BUSYNESS – Are our lives busier today or do we enhance our status by looking busy?

What do you think when you see an older man sitting at a coffee shop alone reading his paper or viewing his phone on a weekday? Do you think, isn’t he lucky, or the poor man has nothing else to do. Or don’t you notice him at all because he is not worth noticing or because you’re too busy rushing past? How differently we would view a similar scenario a century ago. Work, not leisure is now a symbol of social status. This is a marked change from a bygone era when the ability be a “man of leisure” represented a “man of means”. It is now socially enhancing to be busy even if many of us complain. Have you considered why people say when asked, “how was your weekend?” Eight out of ten people, according to social research, say “busy”? What would you think if you asked someone how their weekend was and they said, “I didn’t know what to do with myself except read a book” or “as a family we did nothing much”. Of course, most people wouldn’t say that even if it were true, knowing the uncomfortable pause and judgement that would follow.

If you’re not busy, what’s wrong with you or your life? After all, being busy demonstrates to others you are worthwhile and not irrelevant a key component of modern social status.

There is no doubt that working hard is seen as morally admirable irrespective of what the work is. • One recognised social psychology theory suggests that the harder people work to achieve something the more they value it. This is known as “effort justification” and this tendency arises even when a task is meaningless. The research also reveals that we don’t like to be idle or sit with our thoughts. • Timothy Wilson conducted a famous psychology experiment where 67% of men and 25% of women chose to press a button to electrically shock themselves rather than sitting still with their thoughts. This was with the added deterrent that they would be paid money to avoid an electric shock. My friend’s mother summed this up brilliantly when she said: “happiness is being too busy to be otherwise”. It could also be called the great distraction, actively using busyness not to do the things we don’t want to do or think about. It could also be a contributing factor towards our Anorexia-of-intimacy/ However, whether it is socially acceptable, morally admirable or people don’t want to be idle for reasons of their own, many people feel that they never have enough time. • An analysis of a Gallup poll found that that Americans saying they “never had enough time” rose from 70% to 80% from 2011 to 2018. • In 2020 the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicated that 1:4 women and 1:3 men feel they are always, or often rushed for time. The group with children understandably had higher overall averages. What is interesting is that in reality we are not working longer hours and the work culture in many companies, irrespective of the hype, has changed since the 1987 Wall Street film where Gordon Gekko famously said, “lunch is for wimps.” The research shows us that: • Employees are working 20 to 30 hours less every week compared to the 19th century. • Since 1980, the average working hours of Australians have declined by 13% as in many other countries including America by 5%. • With modern appliances and lifestyles, we spend less than an hour a day on chores. • Despite the cost-of-living, many people budget for holidays as it is an expectation of modern life. Recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed more than 11 million outbound trips were taken in the year to June, a 32 per cent increase on the previous year. There is no doubt companies have put more work back onto the customer, like pumping our own petrol and packing our own groceries, also known as “shadow work.” We are balancing more things in life however how much “busyness” is self-imposed or in some cases a myth created to meet our modern social and psychological needs? • According to research, on average, people spend almost 2.5 hours a day scrolling through different social media platforms. • Screen time for children is dominated by TikTok as early as 10 years of age. Children from 10 to 15 spend an average of two hours a day on this platform. • As of June 2024, the average Netflix user spends 3.2 hours per day streaming content on Netflix. That means an average of 13% of their entire day. This platform alone has approximately 280 million paid subscribers. For many of my Executive Coaching clients, their greatest concern is how busy they are, and the stress that incurs. Yet when we sit down and analyse what they are doing and why it can often provoke follow up conversations. I am not suggesting that people are not justifiably busy when managing modern life. Many people enjoy the hum of busyness and alternatively the joy of solitude. Data does not provide all the facts or a full perspective. I am simply challenging how much of our “busyness” is self-imposed, or in some cases a myth created to meet our modern social and psychological needs? Having a deeper understanding of those drivers may lead us to make different choices in our lives. Food for thought.