Is Busy Valuable?
Changing the Narratives of Busyness
Kriti rushed to her office before 9:15 am like any other day, barely glancing at the large billboards around her, each screaming something to the extent of “faster.. better.. stronger..” — taglines that sell these days. Between now and 7 am, she had traveled two hours in a Superfast (and crowded) Mumbai local, caught up on the news and emails, grabbed breakfast while flipping through Instagram’s feed and read around 15 pages of her usual genre of self-help books on improving productivity (today it was The Productivity Project by Chris Bailey). On reaching, she would start work immediately, continuing till she left at 8 pm. She even ate lunch (usually a sandwich or a burger that she would order in) at her desk, spending no more than 10 minutes on it. She barely spoke to anyone except regarding work and was almost always busy. Her desk was littered with motivational messages and listicles on “Getting more done!”.
Kriti was a star employee, right? Surprisingly not. While she did clock in long hours and barely took any holidays, she was constantly pulled up by her supervisor for mistakes she kept committing. To further her misery, her sedentary lifestyle and the stressful job had given her a host of health issues, from hypothyroidism to respiratory issues. Kriti, unfortunately, is no exception in today’s urban India. Today’s jobs demand a 24/7 commitment to work and therein lies the problem. The health effects of constant stress and busyness are fairly well documented in the media — a recent report by the Harvard Business Review estimates that excessive workplace stress accounts for 80% of accidents and healthcare expenditure of over $500bn in the US itself (Seppälä). Further, it demonstrates strong linkages between stress and “health problems ranging from metabolic syndrome to cardiovascular disease and mortality (Seppälä).” Urban India, too, is on a similar trajectory. This brings me to the broader question that I will try to address through this piece: How and why do we get persuaded to exhibit behaviors of busyness all the time? Given the impacts of such behavior on mental and physical health, how can we change this to improve our collective wellbeing?
Through this op-ed, I want to argue that while modern busyness behaviors may have their roots in religion and have been further reinforced by media portrayals, it is extremely important to change the existing narrative towards the normalization of living more wholesome lives, by shifting value from busyness towards productivity.
A source to understand the foundation or roots of these narratives of busyness, that has come to personify the modern idea of capitalism, could be Max Webers’ book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in which he tried to understand the emergence of the idea of the pursuit of profit as a virtuous activity that was an end in itself or a means of accumulating even more wealth. He found that the Calvinists (a sect of Protestants), in looking for psychological clues to overcome the anxiousness of an uncertain fate (either Salvation or Damnation), began equating economic prosperity as a token of God’s favour (Weber). Further, they believed in strict self-discipline, a frugal, non-wasteful lifestyle (recreation of any kind was frowned upon as a diversion from work), and personal sacrifice for future rewards (Protestant Ethics and Spirit of Capitalism according to Weber). This idea of hard work and pursuit of limitless wealth paved the way for modern capitalism to promote the cult of busyness (for its inherent value in increasing productivity, which over time has become far removed from the idea of religion). As the work culture of the West spread across the globe, it mingled with similar strains of being in other parts of the world, as a marker of being modern.
These modern markers came to be equated with the ideals of success, making the signaling power of busyness rather attractive from a psychological perspective. This could be significantly attributed to the media portrayal of successful people. Lookup any Fortune 500 CEO and you will see them proudly say they sleep no more than 4–5 hours a day — the Sleepless Elite as Wall Street Journal calls them — and work over 12–14 hours (Basu). This glorification of busyness by the media through movies and recurrent correlation and reinforcement of successful role models constantly working, has left a deep psychological imprint on people’s minds. The portrayal of affluence too has changed from holidays on yachts to busy people owning massive business empires (Bellezza). Busyness has now become the new symbol for people’s sense of self-worth and self-esteem furthered by the belief that good human capital characteristics (like ambition, hard work, and competence) are scarce qualities and therefore those who have it are constantly in demand(Bellezza), making people value these behaviors. In corporate offices, the narrative is almost that if one has free time, it means that he is not good enough. A recent viral video elucidated how spending longer hours in the office (without necessarily being productive) is valued and rewarded far more than efficiency and how this has been ruining corporate work culture (Agarwal, Madhur, et al.). What we failed to realize though, is that while the cult of busyness was initially valued for its increased productivity, today, busyness is toxically valued in and of itself, even if it may be leading to lesser productivity.
It is, however, worth acknowledging the advantages of valuing the idea of hard work and busyness. In a paper titled “When Busy Is Less Indulging: Impact of Busy Mindset on Self-Control Behaviours”, the authors, through different streams of research in sociology find that a busy mindset can increase one’s sense of self-control on account of an increased sense of self-importance (Kim, et al 3). The authors conducted multiple studies to test self-control behaviors in different situations. Contrary to what one might think, through their findings, the researchers demonstrate that busyness in itself is actually not the problem, and “a busy mindset can positively impact self-control behaviors (Kim, et al 43)”, but the problem really arises when it is combined with time pressure! This goes on to show that while a sense of busyness can help people make better decisions when coupled with time pressure like most modern capitalistic economies are, it can have detrimental effects.
Since accelerated time pressure is the crux of the problem behind the busyness narrative, the ‘Slow Work Movement’ seems to be a promising counter-narrative. As the Norwegian philosopher Guttorm Fløistad put it, our real needs could only be addressed through “slowness in human relations. In order to master changes, we have to recover slowness, reflection and togetherness. There we will find real renewal (Nicola).” In terms of corporate culture, it could mean pausing, forging, and nurturing relations with our co-workers and valuing efficiency and productivity rather than spending nights working in the office (Schachter). Working lesser hours need not mean reduced quality of output. As author Carlo Petrini explains, slowness is not about speed; instead, it is “the difference ‘between attention and distraction; slowness, in fact, is not so much a question of duration as of an ability to distinguish and evaluate, with the propensity to cultivate pleasure, knowledge, and quality.’(Seeber)”
This leads me to question the future of work. Will people be able to shun the archaic corporate practices and ideals that they have come to value over the years to adopt a “slower” more wholesome and rounded lifestyle? Perhaps only time will tell. What’s clear though, is that the crippling effects of modern busyness behavior coupled with time pressure on people’s health and wellbeing, cannot be ignored much further.
Read The Personal Is Pandemic by Arjun Bhatia
Works Cited
“Protestant Ethics and Spirit of Capitalism According to Weber.” Your Article Library, 1 Dec. 2014, www.yourarticlelibrary.com/sociology/protestant-ethics-and-spirit-of-capitalism-according-to-weber/43757.
Weber, Max, and Stephen Kalberg. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: the Revised 1920 Edition. Oxford University Press, 2011.
Ghosh, Peter. “What Did Max Weber Mean by the ‘Spirit’ of Capitalism? — Peter Ghosh: Aeon Ideas.” Aeon, Aeon, 26 Apr. 2020, aeon.co/ideas/what-did-max-weber-mean-by-the-spirit-of-capitalism.
Basu, Tanya. “CEOs Brag They Survive On 4 Hours of Sleep. Don’t Do This.” The Daily Beast, The Daily Beast Company, 12 Aug. 2018, www.thedailybeast.com/ceos-like-pepsicos-indra-nooyi-brag-they-get-4-hours-of-sleep-thats-toxic.
Bellezza, Silvia, et al. “Research: Why Americans Are So Impressed by Busyness.” Harvard Business Review, 26 Nov. 2019, hbr.org/2016/12/research-why-americans-are-so-impressed-by-busyness.
Seppälä, Emma, and Kim Cameron. “Proof That Positive Work Cultures Are More Productive.” Harvard Business Review, 8 May 2017, hbr.org/2015/12/proof-that-positive-work-cultures-are-more-productive.
Kim, et al. “When Busy Is Less Indulging: Impact of Busy Mindset on Self-Control Behaviors.” OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 15 Sept. 2018, academic.oup.com/jcr/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jcr/ucy069/5098532?redirectedFrom=fulltext.
Nicola, Vincenzo Di. “Take Your Time: the Seven Pillars of a Slow Thought Manifesto — Vincenzo Di Nicola: Aeon Essays.” Aeon, Aeon, 26 Apr. 2020, aeon.co/essays/take-your-time-the-seven-pillars-of-a-slow-thought-manifesto.
Seeber, Barbara, and Maggie Berg. “The Slow Professor Can Dish out a More Nutritious Education — Barbara Seeber & Maggie Berg: Aeon Ideas.” Aeon, Aeon, 26 Apr. 2020, aeon.co/ideas/the-slow-professor-can-dish-out-a-more-nutritious-education.
Schachter, Harvey. “Slow down. Savour Your Work.” The Globe and Mail, 14 June 2012, www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/career-advice/life-at-work/slow-down-savour-your-work/article4262792/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&.
Agarwal, Madhur, et al., directors. Half Day | The Viral Office Rant | What’s Your Status | Webseries | Cheers!Cheers!, 15 Aug. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bvcyGyzj7Y.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Saania is a fellow from Ashoka University’s Young India Fellowship Program. She has a degree in economics and a keen interest in impact investing and social sector consulting. In her spare time, she enjoys dancing, trekking and camping.
Follow Project Democracy on Instagram for regular updates @projectdemocracy.yif
