On Being Busy
blog.aadilali.com
blog.aadilali.com
Period.
Don't try to read more into what I just wrote.
Just think about it for a second. If you put someone or something on top of your priority list, then you are not busy for that thing or person. But you're busy for everything else.
I guarantee that if someone came to you with the deal you wanted, you will not be busy for that person. Immediately.
I try to lead by good example and say instead that "currently, I can't see myself taking the time to do" something. It's a small change but it feels a lot more honest.
The "have time" phrase is an idiom[1]: a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words (e.g., rain cats and dogs, see the light ).
For the criticism you wrote about "have", someone else can write the same criticism about "take" in "taking the time". And the same defense can be used for that too: "take the time" is another idiom that must be interpreted as a group and shouldn't be logically parsed as separate words.
If I don’t have time for something, I don’t have the remaining hours to spend on it, given the time I’ll spend doing other things.
So no, you never just have time you're not using anyway. You're always using all of your time. On what is a matter of priorities.
However, if you would spend 19--21 watching a TV series, or twiddling your thumbs, you can choose to take that time to do something else.
(Another one of these is that I try to never use the word "empower" but explaining that one is a bit more complicated.)
When I say “they consider”, I don't propose that I know what's in people's minds. My experience is that people don't talk about their time as something they choose to allocate in a certain way. Rather, they talk about it as if it's fixed, like laws of physics.
You can very well say “I can’t afford that” or “I don’t have money enough to buy that” even if you technically have money in the bank enough to pay for something right now. Maybe you want some money as a buffer for unplanned expenses, or you’ve already agreed to but something that’s not yet paid.
Same goes for time: Yes you can choose what to do at any given moment, but the decision may already be made. You may have promised to do something - meet someone for lunch, go to work. Or you know that you need that time to sleep in order to feel well.
Surely it’s possible to change those decisions, the same way it’s possible to spend money in a restaurant instead of paying the rent. It’s not weird to speak of the decisions as final and the time already “spent”, though.
Makes it sound less offensive, no?
People who call me get served last, the fastest way to get my attention is a message or an email.
(Implicit in that I suppose: no, not a parent. Appreciate that can't work for everyone in all stages of life.)
I know that some people love to be put to work, and wouldn't have it any other way, but that's not my case. I did poorly in university, because my coursework didn't let me pursue anything that actually tickled my curiosity. I learned to love physics much later, when I could approach it at my own pace.
This loose schedule approach has worked much better for me. I get much more done in unscheduled bursts of focused work. I always have time for people and play, and I tackle tasks with a clear and focused mind.
The great thing for me at university was that no one forced me to go to the lectures. I was on a computer science course, but was more happy making games in my bedroom or writing fiction, and just skipping everthing course related.
For me, life's best served when there's no one badgering you for your attention or your time. If a friend randomly walks up to my flat and rings the buzzer, there's a good chance I'll use it as an excuse to stop work and go hang.
Even if it takes us like 5 extra years to get that deep knowledge of physics, who really cares? You get there in the end if you have the time and space to actually learn it. The modern world is so focused on optimising for time, it can really hinder some people.
I took this mentality to work and guess what, no one cared. It wasn't appreciated, it didn't get me promotions. Working hard like that only led to deteriorating health.
I'm glad I built that work ethic and that I know how to get shit done by squeezing my time. But I ain't squeezing any time to make some manager look good any more.
Sure, sometimes you really gotta be in the mindset of "I'm gonna dedicate every hour I have to getting shit done, and everything else will fit around that."
But it's not sustainable for most people, and it fucking sucks. So don't do it for no reason.
Some will say just learn to enjoy other things - that's also great if you can. But, if you have a hard time turning off, just try and make sure you are rewarded for the effort.
By any standards of then or today he had plenty to do being as he was a Roman Emperor during the time of a massive pandemic[2].
[1] Book 4, XX [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonine_Plague
Meditations is inspiring. Maybe it's preachy or overwrought, but I see it as someone who used his incredible vantage point to cultivate wisdom and goodness. There's a lot of compassionate, even-handed observation in it.
I believe that being busy is often a case of not having priorities set right. Usually I have a list of 4 or 5 work related items per week that are high priority. Everything else can wait. Next, my private life (kids, partner, working out, eating well) has higher priority than work. If my private life is not in order, I first fix that before doing anything for work. Most who say "I'm (too) busy" have too many things to do in too few time, and would be better off (re-)prioritizing what is actually important and what could wait.
So true, this resonated deeply with me. Being busy is also a safe/acceptable/normal response that can hide or shield us from fear. Am I too nervous or self conscious or fear rejection? I have no need to fear any of that if I'm never around anyone else, and it's perfectly acceptable to be "busy" and reject social gatherings because being productive == good.
I noticed this underlying fear in someone else and I tried my best to help them and to accept the person they were, but they remained closed off. Someone will only make the change when they are ready to do so and you can't force it even if it's of good intentions.
It also gives you more clout and a stable, high paying profession at the end.
I don't think it's a surprise that many of the people I know from my prestigious high school and semi-prestigious college are going to medical school.
Many other fields are also hard to succeed in, but it seems like just putting in the hours is the worst possible way to go about it at a certain point, because thinking about what you’re trying to accomplish is a much more useful exercise.
But I also manage to make time for people. I'm highly available. I participate in a mutual support organization, where we "mentor" others, and that often takes a good bit of time. These folks know that they can call me at almost any time (when I'm awake), and I'll give them as much time as they need from me.
People are important.
There are outliers of those exceptional people who are constantly busy and get a ton done, but I'd wager a good 80% of people who are "busy" by this definition are not aware that they are getting little to nothing done nor are they in control of their lives.
I believe "not being busy" is a superpower. Serendipity gives you unique and fortunate opportunities that you'd never get from constantly being busy. There's a beautiful power of wandering. Most of what we think we have to do, we don’t have to do at all. It’s a choice, and often it’s a poor one.
Wait wtf? I’m busy because I have shit to do.
"It's not the same being busy and being productive" Some people are trying to show productivity by being busy and that sometimes shows.
But sure, Americans are very work-driven, and some small percentage will float to the top.
But are they better at life generally? They have higher divorce rates than Europe,a higher suicide rate than (western) Europe, take fewer holidays, are less travelled, care less about the environment, and so on.
Sure, I get that business and entrepreneurship are focused around the accumulation of money, but I would suggest that is only half the equation. What really matters is how you _spend_ your money (and time), not how much of it you accumulate.
Put another way - do you think, speaking generally of course, covering the population as a whole, America is _happier_ for being so focused on money?
The person that got the best grades in my bachelor's, she studied so hard to achieve this, but this only lasted for 2 years she ended up burning out. Her mental health completely deteriorated and she basically gave up, it took a whole year of recovery for her to come back and finish the degree.
Now, on a people scale, it might take a couple of years... on a societal level it might take decades. But personally I think a society that treats people that way might end up encountering problems in the future. And I would say, being good at business is most of the time, being able to sustain a healthy economy for a very long time. Every empire falls and it's not really a question of if, it's a question of when.
For example, what kind of impact on productivity do conveniences like instant coffee, drive thru restaurants, and microwavable meals have? I don't think it's unreasonable to think that we will develop more of these conveniences in the future, making extremely hard work even more sustainable over time.
But as others have said, all this takes energy. I've noticed that even though doing these "mindless, useless" tasks can be annoying, and a total drag to think about, after I went and done them I tend to feel much fresher when getting back to work.
Maybe the issue is that there's a limit to the length of time we can spend focusing on only one thing.
It’s a weird exceptionalism which celebrates excessive work and all the impact that has on people, and vicariously relate to the rare successes as if they’re your own. Most people won’t ever be a billionaire, and even those who will won’t always be happy with their life. One of the few things almost every person has, as almost equal currency, is time. Almost all of us spend most of it doing work for some external purpose and get to enjoy little of it ourselves. I’m not sure how much joy people get from being successful at business or entrepreneurship, but as a value judgment I’d say that people who live their lives satisfied and healthy without such achievements are probably treating themselves better than if they were chasing an improbable windfall.
As for which culture is “better”, I don’t have to comment on which is happier and more satisfied. That much is knowable.
Starting a successful business, offering an exceptional service or product to customers, seeing your employees fulfilled and happy -- those tend to tick a lot of boxes for people in terms of happiness, meaning, and sanctification.
Most successful people know it's that "offering an exceptional service or product" bit that makes you wealthy. Starting a business to be rich as an ends in itself rarely works out.
The claim is that it allocates it more efficiently, which is perhaps true, but it's a second-order effect.
If I am helping people -- be that for money, or for example, my family -- I get meaning and fulfilment out of it. In those sorts of jobs, I can work 60+ hour weeks and not burn out. I'm in a job I find meaningful right now. It pays half of what I'd make as a SWE optimizing ad clicks, but I'm happy.
I don't work 60-hour weeks right now because of family, but I have worked insane work weeks before, and I probably will again at some point.
Also probably why the USA doesn't typically rank in the top 10 countries by quality of life metrics.
But other than money, is the US really better at, well, anything? If you are in the US, and you don't have money - what do you have?
Now sure, I'm making a broad statement, but I'd argue that outside of "we have more money" there's not a whole lot of America that's appealing.
I'll shorten the obligatory "if we are so bad, why does everyone want to come here" question by pointing out;
Not everyone does. But the US has some poor neighbors, so it can seem that way. And;
There is always some group of people who see money as the prime motivator, and hence the US the prime destination.
I say this not to pick on the US, or say its a terrible place. But to encourage some objective introspection. I suspect that the perception that "America is the best country on earth" is the primary stumbling block that prevents America from being anywhere close to the best country on earth.
Are you saying that busyness also causes obesity?
Too busy to properly prepare food, leads to convenient food, which is seldom a good choice from a weight point of view.
Too busy to take time to walk somewhere, drive-through everything sparing you even the smallest amount of physical effort - not ideal...
Too busy to go to the gym during the normal day (hence admiration for the early riser who's at the gym at 4am,so they can do a workout before hitting the office at 6).
Too busy to have mental downtime, peace, reflection, solitude. Leads to mental-health issues, which has a high correlation with inactivity and hence obesity.
So yes, I'd suggest that "being busy" is a mindset that prioritises "productivity" and not things like wellness, or good eating. So tangentially, yes, I'd argue busyness leads to obesity via some indirection.
Not to mention taking the time to cook & eat your own meals without doing something else at the same time, which usually results in healthier choices and more satiety (if you eat slower/less calorie-dense foods).
I think this shows that people can be both wrapped up in their own drama and scrutinize everyone else's behavior.
Eek!
I agree that most of us can do at most a few hours of intellectually demanding work every day. But to win those few hours of freedom, to gather the preconditions of doing work, to maintain the social organizations necessary for collaboration, and to make the results presentable, can easily eat up a whole day year after year.