‎Zen Habits Favorites: Creating the Habit of Not Being Busy

We have a standard rationalization for not honouring our commitments, not spending quality time with our family, or for not meditating or working out. We claim to be too busy.

Though it feels true that we are busy, it is all just smoke and mirrors and is reversible. We need to develop a habit of not being busy, even while having the same amount of workload.

1. We say yes to things we find difficult to squeeze in our schedule. The key is to commit to less, and be committed to the task we say yes to.
2. We move around, fiddling with one task or the other, habitually keeping ourselves busy, because we aren’t familiar with anything but being busy. This mental habit of rushing from one thing to the next is to be clamped.
3. We don’t have a connection between the task at hand and anything meaningful, and just keep working like a zombie, due to deadlines, and commitments. We need to give meaning and devotion to the task we are doing and connect to it.
4. We work non-stop due to a fear that if we stop working we will lose our job or income. We believe we may lose our respect in society. Focusing on high-impact tasks is key here.
5. We have a tendency to procrastinate over the daunting tasks and keep ourselves busy on other tasks, avoiding the important ones that seem difficult.