The Right Kind of Busy

Over the last few years, I’ve actively tried to remove the word “busy” from my vocabulary.

I dislike that “busy” is often the first thing someone says when you ask, “How are you,” or “How are things going?”. As the go-to descriptor of our daily lives, there’s sometimes even an underlying feeling of subtle competition for who’s busier. Everyone lists their commitments as though they are badges of suffering, each one an indicator of their value in the world.

For me, being busy has always had a negative connotation. Like hustle, where your time, energy, and attention are not your own, being busy implies that the responsibilities of life have commandeered these things. How is it that a word that means “having a great deal to do” (Oxford Languages) is the primary way so many people characterize their lives? 

The worst part is that it’s accurate! We all have a great deal to do, but having a great deal to do seems like such a desolate way to describe our existence. 

Recently, my perspective on what it means to be busy shifted after reading an article by the talented Anne Helen Petersen titled, ​​How I've Changed My Thinking About Burnout. (Petersen’s newsletter, Culture Study, is one of my favourites)

What’s the wrong kind of busy?

Petersen’s article reminded me that being busy isn’t inherently bad. It’s that usually the type of busy people tend to describe is one full of what author Marilynne Robinson called joyless urgency. It’s the endless quest to do more, get more, and be more, but never feel like it’s enough. It’s spending each day working through infinite to-do lists while putting off what matter to us to a nebulous later… that doesn’t necessarily come. 

I don’t know about you, but this seems like the wrong kind of busy. 

While there will always be the routine tasks and responsibilities of life, there is a lack of joy and connection (to ourselves and others) when the primary goal is to get through a to-do list.

How, then, do we get stuck in the wrong kind of busy? These are four areas that came up as I considered it:

Busy as a status symbol

Being busy as a status symbol comes up when you feel you need to “keep up with the Joneses.” It’s when you overload your life in an effort to show just how important and “in demand” you are. In many cases, it’s a kind of busy that comes from the pressure to do everything your peers are doing, even if those things aren’t necessarily what you want. 

Busy because you like to feel needed

Being busy because you like to feel needed happens when you say yes to everything, even when you don’t have space or don’t want to, because you feel valued when you do things for others. It’s when you put your needs and wants last in favour of others, regardless of its impact on you. It’s often a road to resentment.

Busy because of fear motivators

Being busy because of fear motivators is when you’re worried about the consequences of saying no to something. It primarily comes up in people pleasers who are afraid to say no to things because they want to be liked. Other fear motivators are: 

• Fear of missing out on money. You accept work, even when you don’t have the capacity to do it.
• Fear of missing out on an experience or connection. You attend something not because you want to be there but because you are afraid of missing out on a random connection that will result in a future opportunity.
• Fear of conflict. You don’t say no to things because you don’t want to upset anyone.
• Fear of judgement. You are afraid of being considered lazy or unmotivated, so you take on more than you can handle.

Busy because of reactivity

Being busy because of reactivity is a self-fulfilling cycle of jumping from fire to fire…to fire. You never get to the things you want to do because you shift your attention and effort to whatever fire is burning brightest instead of setting boundaries around your own priorities. The fires are often someone else’s and mean that the things that matter to you are constantly pushed back.

Then, there’s reality, and life happens

The chaos of being the wrong kind of busy is usually a combination of unclear priorities, unkept boundaries, and unrealistic expectations for what’s possible.

That said, many different things will push the pace of our lives beyond the reasonable. Even the most intentional schedule can easily slip into being the wrong kind of busy. Any number of life events will come up that we have no control over, like sudden illness or unexpected financial challenges. Some things are inherently chaotic commitments, like planning a wedding, changing jobs, or moving into a new home. There are also times of life that are particularly demanding, like the birth of a baby or raising young children, which make all the careful planning in the world go out the window.

When these things happen, all you can do is narrow your commitments as much as possible in other areas of your life to make space, ask for help, and adjust as best you can until things settle down or you can find a new rhythm. 

What’s the right kind of busy?

The right kind of busy will be different for everyone. It will change over the seasons and stages of your life, with the learnings you glean from your experiences. It will change as you get older and get to know yourself better. 

Figuring out the right kind of busy for you will take time, trial and error, and continually exploring what truly matters to you. It will come with the discovery of what it means to live a good life for you and then doing the work of prioritizing those things, even among the other demands.

I say doing the work because it requires regular reflection and active effort. It requires you to take a hard look at the choices that lead you to the wrong kind of busy and why you keep making them. Then, it requires you to start making different choices. 

You have to take the time to ask yourself:

• What do I value?
• Has it changed over time?
• Do I have the space for discovery?
• What do I need to change to make space?
• What do I want?
• Who matters to me?
• What am I interested in?
• What brings me joy?
• Who brings me joy?
• What drains my joy or makes me unhappy?
• What things did I use to do that I miss?
• What do I want to be able to say about my life and how I spend my time?
• What are the things I tell myself are essential versus those that are actually important?

When you know even the inklings of these answers, you can start the process of making space and reprioritizing. 

If you are going to be busy, be the right kind of busy

The work of figuring out the right kind of busy in your life sounds hard because it is. But it’s a million times better than being stuck in the cycles of the wrong kind of busy, spending your precious time “having a great deal to do” but missing out on joy, connection, and everything that makes up a good life.

The right kind of busy is the space between the chaos of a never-ending list of things you must do and the joyful activity of a full life doing things you want. You have to make that space, which will be a constantly moving target. Everything that pulls you into the wrong kind of busy will keep pulling, and it takes continual and concentrated effort to resist those pulls, which is sometimes impossible. 

The key is to avoid getting stuck in the wrong kind of busy. Remember, there will always be more to do, but there won’t always be more time. As best you can, prioritize what matters in your version of a good life and do the work of finding your right kind of busy. 

What does the right kind of busy look like for you in this season of your life? What are you going to do to work towards it?

Do you need help calming your chaos and finding the right kind of busy for you?