The 'Busy' Trap - NYTimes.com
The 'Busy' Trap - NYTimes.com
Every once in a while, someone will post this now viral NYT article on Facebook, praising its brilliance. And then more and more people will re-post it, and then quote it on Twitter, and then make sweet graphic design images from those quotes for Pinterest.
And each time, it will feel like someone is poking me in the arm. "See? See? You're glorifying the busy. You're choosing to be so busy. This is all stuff that you CHOSE for yourself."
And I get it. I really do. We all know that person who just looooooves to talk about how busy they are. "Oh, I'm SOOO busy. I'm just CRAZY busy! I can't, I'm WAAAAY too busy!" And we'll hear them go on and on and we'll nod smugly to ourselves and then repost the above article on our Facebook wall as a passive-aggressive response to their Busy Brag.
Let's hashtag that for future reference: #busybrag
And I love this article - the writer is funny and relatable and spot-on - but today I re-read it and I thought, "But what if you HAVE to be busy*? What if you've started a bunch of projects and you know that you've locked yourself into the busy trap but if you drop one of those things, it means you don't make rent next month? What if...what if...being busy is a necessity? At least for now?"
Because for writers and entrepreneurs, sometimes we gotta be busy and stay busy. We gotta be productive, we gotta be swamped with stuff, because the reality of our lives is that the smartest thing to do is balance five plates at once so that if one falls, you've still got four other ones in the air...and if you work hard enough and are savvy enough, one of those plates will grow into a big ol' serving platter, and then you can stop juggling so much.
Also, who are the writers out there who get to write for four or five hours a day and then they're done? Because I would like to meet them, so that I can then steal their identities and have their lives.
To be both clear and fair: I'm not complaining about my life. I am totally and fully aware that I chose to do every single goddamn thing on my To-Do List (mostly. Sometimes it comes down to the fact that I chose to have clients who then put things on my To-Do List, whether I want them there or not). I also chose a lifestyle where I'm totally and completely dependent on myself when it comes to making a living.
Which means that sometimes? I am really fucking busy.
Not "Hey guys, I'm sooo busy, I wish you could understand how high-paced and glamorous and in-demand I am!" busy. The "holy fucking shit, am I even going to get to sleep tonight?" busy.
No glory included.
But you know why? Because I know, deep down, that if I can keep up...if I can keep working hard...if I can keep my schedule filled with projects and clients who keep me busy...then sooner rather than later I'll get to a position in my life where I can smugly post about how we chose all the things on our plates and that we need to stop the glorification of busy.
And that will be awesome. And then I will also make sure to post a lot about how leisurely and glamorous and easy my life is now that I'm not busy anymore.
*I know that some defend that there's a difference between busy and productive, but I doubt that the majority of people out there who say they're "busy" are just standing around, shuffling stacks of papers over and over. So. For the interest of this post, "busy" and "productive" mean the same thing.
Every once in a while, someone will post this now viral NYT article on Facebook, praising its brilliance. And then more and more people will re-post it, and then quote it on Twitter, and then make sweet graphic design images from those quotes for Pinterest.
And each time, it will feel like someone is poking me in the arm. "See? See? You're glorifying the busy. You're choosing to be so busy. This is all stuff that you CHOSE for yourself."
And I get it. I really do. We all know that person who just looooooves to talk about how busy they are. "Oh, I'm SOOO busy. I'm just CRAZY busy! I can't, I'm WAAAAY too busy!" And we'll hear them go on and on and we'll nod smugly to ourselves and then repost the above article on our Facebook wall as a passive-aggressive response to their Busy Brag.
Let's hashtag that for future reference: #busybrag
And I love this article - the writer is funny and relatable and spot-on - but today I re-read it and I thought, "But what if you HAVE to be busy*? What if you've started a bunch of projects and you know that you've locked yourself into the busy trap but if you drop one of those things, it means you don't make rent next month? What if...what if...being busy is a necessity? At least for now?"
Because for writers and entrepreneurs, sometimes we gotta be busy and stay busy. We gotta be productive, we gotta be swamped with stuff, because the reality of our lives is that the smartest thing to do is balance five plates at once so that if one falls, you've still got four other ones in the air...and if you work hard enough and are savvy enough, one of those plates will grow into a big ol' serving platter, and then you can stop juggling so much.
Also, who are the writers out there who get to write for four or five hours a day and then they're done? Because I would like to meet them, so that I can then steal their identities and have their lives.
To be both clear and fair: I'm not complaining about my life. I am totally and fully aware that I chose to do every single goddamn thing on my To-Do List (mostly. Sometimes it comes down to the fact that I chose to have clients who then put things on my To-Do List, whether I want them there or not). I also chose a lifestyle where I'm totally and completely dependent on myself when it comes to making a living.
Which means that sometimes? I am really fucking busy.
Not "Hey guys, I'm sooo busy, I wish you could understand how high-paced and glamorous and in-demand I am!" busy. The "holy fucking shit, am I even going to get to sleep tonight?" busy.
No glory included.
But you know why? Because I know, deep down, that if I can keep up...if I can keep working hard...if I can keep my schedule filled with projects and clients who keep me busy...then sooner rather than later I'll get to a position in my life where I can smugly post about how we chose all the things on our plates and that we need to stop the glorification of busy.
And that will be awesome. And then I will also make sure to post a lot about how leisurely and glamorous and easy my life is now that I'm not busy anymore.
*I know that some defend that there's a difference between busy and productive, but I doubt that the majority of people out there who say they're "busy" are just standing around, shuffling stacks of papers over and over. So. For the interest of this post, "busy" and "productive" mean the same thing.
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