Curse of Busy-Ness: Learning How to Prioritize the Right Things

The answer to the question, "How are you?" has traditionally been "I'm fine." Over the last few years, though, a new answer has supplanted the old one. It's now in fashion to say, "I'm just so busy!", before lamenting how exhausted we are.

Are we really that busy? After all, we still seem to find time to spend thirty hours a week in front of a television, and that doesn't even include other screens we glue ourselves to. But perhaps this is in reaction to how busy we are at other times: we rush and rush and rush, and then when we get home we collapse. Hardly a fulfilling life, is it?

Busyness Distracts

Author Mark Buchanan wrote recently that "busyness causes people to care less about the things they care about." In other words, when you're busy, your priorities get distorted. What happens when you're busy and your daughter wants you to read to her? You get annoyed. What happens when your spouse wants to talk about her mother's cancer diagnosis? You figure out how to placate her so that you can move on to something more important. What happens when your son wants you to coach Little League, or your daughter wants you to come and see the play she's in? You get angry, because people are adding to your already full schedule and assuming they can count on you. They don't understand all the demands you face!

We All Need Reminders of our True Priorities

Every winter our family takes a "time out" from our busyness. We head up to a cabin in the woods with another family with kids of similar ages, and we toboggan, ski, play board games, and chat, all without the benefit of electricity or running water. It's loads of fun. Trust me.
The only downside for Katie, my 10-year-old, is the outhouse. She's not into outhouses, and not only because of the smell. There may be spiders there, you see, even if it is twenty below. So I have to accompany her every time she feels the urge.

One particular night this year we entered said building, and as she prepared to do her business we attempted the flashlight handoff. And failed. The flashlight plummeted into the hole.

It so happens that just a few months' prior to our visit the cabin had been used by many large men who consumed much food. So the hole was, shall we say, full.

And as the flashlight descended, the rest of the outhouse was plunged into total darkness. All we could see was the illuminated pile of you know what.

In retrospect, I wonder if this incident is really a metaphor for the purpose of our yearly visits. It's to illuminate the huge pile of crap that is filling our lives, so that we can deal with it and move on.

When We're Not Busy We Really Live

In that cabin with no electricity and no pagers and no computers, we spend time with each other. We talk. We wrestle and tickle. We listen. And we remember why we actually enjoy being a family. It's bliss.

When I think about my children's years growing up thus far, one of the enduring memories I have is reading to them. We have devoured the Narnia series, the Little House series, Anne of Green Gables, and Little Women out loud, twice, once for each girl. Huddling under the covers and sharing Anne's adventures bonded us in a very unique way. And yet how often today, when Katie wants to launch into Jane Austen, do I sigh and wish she would just leave me alone so I could get something important done?

Busyness causes us to care less about the things we care about. If I start to see those I love as intruding on my life, there's something really wrong. Something in my life is truly stinking, and I better deal with it before I lose what is most precious.

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And now I'd like to invite you to use my FREE personal time planners to get your own busy-ness under control--and make sure you're focusing on your true priorities! I also include kids' chore sheets, household organization planners, and more! Sheila Wray Gregoire is the author of four books, including To Love, Honor and Vacuum: When you feel more like a maid than a wife and a mother. She blogs at tolovehonorandvacuum.blogspot.com

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