Too Busy for Life.

Stop ‘making time go by fast’

Everyone has been in this situation before, not once but many times, where you felt low due to a mishap or trauma or for simply being a human. You tried seeking help from your closest people, your friends or family members, and all you were told were that you need to get out of your head and be busy, and you will be fine.

‘Keep yourself busy you won’t have time to be depressed.’

A suggestion to get our minds off the reality, and keep us busy doing things to avoid our own thoughts. We are busy so we don’t have to face the reality that is haunting us until we are not busy and the reality is still the same. Naturally, the word busy has a negative connotation for a reason. People use it to avoid invitations, conversations or just be left alone and not bothered.

Busy — having a great deal to do

Engage — involve, attract, interest, attention

“How is your day going”

“Just busy…”

“being busy is good”

“Yeah I guess, it makes time go by fast”

Well if time did go by fast we will all die soon, busy doing things that didn’t matter.

If the whole purpose of being busy is to get by the day, we need to seriously rethink our approach towards life. We need serious time-off from this hamster wheel and take a look at our lives. Sort our priorities and find out ways to engage. I have hated the phrase — ‘this will make time go by fast’ and only now have I reflected on the reason why and realized how messed up the concept of being busy is. And just because everyone speaks this language, it doesn’t make it right. We are just busy telling everyone how busy we are.

But one day I had this conversation that changed my perspective and shattered the limiting beliefs.

“How is your day going?”

“It is good, I have been running around taking care of things”

“So you are busy, being busy is good!”, I said

“No, my day is filled with opportunities, I just hate the word busy, I could be busy doing nothing” the lady replied.

Wow!

Being Busy is In fashion

People complain about how it is so busy and they can’t find time to rest and yet glorify the idea of being busy. We have all come across people who have only one answer to all your questions, proposals and invitations — “I am too busy”. Being busy or the idea of being busy has been attached to success and money and skewed our idea of well being. But in reality, being busy is laziness. That Laziness that is chosen over engagement keeps us from the time that could allow us to include more people, opportunities and activities in your day. And if well planned and prioritized, there is always more time.

Get the time by its horns

Have your time work for you. Breaking these beliefs will bring balance to working lives, especially if you are new to the workforce. In my first job, we new analysts had a perception that anyone who is staying late after work hours and putting 60 hours a week is working really hard. Being busy or constantly working late was a popular belief. Only to later realize that these were the proofs that the work wasn’t properly planned ahead or allocated to the right resources. Often jobs are confused with the idea of clocking-in and clocking out, trying to fill the hours with something-to-do. This is the main reason we can’t differentiate between urgent and important.

Go follow your curiosity

There are billions of people who won’t find 100% satisfaction from the work they do, and why should they. Sometimes knowing that a job is there to pay for the fun stuff makes room for the fun stuff. Learning to invest time, effort and sometimes money in the activities that interest us helps to engage in creative or mentally stimulating pursuits. And if one is not sure about it, following the curiosity is the best place to start. When you know you are taking one day at a time with your creative pursuits, and the fact that there is no pressure on this path, one can learn to engage in these pursuits with detachment. It helps one develop the ability to learn new things from scratch and adapt to changes.

Reflection

You could, in reality, be doing the same tasks and be engaged. Just reflecting on the purpose of each task we carry out during the day by taking a few seconds, can create a major shift in perspective. We can see what is urgent, important and what can be taken care of later.

Being accountable for the work you do and getting credit for your responsibility impact how you feel at work. Being a part of a big organization and feeling that each task of your day impacts the functioning at a big scale can create a significant sense of satisfaction.

Change your inner dialogue and think before you tell people how busy you are. Taking time to reflect on this making our priorities clear and having a vision for each day, will create more time to do things that add value to our lives, relationships, and purpose.