Staying Busy? No, Thanks.

Sometimes it seems like people are just way too busy. I tried to go to several different places yesterday, but both times I ended up turning around because of the amount of traffic on the road. At first, I tried to go west. Then I thought of somewhere else I could go, transferred to a different road, and started going south. It was a beautiful day, so apparently there were a lot of other people who wanted to get out of the house, too. Metropolitan D.C. was crowded in all directions, from major arteries to secondary roads, and as soon as I hit traffic I immediately wanted to be somewhere other than where I was (preferably at my destination, but that just wasn't happening). I didn't have the patience to join in.

Some people thrive on staying busy; always having somewhere to go, something to do. Some people become doctors or lawyers and work double the amount of hours that I do in a week. This is why I didn't choose that kind of profession. It's the same reason why one of my friends went all the way through law school, and passed the bar exam, but has no interest in practicing law. We consider our free time to be more valuable than the extra money we could be making.

One way I do like staying busy is having something to occupy myself with if I'm just sitting around. If I'm at home alone and you give me a choice between being on the computer and watching TV, I'll choose the computer. If you asked me right now what my favorite television show is, I wouldn't be able to tell you, because I don't have a favorite. I do own a television, and I have cable, but there isn't a particular show that I seek out on a regular basis.

I like having downtime. When I get home from work, I don't like having a thousand things to do, and I like living in a small space that doesn't take a long time to clean up.

Ashley always enjoyed being busy until she realized how nice it was to relax.

I have always been someone on the go. Always involved in a million things at any given time - it started in middle school, this drive to be busy. It continued in high school, the desire to always be (or appear) ultra motivated grew stronger. I was active, busy, out all of the time, swamped with schoolwork for the hardest classes I could take. By the time graduation rolled around, I was fourteen steps ahead, already planning college, graduate school, medical school. [...]

I always did more than I necessarily wanted to...but as I got older, my down time became invaluable. It was almost like a switch had flipped - the crazy, overachiever who constantly wanted to be surrounded by people and doing everything she possibly could to be loved and appreciated for her hard work suddenly became the girl who just wanted some peace and quiet. [...]

Maybe it's the whole "getting older" mindset - which may seem strange at 22 to be experiencing. But for whatever reason, I crave the quiet moments. The moments in between the craziness. The peace, the downtime, the relaxing. The not-feeling-guilty-about-sitting-on-the-couch-and-doing-nothing on a Sunday afternoon. I am over the run around.

Elysa focuses more on juggling than trying to achieve balance:

I have been doing a lot of thinking and discussing our generation’s desire for a work/life balance. I am on a constant search for the right balance of business and personal life. In this moment I have decided maybe it isn’t balance we should be working to achieve. I think we need to work on our juggling skills.

At any given time I am juggling: my career, spending quality time with my fiancé, keeping up with my friends from college, spending time with my family, building my freelance business, a continual search of knowledge, learning to cook, budgeting, having fun time, blogging, and wedding planning.

Melissa, a personal life coach, was asked for advice on making a physical environment more nurturing and motivating. Her recommendation was to eliminate the amount of choices you have.

At the first of the year I made a decision. TV. There were too many choices. For a while I had only the most basic cable service I could have. In December, I added more choices. Overwhelming – it ate up my time. It often left me frustrated. Surely there must be something better that what I was watching. [...] The TV no longer resides in my home. I eliminated many, many choices. As I sit writing this evening, there is soft music playing. There is no TV show calling my name. I write. I read. I have long conversations with friends – some of whom I have not seen for years. It has both motivated and nurtured me.

Related posts:
Lifehack talks about external and internal ways to improve the quality of your experiences when you find yourself too busy.

This article is geared towards young entrepreneurs, but it has good tips about dealing with the stress that comes with being busy.

Contributing editor Zandria also blogs at Keep Up With Me.