For Part One of this three-part series of entries on Busyness Syndrome, click here. For Part Two, click here.
Ironically, I think the answer to BS is not less stuff. I don’t believe less is more. I don’t think we can actually have, do, and be less. Instead, I think the answer is choosing the right stuff.
A counselor of mine used to say, “Empty places long to be filled.” You’ve got 24 hours in your day today. You can’t bump that down to 23 so you won’t have as much to fill. You’re going to spend 24 hours on something. The answer isn’t doing less. It’s doing the right things. What if one of the things you chose to invest in today was something that restored you rather than drained you? What if you engaged something sheerly for its beauty and not for its utility? What if you went for a walk?
I’m not condoning laziness. I’m from the Texas Panhandle. Farm country. We believe in good old fashioned American work ethic. But we also understand fallow and Sabbath.
The problem with fallow is that it requires sacrifice. That land could produce a crop one more year. Letting land lie fallow, letting your business take a Sabbath, seems like throwing away money. And maybe it is, for the short term. But another friend of mine likes to say, “Every time you say ‘Yes’ to something, you’re saying ‘No’ to something else.” The cure for BS is identifying the best things to say “Yes” to.
The good news is that corrections can be made gradually. Our course in life is determined by millions of tiny choices we make day-by-day, hour-by-hour.
Is your schedule full of BS? Do you have trouble getting out of the right column on the busyness chart? What is one choice you can make this week to throw off the tyranny of the urgent (say “No” to something unimportant) and give yourself to what’s important?
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