Why Kicking the Busyness Habit Is Good for Everyone

Chris    Self Help     busyness

by Dr Kathryn Owler

Did you know that busyness is a recent phenomenon? Studies have shown that the more affluent a society gets, the `busier’ people feel. In New Zealand busyness has become a habit. As Christmas approaches just watch the busy frenzy get into full swing! According to research evidence however, busyness is one habit that could be well worth kicking for everyone’s sake!

As New Zealander’s we carry busyness as a badge of honor. We assume that if we are busy we must have a lot of important things to do. However, some experts argue that busyness is a state of mind rather than merely an activity. They argue that we are so busy being busy, that we may have lost sight of what is important to us. It is interesting that in Russia, the word for busyness is the same as for the word `vanity’. Far from signaling productivity, it implies and empty, unproductive spending of time, `something like walking on a treadmill’ (Greenfeld 2005).

So why are New Zealanders all so busy being busy? Some people argue that busyness results from all the options that we have in developed countries. In countries like New Zealand most of us have an incredible range of choices including how to fill our days, what job or career to pursue, what foods to buy, what car to drive and what sort of person to be and so on. We can end up spending so much time and energy negotiating these choices that we get caught up in `doing, doing, doing’.

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