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“Being busy” has become currency
Are people truly that busy, or is it now just something you must say all the time?
The “Big Issues” Series
Yesterday I put together a deep dive on burnout, and the causes and reasonings therein. I think in a general sense, there’s definitely a lot of burnout and exhaustion globally right now (especially in US/UK/etc.), and the notion of stress and burnout must be tied in some ways to the idea of everyone being so busy, right? Makes sense. But is there a bigger picture around “busy?” Seems so. Maybe we should spend a few minutes on that.
First question: Are we truly, really that busy?
Look, to a certain extent we all love to be busy — it gives us a feeling equivalent to being high. I get it.
But you’ve all probably worked with one (or more!) guy or girl who is constantly using how busy they are as an excuse to do absolutely nothing else at all. This person does this even though no one has any clue what their output actually is. They can usually get away with it because of one of these factors:
- They are close with someone high up
- It’s a dick move to outright ask someone “Well, what are you even doing today?”
- No one knows how long anything takes in a digitally-driven economy
