It seems to me that too many of us wear busyness as a badge of honor. I’m busy, therefore I’m important. If I’m not busy, I don’t matter.
The Addiction of Crazy-Busy
In Daring Greatly, Brené Brown writes about numbing behaviors that we use as armour against vulnerability. And if you think numbing doesn’t apply to you, because you?re not hooked on cocaine or alcohol, she clarifies by saying, “One of the most universal numbing strategies is what I call crazy-busy. I often say that when they start having 12-step meetings for busy-aholics, they’ll need to rent out football stadiums. We are a culture of people who’ve bought into the idea that if we stay busy enough, the truth of our lives won’t catch up with us.”
1. You can’t remember the last time you took a day off.
Occasional periods of rest are not unproductive, they are essential to productivity. Extended periods of non-stop activity result in fatigue, and fatigue results in lower-quality output. As Sydney J. Harris once said, “The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.”
2. Those closest to you have stopped asking for your time.
Why? They simply know that you have no time to give them. Your loved ones will be persistent for a long time, but once you reach the point where they’ve stopped asking, you’ve reached a dangerous level of busy.
3. Activities like eating are always done on the move.
When you have so little time that you can’t even focus on feeding yourself.
4. You never get a good nights sleep.
If you have got some much to do that you can’t even shut your mind down when you’re laying in bed, you’re too busy.
5. The most exercise you get is running from one thing to the next.
Exercise promotes a healthy life. If you’d like to exercise, but you just don’t have time for it, you?re too busy. If the closest thing you get to exercise is running from your office to your car because you’re late for your ninth appointment of the day, you are too busy!
6. You don’t want to get up in the morning.
If your days are so full that you literally dread even starting them, you’re too busy. A new day should hold at least a small level of excitement.
7. You are constantly in “Survival mode”.
If you can’t remember what it feels like to be ahead of schedule, or caught up, you’re too busy.