What to Do When You’re Addicted to Being Busy

This is how messed-up we are in modern society:

Busy is a status symbol.

Lack of sleep is a status symbol.

The less sleep you get, the cooler you are.

How the hell did we get here to this point of insanity?

Because folks, this is the very definition of batshit crazy.

The less efficient you are …

The more frenetic and frantic you are…

The more sleep-deprived and thus the more actually, physically, literally dangerous-to-yourself-and-others you are …

The more we venerate you?

The better you feel about yourself?

Come the hell on, people.

I’m not going to suggest that what’s true for me is true for you, but I do think what I ultimately came to realize about my own crazy-busy-sleepless worship is far more commonly at work in the general population and among creative workers in particular.

So I’ll offer it up to you now gently as food for thought. Take it for whatever it’s worth:

We worship “busy” when we are resisting our true purpose.

Better to do something — anything else, really — than to face the awesome, scary responsibility of fulfilling our true mandate as creatives.

I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard my novelist friends admit, “My house is never so clean as when I’m getting ready to start work on a new book.”

And yeah, for some of us, it becomes a bit of an addiction. And like any addiction, it outlives its usefulness, and becomes its own purpose, independent of any other need.

But the thing about addictions is that they expand to fill the space available to them — that is, they take over the entirety of your life.

Break the cycle. Do it today. Try shutting down completely for at least a two-hour stretch. Go do something utterly unrelated to busywork. Unrelated to work, period. Read a book. (No ebook-vs-paper-book shaming. Read whatever you want.) Watch a movie. Go to a park and feed the ducks. Take a kid to a playground. Hit up a mall if your area still has one that hasn’t been abandoned and people-watch.

If you’re addicted to busy, it’ll feel super weird. That’s OK. Do it anyway. Remember, uncomfortable won’t kill you.

Make a commitment to do this at least once a week.

Break the addiction to busy, and the irony is this: You’ll find you get much more done.

photo credit: FootMassagez Worker running with suitcase — Credits to https://costculator.com via photopin (license)