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• Being busy is better than being bored. Bored left a long time ago. Busy is always around for me. Tabitha Robin
• Busy is good because it shows you’re alive. Alison G. Bailey
• Life without absorbing occupation is hell — joy consists in forgetting life. Elbert Hubbard
• No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet very miserable. Letitia Landon
• Occupation is the necessary basis of all enjoyment. Leigh Hunt
• The busier we are, the more acutely we feel that we live. Immanuel Kant
• The busiest men have the most leisure. English Proverb
• The busy bee has no time for sorrow. William Blake
• The busy man has few idle visitors; to the boiling pot the flies come not. Benjamin Franklin
• The happiest people are those who are too busy to notice whether they are or not. William Feather
• The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have. William Hazlitt
• A bee is never as busy as it seems; it’s just that it can’t buzz any slower. Kin Hubbard
• Haste,  Slow down,  Efficiency,  Hard work,  Effort,  Effortlessness,  Productivity,  Effectiveness,  Eliminate what is unimportant

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In today’s world, we often busy ourselves immensely doing almost nothing at all

• Some folks can look so busy doing nothing that they seem indispensable. Kin Hubbard
• Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing. Lao Tzu
• The man who has nothing to do is always the busiest. French Proverb
• Stop allowing your day-to-day life to be clouded by busy nothingness. Steve Maraboli
• Life seems nothing more than a quick succession of busy nothings. From the movie Mansfield Park

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Being busy doesn’t mean you’re being productive or effective

• A lot of our ‘busyness’ is a way for us to avoid thinking about what is most important. There’s a difference between being busy and being productive. Kristen Lippincott
• Am I being productive or just active? Timothy Ferriss
• Don’t mistake activity with achievement. John Wooden
• It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy – very busy –without being very effective. Stephen Covey
• Love of bustle is not industry. Seneca
• Some are very busy and yet do nothing. English Proverb
• Technology sometimes encourages people to confuse busyness with effectiveness. Douglas B. Reeves
• The really idle man gets nowhere. The perpetually busy man does not get much further. Sir Heneage Ogilvie
• We are too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet.
• Don’t be too busy earning a living to make any money. Joe Karbo
• Productivity,  Effectiveness

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Being busy can actually be a form of mental laziness …

• Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. Timothy Ferriss
• The idlest minds are those that inhabit the busiest bodies. Bauvard
• A nation rushing hastily too and fro, busily employed in idleness. Phaedrus
• Laziness

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… because it leaves no time for thought, reflection and understanding

• A man who is very busy seldom changes his opinions. Friedrich Nietzsche
• Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. H Williams
• Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight. Thomas Carlyle
• The greatest enemy of good thinking is busyness. John C. Maxwell
• We schedule events back to back and overlapping, with no time to rest or reflect. Jack Zavada
• Reflection,  Understanding,  Thinking

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We busy ourselves far too much with little things …

• The only reason you do not do great things is because you timidly cling to small things. Will you let loose of small things and bear the uncertainty of having nothing for a while?  Do this and eventually you will do great things.  Vernon Howard
• The time spent on any matter is usually inversely proportional to its importance. C. Northcote Parkinson

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… often to avoid confronting what is truly important

• Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions. Timothy Ferriss
• Western laziness consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issues. Sogyal Rinpoche

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We lose ourselves in busyness because we think it’s expected

• We create stress for ourselves because you feel like you have to do it. You have to. I don’t feel that anymore. Oprah Winfrey

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We lose ourselves in busyness because that’s how we get our sense of identity

• We may dream of a time when we can lie down beneath the night sky and do nothing but be present in its vastness with total attention. But our dreams are too often sabotaged by the busyness generated by anxiety.  We seek evidence of our worth through what we produce, become, and surround ourselves with.  Christina Feldman
• Let us never forget that what we are is more important than what we do. James Hudson Taylor
• Transcending the ego,  Self-esteem

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We lose ourselves in busyness to avoid facing our real selves …

• Perhaps the deepest reason why we are afraid of death is because we do not know who we are. We believe in a personal, unique, and separate identity — but if we dare to examine it, we find that this identity depends entirely on an endless collection of things to prop it up: our name, our “biography,” our partners, family, home, job, friends, credit cards… It is on their fragile and transient support that we rely for our security. So when they are all taken away, will we have any idea of who we really are? Without our familiar props, we are faced with just ourselves, a person we do not know, an unnerving stranger with whom we have been living all the time but we never really wanted to meet. Isn’t that why we have tried to fill every moment of time with noise and activity, however boring or trivial, to ensure that we are never left in silence with this stranger on our own? Sogyal Rinpoche
• Awaken to who you really are

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… and the pain inside

• Much of our activity these days is nothing more than a cheap anesthetic to deaden the pain of an empty life.
• The busy bee has no time for sorrow. William Blake
• Pain

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We lose ourselves in busyness because we don’t have clearly defined goals

• In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately, we become enslaved by it. Robert Heinlein
• Goal setting

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Constant busyness leads to physical and spiritual exhaustion …

• Somewhere in the late 20th century we got the idea that busyness is a virtue. We decided that the more activities we can squeeze into our lives, the happier we’ll be.  What ultimately results, though, is physical and spiritual exhaustion.  We jump from one appointment to another, our body and mind racing.  We schedule events back to back and overlapping, with no time to rest or reflect.  And when we’re in one activity, we’re either distracted with the thing we’ve just done or the thing that’s coming up.  It’s not a good way to live. Jack Zavada
• Tiredness and fatigue

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… and greatly impoverishes the spirit

• If work and leisure are soon to be subordinated to this one utopian principle – absolute busyness – then utopia and melancholy will come to coincide: an age without conflict will dawn, perpetually busy – and without consciousness. Gunther Grass
• It is not God who is too busy to hear us, it is we who are too busy to hear God. Jennifer Megan Varnadore
• Poverty

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Constant busyness blocks your connection to yourself and others

• When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another- and ourselves. Jack Kornfield
• Connection

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Constant busyness stops your true song from being sung

• Rabindranath Tagore writes that the song he wanted to sing has never happened because he spent his days “stringing and unstringing” his instrument. Whenever I read these lines a certain sadness enters my soul.  I get so preoccupied with the details and pressure of my schedule, with the hurry and worry of life, that I miss the song of goodness which is waiting to be sung through me.  Joyce Rupp
• They who are too busy doing good find no time to be good. Rabindranath Tagore
• Life is a song

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At the end of the day, constant busyness can lead to a barren life;  a life of never having really lived

• Beware the barrenness of a busy life. Socrates
• A few years ago, on a liner bound for Europe, I was browsing in the library when I came across a puzzling line by Robert Louis Stevenson: “Extreme busyness, whether at school, kirk, or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality.”  Surely, I thought, “deficient” is a mistake– he must have meant “abundant.”  But R.L.S. went merrily on, “It is no good speaking to such folk:  they cannot be idle, their nature is not generous enough. Was it possible that a bustling display of energy might only be a camouflage for a spiritual vacuum?  The thought so impressed me that I mentioned it next day to the French purser, at whose table I was sitting.  He nodded his agreement.  “Stevenson is right,” he said.  “Indeed, if you will pardon my saying so, the idea applies particularly to you Americans.  A lot of your countrymen keep so busy getting things done that they reach the end of their lives without ever having lived at all.  Arthur Gordon
• Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity. Robert Louis Stevenson
• Life seems nothing more than a quick succession of busy nothings. From the movie Mansfield Park
• The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. Henry David Thoreau
• There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living. Lucius Annaeus Seneca
• Meaning,  Purpose

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You know you’re too busy when if you recognise one of these conditions…

• If you are too busy to develop your talents, you are too busy. Julia Cameron
• If you are too busy to laugh, you are too busy. Proverb
• If you’re too busy to enjoy life, you’re too busy. Jeff Davidson
• When you are too busy for friends, you are too busy.

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Ask yourself not how busy you are, but why you are busy

• It’s not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about? Henry David Thoreau
• It’s not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised. The mosquito is swatted. Mary O’Connor
• The essential question is not, “How busy are you?’ but ‘What are you busy at?’ ‘Are you doing what fulfils you? Oprah Winfrey

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If you are obsessively busy all the time, ask yourself why and reflect deeply

• The trend among most people under the age of sixty is toward compulsive action. It’s as if our lives are on a treadmill with the continually increasing speed outside our control. The pace of our lives at work, home, and play anesthetizes us to the real reasons for each: Why do we work? Why do we try so hard to create a good home? Why do we play? Before we can answer these questions, we need to ask some others: Why do I run so fast? What am I running toward? What am I running from? Is this fast past the way I really want to live? Who sets my breakneck pace? …No one is a void, but when we a- void ourselves by running away, we can definitely feel empty. If we are attempting to avoid that kind of angst and low self- esteem, there is much emotional and spiritual work to be done in order to recover and rebuild a sense of self. If you are obsessively active, please at least pause to ask yourself why and to listen for the answer from the still, quiet voice alive and well within you. Sue Patton Thoele

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In your pursuit to avoid boredom, are you mistaking intensity for vitality?

• Boredom has come to be regarded as one of our greatest enemies and we flee from it by generating endless complexity and busyness. Boredom may be no more than a surrender of sensitivity, yet, rather than turning our hearts and minds to rediscover that lost sensitivity, we thirst for even more exciting experiences, drama, and intensity. . . When alienated from inner vitality we mistake intensity for wakefulness. Christina Feldman
• Vitality

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If you’re addicted to your work, do you actually like the work you do?

• Work addiction seems to be an addiction we are proud of. We almost seem to brag with mock displeasure that we are “overwhelmed” with busyness, sometimes as an excuse for not really being able to do what we really want to be doing. Work addiction is a symptom not of working your brains out but of your brain working you out.  Why are you doing what you’re doing for a career and how do you like doing it?  Do you like your answer? Paul Pearsall

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Reduce busyness by focusing on a few things instead of juggling many

• Finally, everybody agrees that no one pursuit can be successfully followed by a man who is preoccupied with many things—eloquence cannot, nor the liberal studies—since the mind, when distracted, takes in nothing very deeply, but rejects everything that is, as it were, crammed into it. There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living: there is nothing that is harder to learn. Lucius Annaeus Seneca
• Focus

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Reduce busyness through thinking, planning and goal setting

• Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration.  Seeming to do is not doing. Thomas Alva Edison
• The primary idea was this: One hour of planning saves three hours of execution. Steve Chandler
• Every minute you spend in planning will save you as many as ten minutes in execution. Brian Tracy
• Time given to thought is the greatest time saver of all. Norman Cousins
• Don’t be a workaholic, be a thinkaholic. P. J. Daniels
• Invest a few moments in thinking. It will pay good interest.
• The more you think, the more time you have. Henry Ford
• Thinking,  Planning,  Goal setting

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Reduce busyness by prioritising what is important

• Decide what your priorities are and how much time you’ll spend on them. If you don’t, someone else will. Harvey Mackay

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Reduce busyness by eliminating what is not important

• Nuke it! The most efficient way to get through a task is to delete it. If it doesn’t need to be done, get it off your to do list. Steve Pavlina
• Find what matters most to you, and eliminate as much of the rest as possible. Leo Babauta
• When things aren’t adding up in your life, start subtracting.
• It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential. Bruce Lee
• Now and then it’s good to list all the things you regularly do for which there was once a good reason. Robert Brault
• What lies in our power to do, lies in our power not to do. Aristotle
• It is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich. Henry Ward Beecher
• Eliminate what is unimportant

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Reduce busyness by working smarter and more efficiently …

• How often have we heard such statements: “I meant to write, but I just didn’t have time” or “I wanted to drop in, but I’ve been so busy.”  Why is it that despite more time for leisure, people today are busier than ever?    Is this busy-ness due to more activities, or to the failure of people to organize their time efficiently?    The people who achieve many things seldom give the impression of being busy.  They have developed the skill of using relaxed power.  When they work, they accomplish their tasks with spirit and efficiency.  The secret is not that they work faster than others, but that they make better use of their time. Norman Vincent Peale
• Whoever admits that he is too busy to improve his methods has acknowledged himself to be at the end of his rope. And that is always the saddest predicament which anyone can get into. J. Ogden Armour
• Efficiency

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… but don’t waste time doing more efficiently what needn’t be done at all

• One of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not be done at all. Brian Tracy
• There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. Peter Drucker
• Effectiveness

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Reduce busyness by slowing down your pace of life

• Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you. John De Paola
• Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. Timothy Ferriss
• The world is full of men and women who work too much, sleep too little, hardly ever exercise, eat poorly, and are always struggling or failing to find adequate time with their families. We are in a perpetual hurry– constantly rushing from one activity to another, with little understanding of where all this activity is leading us. . . . The world has gone and got itself in an awful rush, to whose benefit I do not know.  We are too busy for our own good. We need to slow down.  Our lifestyles are destroying us. The worst part is, we are rushing east in search of a sunset.  Matthew Kelly
• There is more to life than increasing its speed. Mahatma Gandhi
• Slow down

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Instead of cluttering your life with more busyness, make more space

• My life in Connecticut, I begin to realize, lacks the quality of significance and therefore of beauty, because there is so little empty space. The space is scribbled on; the time has been filled.  There are so few empty pages in my engagement pad, or empty hours in the day, or empty rooms in my life in which to stand alone and find myself.  Too many activities, and people, and things.  Too many worthy activities, valuable things, and interesting people. For it is not merely the trivial which clutters our lives but the important as well. We can have a surfeit of treasures–an excess of shells, where one or two would be significant. Anne Morrow Lindbergh
• Clutter,  Spaciousness

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Realise it’s better to do nothing than busy yourself doing nothing

• It is worse to busy yourself with the trivial than to do nothing. Baltasar Gracian
• Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing. Lao Tzu
• I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion. William Shakespeare — Henry IV

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Make space for renewal

• Life lived amidst tension and busyness needs leisure. Leisure that recreates and renews. Leisure should be a time to think new thoughts, not ponder old ills. C. Neil Strait
• I am convinced that there are times in everybody’s experience when there is so much to be done, that the only way to do it is to do it is to sit down and to do nothing at all. Fanny Fern
• The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it. Sydney J. Harris
• Spaciousness

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Make space for others, especially loved ones

• May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I fail to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion. Thomas Jefferson
• Never be so busy as not to think of others. Mother Teresa
• We are always too busy for our children; we never give them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts upon them; but the most precious gift, our personal association, which means so much to them, we give grudgingly. Mark Twain
• When you are too busy for friends, you are too busy.
• Love,  Family,  Friendship

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Make space for things that enrich your soul and help you grow

• Busyness is something that keeps us away from quiet time, from meditation, from friends and family, from reading, from relaxation. And these are the things that help us to re-create ourselves, to rejuvenate ourselves, and to grow and develop as human beings.  Making the decision to step away from being busy can help us in many different ways, some of which are completely unimaginable to us while we’re still busy, while we’re still so scattered in our thoughts that we can’t focus on anything else but the immediate task at hand.  We owe it to ourselves to take care of ourselves, and being perpetually busy is neither healthy or wise for the vast majority of us.  Tom Walsh
• The soul,  Live rich,  Growth,  True wealth

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Make space to pause and breath

• Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths. Etty Hillesum
• Breathing

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Make space for creativity

• We are encouraged from an early age to keep ourselves busy and productive and out of trouble. But the truth is, being busy isn’t necessarily healthy and it doesn’t keep you out of trouble–especially if you stay busy so you have no time to be aware of your feelings.  Your body stores those unacknowledged feelings, and you know that is not good for you.  I don’t want to spend my life keeping busy. Maybe I could successfully juggle an impressive list of responsibilities, but what would I be contributing to life?  I am much more interested in being creative than being busy.  Creating feels good.  It fills me, restores me, nourishes me and energizes me. Bernie Siegel
• Creativity

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• I’m so busy doing what I must do that I don’t have time for what I ought to do… and I never get a chance to do what I want to do! Son, that’s universal. The way to keep that recipe from killing you is occasionally to do what you want to do anyhow. Robert A. Heinlein
• The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of contemporary violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. Thomas Merton
• The law of centrifugal force seems to be as true for the human condition as it is for the Newtonian mechanics. The faster our lives spin, the more things tend to fly apart. Richard Paul Evans
• Every man is worth just as much as the things he busies himself with. Marcus Aurelius
• Full minds create chaos. David W. Jones
• None are so busy as the fool and the knave. John Dryden
• As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy. Samuel Johnson
• That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness of writers. Gore Vidal
• Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• When the fire of prayer goes out, the barrenness of busyness takes over. George Carey
• Modern people are frantically trying to earn enough to buy things they’re too busy to enjoy. Frank A. Clark
• I release the need to push myself to be doing more, and allow the actions to flow through me in their own perfect time. The periods of inaction are equally important as the periods of action. Amanda Harvey
• Busy idleness urges us on. Horace
• Purposeless activity may be a phase of death. Pearl S. Buck

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• It’s not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised. The mosquito is swatted. Mary O’Connor
• Some folks can look so busy doing nothing that they seem indispensable. Kin Hubbard
• Who remembers when we used to rest on Sunday instead of Monday? Kin Hubbard
• All of man’s misfortune comes from one thing, which is not knowing how to sit quietly in a room. Blaise Pascal
• Successful people are the ones who think up things for the rest of the world to keep busy at.  Don Marquis
• Tell him I’ve been too f**king busy – or vice versa.   Dorothy Parker
• We are too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet.
• Busyness is the narcotic of the mediocre.
• Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that! Lewis Carroll

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