The culture of busy

When did the standard response to the question of 'how are you?' change from 'I'm good' to 'I'm so busy!'? Probably around the same time that the phrase 'the hustle is real' was coined and talking about burnout became mainstream.

Being busy suddenly became a thing. It became cool to be constantly on the go. To be juggling work and businesses and projects and friends and family and kids and school and life. What even is balance anyway?

Sometime in the past 5 years we became so obsessed with doing and having it all that someone came up with the acronym FOMO. Fear of missing out. And we became so fearful of missing out that we tried to squeeze more and more things into our day, take on extra projects, start a side hustle and attend all the events other people are attending.

The truth is, everyone has the same amount of time in their day. How you choose to spend that time is entirely up to you. If that's working 24/7 on growing a startup company, or splitting your time between the office and school pick ups, or working on multiple projects across different time zones - how you choose to handle that workload is in your hands.

So while being busy is often associated negatively with burnout and overwhelm, I don't think it necessarily should be. Balance in life ebbs and flows. There are times that are busier than others, and times where life slows down. Sometimes work takes over and consumes all of our focus, and other times where family and friends and social relationships are front and centre. 

The problem with the culture of busy being cool is the expectation that you must be operating at 150% capacity and firing on all cylinders at all times. If this happens for too long, or you're not aware that your body needs some down time, that is when burn out occurs.

So check in with yourself next time you say those words 'I'm so busy'. How does that sit with you? Does it make you feel excited about all the things you have happening, or does overwhelm start to creep in? Based on your response, you can adjust accordingly. 

How do you manage being busy?

This article was originally posted on LinkedIn. Click here to see original post.