Getting Things Done

How Do You Give Up Being Busy?

PETERMBALL Adventures in Lifestyle Hacking ,

If you asked me how I’m doing for the last six months, there’s pretty good odds I told you I was either busy, really busy, or completely fucking manic depending on how well we know each other. It’s the default answer to the question for me and a lot of other people in my office (and, lets be honest, worldwide).

Thing is, I don’t really want to be busy. I want to be getting a lot of shit done, which means I’m okay with loading up on a whole heap of projects, but I dislike the idea of busy being my default state.

So I’ve decided to stop using it, particularly in light of this post from 99u, which points out the inherent problem in talking about the amount of stuff you’ve got on:

Saying, “Busy!” has become the automatic non-answer when somebody asks, “How are you?” It immediately shuts down an interaction and any opportunity for constructive conversation is dashed upon the rocks of ineloquence.

via 99u, A Conversation About Being Busy is Barely a Conversation at All

And lest I seem particularly virtuous in this instance, let me be completely honest: I expect I’ll have an easier time giving up breathing than I will giving up this particular crutch.

But I’m working on it.

My Problem With Busy

I’m travelling a lot this year, I’ve got a stack of major projects at QWC, a workshop to teach every couple of weeks, and a stack of writing projects on top of that. Add in some regular gaming, blogging, and the odd spot of leisure time, and the hours get eaten up pretty quickly.

And none of that is about to change.

Busy implies that this level of motion in my to-do list isn’t the status quo. Human beings are naturally busy people – we’re designed to be in motion, to be doing stuff, to achieve things. Even when I was in the depths of slackerdom, there was still that ambition there. I just aimed it at getting a new top score on Super Mario rather than trying to hit things out of the park at my job.

What I’m really saying when I tell people I’m busy is…well, probably please pity me. Like most people who grew up male, introverted and nerdy, seeking sympathy or pity has always been easier than presenting myself as a likable human being. I’ve tried to get a better handle on it now that I’m an adult, but the impulse is always there, seductive and easy.

Busy is a cheap way of asking for validation. People empathise, ’cause we’ve all been busy, and thus my existence on this earth justified by the simple state of being in motion. Even if, when they’re asking me how I am, I’m probably in a state of relaxation on account that I’m out, hanging with peeps who actually like me enough to inquire about my well-being.

Things are Actually Kind of Awesome Right Now, Thank you

I’ve been thinking about being busy and why I think it’s worthy of sympathy ever since I read Busyness is Not a Virtue (linked to by 99u; apparently I haven’t been so busy that I can’t follow link chains down the rabbit hole). I’m not as hardline as the author of that piece – I think there are times when the pressure valve of busy can be useful – but I can see their point.

And it occurs to me that I shouldn’t be busy in the sympathy seeking sense. All that shit I’ve got on? It’s actually kind of awesome. I’ve got a completely fucking kick-ass day job where I get to talk about writing and get paid for it. When I’m not doing that, I get to make shit up and have people give me money for it. When I’m doing that, I’m getting paid to travel around the place and catch up with some pretty awesome folks (or, at least, claiming such trips on tax)

And when I’m not working, I get to hang out with my friends and do stuff that makes me pretty goddamn happy.

All in all, my life is pretty good. People should fucking hit me for expecting their fucking pity.

But they don’t. Instead, they’re sympathetic, or they offer up their own tales of manic-fucking-craziness that’ll match my own, and we’ll commiserate over a cup of coffee and agree that being busy kind of sucks.

Here’s the problem with that:

When I Tell You I’m Busy, I’m Actually Lying

For me, I think I’m busy is really an attempt to say I’m not really in control right now. It’s an acknowledgement that I’m in motion, but not sure where I’m going and I’m unable to figure out what should be a priority. Or, worse, that I’ve stalled and I’m not sure how to start again, ’cause everything seems like it should be done right now.

I’m busy is a sign that I should buckle up and deal with things, figuring out what I need to do in order to regain control of my job, my writing, or my life. But so long as I say I’m busy and people offer me pity, it’s like I have tacit permission to continue along in my disorganised state.

As a survival tactic in my manic, fifty-fifty working life, that’s probably not the best option. And given the choice between being someone who flails at my problems, bumbling along as best I can, and being someone who is known for getting shit done, well, it should be a no-brainer, right?

So Here’s the Challenge

I know I want to stop being busy, but it’s one of those habits that’s heavily ingrained as a response.

The challenge in giving up I’m busy is figuring out what should replace it. This is relatively easy at work – putting things in terms of organisation priorities makes sense there – but in casual conversation it’s a little harder. Leaving busy behind means finding an alternative to take it’s place, and I’m not sure what that should be.

My brain still freezes when someone asks how things are going, locking up as it searches for an option that explains things, because I’m generally doing a good deal of incongruous stuff that isn’t easy to summarise. One doesn’t want to dominate conversation by rabbiting on about current projects, after all, especially if all people are hoping for is a police, socially mandated response to their inquiry as to how I’ve been.

So I’m looking for an alternative I can train myself into using. My instinct is to look for a way that emphasizes the awesome – a “great! We just launched our new website at work” kind of thing – but I’m wary of sounding like a pompous dick when I embrace that approach, even if it’s probably better for me, psychologically speaking, to focus on the stuff that’s been getting done.

So I turn to you, oh internet; what kind of responses would you like to see as a replacement for busy? What are the responses people have given to that question that make you glad you asked?

Joe Hill’s Secret to Achieving Creative Focus

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One of the things that makes the great truly great is their ability to make difficult things seem effortless, at least when they’re looked upon from the outside. It’s one of the reasons I’m intrigued by seeing the process of great writers up close, even if I’m long past the stage where I believe there’s some mysterious secret to writing that will unlock everything.

In this respect, Joe Hill’s tumblr post on creative math achieves greatness twice over. It makes his writing itself seem effortless, while simultaneously acknowledging the effort that goes into his work, and its a distillation of a great deal of complex thought and experience into a single elegant point:

what’s my trick for staying focused on a project? Happiness. I follow pleasure. It makes me feel good to stay focused on one thing at a time, to pour myself fully into it, so that’s what I do. I think any creative act usually grows naturally from enjoyment. Experiment with your approach and see what gives you the best high… then do that.

via Creative math: 1 > 2 at Joe Hill’s Thrills

When you consider the overall complexity of Hill’s creative output – he’s a novelist, a comic-book writer, and a damn fine short fiction writer – this advice seems wildly counter-intuitive. Monthly comic books have deadlines that roll through faster than novel deadlines, which means you naturally end up having to stop one and work on the other.

Judging by the rest of his post, Hill’s secret doesn’t seem to be working on something until it’s done, but creating hard edges to the times he devotes to a project. When he does a chunk of novel, he looks for a natural stopping point and allows it to lie fallow until he’s ready to pick it up again. 

Given some of my recent reading into the power of incubating creative work, this too seems like solid advice for creative-types with multiple projects running.

500 words

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So it appears that I finished a story draft this week. It’s not a good story, not yet, but it started the week with a 200 word opening and by Wednesday night I declared the draft zero complete around 2,500 words. It will need some rewriting – that’s what this weekend is for – and it’ll need some fleshing out in order to make the story bits actually resemble a story, but it’s a draft and it’s finished and it’s broken a somewhat long drought. Many droughts, actually, in that I have a) finished a story draft, b) that’s shorter than 7,000 words, and c) actually started the next story more-or-less right away.

The pattern I’m aiming for is 500 words a day, every day, and a finished story every two weeks. My instinct is to scoff at that pace, to write it off as easy to accomplish, because my instincts were forged in the days when I taught session classes at university and worked about ten hours a week. It’s easy to be a writer when you’ve got that much free time to waste. These days I find myself looking back and wondering why the fuck I didn’t do more with the opportunity.

Aiming for 500 words a day suits my life right now, even if my daily average tends to hover somewhat higher. Most I can get this done by getting up a half hour earlier, doing a short sprint before heading to work, and catching an early enough train that I can get  another short sprint done before work actually starts. That gets my 500 down early, and anything I do in the evenings is gravy.

So far, it’s working.

Experience says the first week is the easiest, though, and it’s the next two stories that’ll be harder to produce. The whole thing may fall apart in two or three weeks, in which case I start looking for another alternative to work with.