In today's society we have been conditioned to correlate busyness with feeling valued, successful and in demand. The danger is that before you know it, there is a new-found belief that the busier you are the more you will achieve in life.
Do you have the busyness syndrome? Perhaps you can relate to one of these:
- Your days are packed from the time you wake up until the time you go to sleep.
- You have a constant feeling of having way too much to do and too little time to do it.
- You can't just sit still and relax.
- You get agitated at the smallest thing.
- You feel inadequate as your to do list grows longer.
“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” Socrates
Keeping busy can be a strategy to avoid really living life and asking yourself some challenging questions such as:
- What is important to me?
- What do I want out of life?
- What is getting in the way of me being the person I want to be?
It can be confronting to explore the answers to these questions, but isn't it better to consciously live the life you want to live rather than wake up one day and wonder what you have been doing with yourself.
The good news is, the addiction to busyness can be overcome. Here are ten steps to help you on your way:
- Reduce or cut out major time wasters, for example watching TV, and you’ll instantly have more time to focus on the things that truly matter.
- Prioritise what is the most important to you.
- Reduce multi-tasking; be truly present in any given moment.
- Reduce the number of times you check your phone each day.
- Balance activity with rest.
- Practice effective time management.
- Work smarter, not harder.
- Do your most important work, and make your most important decisions, early in the day.
- Listen more, talk less.
- Get quality sleep each night.
