened and had been on for too long? The computer slowed to a crawl. It would take forever to open a program. Finally, you shutdown the computer and restarted it. Everything started working as it should.

Sabbath is God’s weekly restart for your life.

When you take a regular Sabbath, you stop busyness in its tracks. You stop busyness before it starts. Sabbath gives you the ability to turn off unnecessary programs (i.e. commitments) and to rest with God.

7. Discern your commitments with God

Everything you do has everything to do with Jesus Christ.
Everything you do takes place in time.
Therefore, Jesus cares how you spend your time.

Busyness happens when you try to do more than you have time to do. And when you try to do more than God has called you to do.

God has given you enough time to do everything that He has called you to do. If you consistently “run out of time,” then you are doing more than God has called you to do.

Spend time discerning with God what He has called you to do. Spend time listening to Him about His priorities for the next year.

Ask Him to reveal what you’re committed to that He’s never asked you to do. Ask Him what He wants you to do.

Then de-commit to the things that He hasn’t called you to do. Not only will you de-busy your life but also you’ll find greater fulfillment in the commitments you have.

8. Invite others to de-busy your lives together

Eliminating busyness is hard. And once you’ve de-busied your life, you need ongoing vigilance to guard against drifting back toward it.

But it’s easier when you have people do it together. Invite others to join you in the fight against busyness. Get your immediate family involved. Invite your small group, your neighbors, your Sunday School class, your co-workers.

Busyness is easier to beat when you do it together.

If you’re overwhelmed by your busyness, take heart. Busyness can be beaten! Once you commit to it, start taking some practical steps to de-busy your life.

Want more articles like this?

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Question: What is one action that you will take today to debusy your life?