Today is July 7 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How often do you find yourself saying the phrase ‘I am too busy?’”
All too often people obsess over how busy they are without any sense of accomplishment.
Some people stay busy to keep themselves happy. Still others stay busy in order to brag about how busy they are.
Researchers have recently examined “idleness aversion and the need for justifiable busyness.”
One such researcher, Christopher K. Hsee, of the University of Chicago, believes that "People are running around, working hard, way beyond the basic level because they have excessive energy and want to avoid idleness." Some people are busy just for the sake of being busy. These people are not grinding it out nor are they working towards a specific goal or translating theory into action. They are merely justifying how busy they are.
Successful people who navigate the chaos often remind themselves to avoid the busyness trap.
As Tim Kreider wrote in a New York Times editorial "people who have self-imposed a label of ‘always busy’ on themselves do so out of their addiction to busyness itself and dread what they might have to face in its absence.”
Inventor Thomas A. Edison noted “Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.” How often do you find yourself being busy yet unproductive?