I see you are busy?
Are you busy?
We know that so many of our conversations these days revolve around how busy we are. We wear our busyness as a badge of honour. It has become our latest status symbol.
There is some validity for this thought process.
There is academic backing for this too.
The gleam of being both well-off and time-poor, the authors write, is “driven by the perceptions that a busy person possesses desired human capital characteristics (competence, ambition) and is scarce and in demand on the job market.” In a curious reversal, the aspirational objects here are not some luxury goods—a nice watch or car, which are now mass-produced and more widely available than they used to be—but workers themselves, who by bragging about how busy they are can signal just how much the labor market values them and their skills.
Conspicuous Consumption of Time: When Busyness and Lack of Leisure Time Become a Status Symbol
As part of my retirement I was aware that many who have gone before warned me that I would find it hard to understand how I ever had the time to have gone to work in the first place, as retired life is very full-on!
They weren’t wrong. Being retired from paid work gives you a new freedom to choose what you take on and what you don’t. It allows a rest time of your own choosing. I don’t set an alarm anymore. That’s worth a lot in itself.
But it doesn’t mean you can sit at home doing nothing. And this is where the ‘busyness’ dilemma remains very real.
Learning to say NO
With the freedom comes responsibility. I recognised one of my faults was the inability to say no to new offers of work or ideas for volunteering my time, effort or ‘expertise;. Despite being a little too busy at the moment I think I have learned this skill. In the last month I have sent a polite a no thank you email to head-hunters who in the past I may have wasted my time pursuing their interest in me for a role. In the past the flattery had worked to peak my interest. Now unless its a dream position I just say no.
But still Too Busy To Post
My level of busyness is now entirely my fault. Indeed I take great pleasure in replying no to the question are you busy? I now aim to be as busy as I choose and to wear this as a badge of honour. It really does cause a strange reaction. We all like to tell people how busy we are. It makes us feel important too. Not being busy may feel you are being ignored or just unimportant.
I make time available in the mornings for my voluntary roles about 4 days a week. If I need to switch to an afternoon for a Board I swap the day to give myself the morning to myself.
At the moment I also try to get away for a break/ Holiday time away every 5-6 weeks. Without the physical break it is all too easy to fill the diary with more Teams/ Zoom calls and coffees. All pleasant but not really breaking the cycle.
So in the definition of busy I fall well short of the criteria for most people probably doing 40-60 hours. However, the times that I am available therefore have to be used well and wisely.
So this brings me to the point and title of the Blog.
Somebody said to me last week I see you haven’t been too busy as I haven’t seen much on your social media! Now this is partly true because I have learned to slow down on some platforms when on a vacation. I will leave LinkedIn alone and perhaps just do some family Instagram posts.
But it is also true that too often that I am actually too busy to post how busy I am on social media so it looks like I am doing nothing. My busyness these days seems to be measure by my social media activity! How did this happen?
This short blog is a prime example. I have so many things on my To-Do List that I don’t have time to be writing this! And so around it goes again.
Bragging about not being busy
I hope we can get to a place where we can all accept not rushing around being too busy is good for us and a sign of us looking after our wellbeing. Because constant busyness negatively affects our wellbeing
I enjoy now throwing the conversation when people ask if I am busy and don’t conform. “No not really” is not the answer they expect. I love seeing the reaction and a recognition that more often than not the person I am speaking to wants to know more or how to grab back some of their life.
Over the coming weeks I will outline some ideas and techniques that may help. None of them are easy. They do go to the core of your motivations in life. There are quite a few blogs that have followed on Ikigai, Niksen Hygge - and of course wellbeing. Not being busy is not the same as being lazy. Being comfortable with enjoying life, nature or reading and thinking is not lazy. We need to learn how to relax and find time to think. There is way too much speed and rushing for it to be healthy!
“There are two ways to get enough: one is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less. All human toil is for the mouth, yet the appetite is not satisfied.”