Busyness.
I love this word! And, yes, it is a word. It’s even in the dictionary.
Busyness
[biz-ee-nis] noun
1. The quality or condition of being busy
2. Lively but meaningless activity
The first definition is simple enough to understand:
The quality or condition of being busy
Sure. We all get busy with things to do, whether it’s for work or family or even pleasure. But don’t you think that sometimes our “busy” is kind of superficial? (probably more than sometimes)
This is where the second definition of “busyness” comes in. It’s so true and such an appropriate word for the way society today views time spent.
Lively but meaningless activity
It’s interesting how much we admire our own busyness. We feel proud and important. We love to tell others how busy we are. I think society has put an unusual amount of importance on being busy. So much so that, when we’re not busy, we invent things that make it seem like we are busy. We create “lively but meaningless activity”.
Society even took away the only excuse we had to not be busy when they opened retail on Sundays. If you’re 50-plus, you remember when everything was closed on Sundays. Sunday was the day for family, friends and faith. It was our day of rest.
But society and retailers took away our day of rest and now we struggle to fill another day with busyness.
I’m sorry but I’m just too busy today
How many times have you heard someone say that they are busy; so busy; much too busy to get out for lunch or a coffee.
I always like to ask them what they are busy with; it really throws them for a minute. Invariably they come back with a laundry list of things that they have on their to-do list but, nine times out of ten, there is nothing on that list that I would give up lunch for.
Well . . . I can say that now but there was a time when I was just like them.
I had my own love affair with busyness until I finally realized that busyness doesn’t make you happy. In fact, it made me miserable.
Let me tell you why
I used to wake up every Saturday morning; make my coffee and sit down to make my to-do list for the weekend. This was my routine. I loved my list because, as I went about my day, I could strike off the things that I got done. Every strike made me feel so good that I was accomplishing something.
And my list was the epitome of busyness. It included things like
- pick up dry cleaning and
- return the waffle iron*
which is fine, those are maybe legitimate things that need to get done.
*the waffle iron that I bought but didn’t need when I was keeping myself busy at the outlet mall
But then my list started to include things like
- organize plastic container cupboard
- go through pictures
And, just in case there wasn’t enough, I would add chores to the list. Things like
- laundry
- clean upstairs bathroom
- clean downstairs bathroom
- vacuum bedrooms
- vacuum stairs . . .
Yes, I would itemize my cleaning. Who itemizes their cleaning? Seriously, who does that? I did!
I did because it felt SO good to strike stuff off my list. The more I had on the list, the more opportunities I had to strike stuff off. Oh, how I loved my orange highlighter!
My mood, however, would drastically change on Sunday night when I looked at my list. You see, I always put more on the list than it was even possible to complete in two days.
Especially if I wanted to fit in any pleasure or social time.
When I looked at my list on Sunday evening, instead of being happy at what I accomplished, all I saw was what I didn’t get done. So I would start to beat myself up for not getting more done. What I didn’t get done even overshadowed any social activities I enjoyed on the weekend.
I could rationalize in my head that visiting my mom or going to a movie with my friend was more important or more fun but, at the end of the day, all I could see was the list with not enough items crossed off with orange highlighter.
I finally realized that my “busyness” was having a very negative impact on my quality of life and the only way to fix it was to stop the insanity. Stop the busyness. Stop making the to-do list completely.
It wasn’t easy to break up with busyness
I felt kind of lost without my list for the first couple weekends which is really sad and shows how much my busyness controlled me. I sat with my coffee on Saturday morning and pondered my day; congratulating myself on not making a list when I knew full well that I was making the list in my head.
So the list was still there, it just moved from the paper to my head. My behaviour didn’t actually change until I started to notice that there was no satisfaction with the list in my head. There was no satisfaction because I couldn’t physically strike things off. The rush came from striking things off the list. So, without the rush, what was the point of the list.
That’s when I was really able to let go
I still have things that need to be done but the pressure is gone. I get done what I get done and the rest will wait for another day.
This new way of thinking was a paradigm shift for me and, as hard as it was, breaking the busyness habit was the best thing I did for myself.
I am much happier and less stressed now and I’ve even taken back my day of rest! I try very hard not to do any errands or chores on Sundays. I leave Sundays for relaxing activities like visiting, long walks, bike rides or maybe a movie.
But, no pressure. Doing nothing is a perfectly acceptable “activity” too.
Have you struggled with busyness? Share your story in the comments. Your insights may help someone else who is also struggling.
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