Zenhabits - The end of busy | Hacker News Reader

Zenhabits - The end of busy

zenhabits.net

27 pointsderekc12 comments

I've been doing a lot of things at the same time for many years, school, work, studies outside school and stuff like that; but have never ever felt stressed or really "busy" either.

When people talked to me about how stressed out they were and all the stuff they had to do i used to think "Seems like you should just do it and not be so stressed and freaked out and everything would be a lot simpler."

But some weeks ago I actually felt stressed, for no apparent reason either; it was a really creepy feeling bothering me much, much more than I would have expected. It made it harder to sleep, i would almost get an upset stomach.

I could not figure out for the life of me why I was feeling that way, or how I could make it stop. It was completely new. The feeling have since passed and I hope it won't ever come back. But I have a bit more respect now for people who get stressed, it's not really helpful or useful to just tell them "Don't be stressed and everything would be easier."

And it's not really that easy to just.. get rid of the feeling.

The post is absolutely correct, stop "being busy" and you wouldn't be so busy. But some real tips psychological or otherwise on how to avoid the feeling would be far more helpful than simply; in my opinion: stating the obvious.

"Stop being busy. Just decide to stop, today." Has that ever worked? Has it worked for the author or is he like I was and have simply never felt stress?

I agree. The closest thing that page provided to concete advice was to avoid busy work and talk to your boss.

But that runs into two immediate problems. The first is that unless your boss already thinks you are genuinely overworked, they are not likely to be too sympathetic to you wanting to work less.

Now, if you can identify specific tasks that you think are busy work, you may get your boss to remove those or explain why they are not busy work. Of course, those tasks may then be replaced by others.

And this also brings me to the second point. Busywork should be avoided, but you need to make sure it is busywork. Your boss may very well have a good reason to have given you a task that you just don't see from your point in the organization. It may be worth asking him/her about so you can better understand why you are doing those tasks, but that does not mean you should unilaterly decide they are busy work and stop doing it.

Of course that only addresses work. Outside of work you may have more control, but even there your actions likely impact others and this should be considered when cutting things out. A proverbial soccer-mom may easily free up 3 hours a week by removing her child from soccer, but this will certainly impact the child.

One advantage of busy is that it can distract you from stressful or upsetting thoughts.

An alternative distraction is mindfulness - to not be busy, but to concentrate totally on whatever you are doing, as if it were a meditation. This one also helps you to do a good job.

As much as I appreciate Leo and ZenHabits, his content us ultra-cyclical. I understand the efficacy of repetition, but I unsubscribed after the 500th post on "doing less." This post is more of a teaser and linkbait for the rest of his site than a solid example of his capacity to inspire.

I admire this guy. I have been following his blog since the very beginning. He has come a long way. Having quit his job, works from home, quit smoking, shred ~25 pounds, completed multiple mini-marathons, published books, moving to California from Guam with family (6 kids) and he just recently removed all ads on his most popular blogs which easily gets him 1+ million page views per month. He was charging ~2k per month for a single 125x125 ad. Basically easy money.

I also find his writing repetitive, but I realized that I have grown as a person too over the last ~3 years that I was reading his blog, what seemed inspirational then seems repetitive now, because I have grown out of those concepts and most of it doesn't apply to me anymore. Maybe he was able to sustain his willpower because he is repetitive?

I think this is the same with most people putting out inspirational/motivational material. At some point, it isn't inspirational to you, but it still is to others. That means you've grown and developed, and other people can too.

I used to listen to Dave Ramsey a lot years ago to get some motivation and get certain things drilled in to my head. After about the 300th show, I could tell you about 95% of the time what he was going to say, almost word for word. That doesn't mean it's bad or he's repetitive (well, he is) but that it's 'worked' already - I don't really need that type of motivation in my life as I once did, as it did the trick.

His other blog, http://mnmlist.com/ is slightly better and more personal. It still is a bit cyclical, but feels better.

The oft echoed sentiment "if you're feeling $EMOTION, just stop feeling $EMOTION" isn't insightful advice or good advice. It's a naive solution repeated by armchair psychologists and, frankly, does more harm than good.

"Abused by your father? Find yourself lusting after children? Hey, just stop! It's that easy!"

When I decided to focus on the things that matter in my life, I got much busier. Sure, I have fewer items on my todo list now, but each one of them takes a lot of time, energy, and focus to get right. When I was less focused, I had plenty of free time because I didn't realize how much work it takes to get the most important stuff right.

Great post. Reminds me of Benjamin Franklin's quote -

  Never confuse motion with action.

if your schedule is s.t. you can put an end to busy, you're not working hard enough.

Busy is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

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