What does it mean to be “busy”?
I don’t think many people would deny that we’re living in a world that has more and more going on. Time feels like it slips away, and you can’t attend to everything you want. Everyone is super busy, all the time.
How do we respond when we’re presented with new opportunities? If it’s not something you’re interested in it generally goes along the lines of, “Sorry I can’t make that, I’m too busy”. Culturally, this has become a very acceptable answer. It can even be viewed as a marker of doing something good. “Oh, they’re always so busy, they must be doing lots of great stuff”.
How might we reframe the phrase, “I’m too busy”? Let us explore another way of approaching this answer.
Definition of busy: having a great deal to do.
For the most part, we choose what we do with our time. What activities we engage in and who we spend it with. If we choose to cram lots of things into our days, it’s easy to say we’re busy. With this logic, you could argue that being busy is a choice. Do you watch another episode of Married at First Sight, connect with friends or do some weeding in the garden? Given that time is finite, choosing certain activities comes at the expense of others. Deciding on which activity you want to partake in helps uncover how we can reframe our thinking.
It’s estimated that the average adult makes around 35,000 remotely conscious decisions a day. Everything from, what to wear, eat, hairstyle, conversations to have etc. The incredible part of our cognitive evolution is how easy it is for us to make these decisions. Our brain simplifies this process by developing value hierarchies for countless categories. Quickly think of your top three breakfasts meals. Now imagine how dull life would be if you were paralysed by completing an analysis of what you should eat for breakfast every day.
These hierarchies, developed by our experiences and genetics, help represent what you value the most. What you choose to spend most of your time on (e.g. reading fantasy novels), is a fair indicator of how much you value it. Similarly, if you spend large sums of money on your stamp collection, it’s pretty clear you value it highly. So, when an opportunity comes along that you decline, is it because you’re too busy, or because you don’t value it enough?
Don’t get me wrong, people are allowed to be busy. If you fill all the waking hours of your day, dedicated to certain priorities that make you unavailable, that’s great. Raising young children is a great example. Having only been a bystander to family and friends raising children I can only attest to what I’ve witnessed, but the sacrifice to personal interest is huge. Understandably so, parents love their kids and value them more than anything in the world (even the temptation of the latest MAFS episode).
The next time you are presented with an invitation or an opportunity to do something different, before responding, pause and reflect on how it sits within your value hierarchy.
