The Busy Trap, or Good Busy vs Bad Busy

I often hear people saying how busy they are and it's often said with a hint of pride. I used to make mistake of believing busy-ness as being the same as being productive, but I've learned it's different with creative work.

The writer Tim Kreider put it well, "busy-ness is a middle management, middle class activity. Poor people with two jobs or nurses in a ICU dept aren't 'busy'. They're tired. It's become a default and it's a boast diguised as a complaint."

With creativity I've learned it's important to have a routine and to work regularly and sustainably. One needs to be busy but not too busy: "The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours" ​— Amos Tversky​.

However, not being busy enough presents it's own challenges and as the American philosopher Will Durant said, “Health lies in action, and so it graces youth. To be busy is the secret of grace, and half the secret of content. Let us ask the gods not for possessions, but for things to do; happiness is in making things rather than in consuming them.”

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