The Era of Busyness and How We Can Overcome It

In the article “ The Busy Trap” Kreider tries to convince readers to chose time over money. He makes numerous points including how boasting about busyness takes the form of a complaint. He insults those who voluntarily take on obligations by remarking that they are obsessed with always being occupied. However, the basis for such a conclusion is founded on only a few examples of individuals who were negatively affected by the burden of work. In Kreider’s opinion it is wasteful to be busy all the time because life is too short to work more than 5 hours per day and not spend enough time in one’s happy place. What is your happy place? Picture it and stay there for a while letting your thoughts flow. Notice that your thinking becomes more positive and somewhat out of reach. Next, imagine a life with minimal stress that includes little to no work and much enjoyment; now you 're floating back to reality because that type of life is not in the grasps of most. Similarly, Kreider writes his article as if most people have plenty of time to waste, and to enjoy themselves, as he has. Kreider’s overall point that people keep themselves busy to escape the feelings of emptiness is both ignorant and a reflection of his narrow perspective of the world. His opinion that people feel apprehensive when not working, along with the fact that most people wouldn’t be content living the lifestyle Kreider is promoting, plus his support towards the propositions of full unemployment and a

This is a massive one in today’s era of modern technology: emails, instant messaging, status updates, sms etc. When you are in the middle of an important task and you get interrupted or distracted, it can take you up to 20 minutes to get back into the zone. If this happens 3 times in a day, that’s 1 hour of lost productivity. In a fortnight, that’s 10 hours or more than one whole day of lost productivity, just from being interrupted. Imagine what you could do if you had a whole extra day every fortnight. Now you know how.

As I near the end of my week I go to my other clubs that I don’t get to go to very often. At my Model UN meeting I continue to revise and work more on my resolution to hopefully make one that the other delegates from other countries find it useful to fix whichever issue we are working on. While my other clubs like Sign language, and French club are just there for me and my friends to hangout and eat food, for all we do in French club is, eat food while talking with the few words we know in French. With all my clubs and extracurriculars I can somewhat say I lead a pretty busy life.

In “The Multitasking Generation”, Claudia Wallis provides key points on the difference between Generation M and Multitasking. Wallis also challenges the idea that by multitasking, things get done. In the first part of the essay Wallis provides information on a family living in California. A man and a woman with twins, one girl and one boy. Wallis observes that most of the time spent at home by the children is on a computer with music blaring and chatting with friends on their cell phones. Wallis states, “By all standard space-time calculations, the four members of the family occupy the same three-bedroom home in Van Nuys, California…, but psychologically each exists in his or her own little universe.”(385-386) In today’s world, “That level

The author also insinuates that modern-day society supports busyness and most Americans have inserted themselves into this pattern, “if only by our own acquiescence” (Kreider 983). The author argues that busyness “is something we collectively force one another to do” (Kreider

In Diary of a Mad Blender, a reporter tried to make her life as productive as possible for a week while still taking care of her family, and the result was not as expected. According to the author, after embarking on this mission, “It was far easier for me to splice more work into my week than to add time for rest and relationships...” (Shellenbarger 25). Basically, when trying to fit work into all free moments, people give up a quality of attention and human contact they can have with others, especially their kids. When my mom comes home and continues working on a project, it is very difficult to get a response from her when she is focused intently on completing her task. This is because the human mind cannot focus on multiple things at once, at least not

Is being busy a bad thing? Tim Kreider believes it is. He states that people are overscheduling themselves which is unnecessary and silly of them to do. Kreider begins his argument in his article “The ‘Busy Trap”, by asking how many times we respond with “I’m busy” when asked how we are doing. Living in today’s society it’s the normal thing to be busy to the point of exhaustion. In fact, Kreider states that people who are working full time jobs or crazy hours are not those who say that they are busy. Being tired is what makes people feel like they are busy. For example, a mother working at the local grocery store, gas station, and recreation center will tell others that she is doing well when asked about how she is doing. On the other

What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a matter of importance? Would one make the relation that running errands has the result of the building of character? Would it be agreed upon that constant correspondence to our peers draws us nearer to our goals? Throughout our history humans have developed an undeniable connection between the fulness of one's schedule and the matter of importance they hold in a society. However, with the uniqueness and the complexity of the human mind, does one really need to be occupied in order to progress? In order to continue to effectively grow and progress, we must abandon the futile connection that being busy is directly related to the matter of a person's importance.

Have you ever heard there's not enough hours in the day? As a person living in today's society you have to work for everything you get. We lack time to think,time to do,time to act due to the fact of work and responsibilities. Our society is not the only one to experience this. As in the novel Fahrenheit 451 in society we are incoherent due to our lack of knowledge and leisure “Of hours,yes.

Your time is extremely valuable, and there never seems to be quite enough of it. With only 24 hours in a day, getting all the little things done can leave you with little time left at your discretion.

Recently, I’ve been working at a restaurant and I am quite busy with everything that’s going on in my life. Along with working at the restaurant, I need to make sure that I get my schoolwork done on time and also take care of the housework. However, I enjoy being busy because it keeps me away from being bored, increase my creativity as well as experience.

Conducting a time analysis was a pretty eye opening experience for me. I analyzed my time from Saturday 6/15 through Friday 6/21. As a family man, the fact that I spend a great deal of my time, over half, during the course of a week working and sleeping is somewhat unsettling (see Figure 1 – Weekly Time Analysis). I spend an average of 55 hours per week working, a minimum of 11 hours each day, 5 days a week. I slept approximately 5-6 hours per night, a total of 40 hours for the week. The combination of the two is about 56.5% of my week’s time. Studying took up around 20 hours or approximately 12 %. I spent 7 hours in my car during the week, which was to and from work for the most part.

This newspaper article by Sue Shollenberger, describes what it's like to have a frantic life full of responsibilities. It talks about a man who has multiple things to do with the little time he has. The man tries to find a way to organize all of his activities and responsibilities. But what people don't realize is that matter how you try to time manage your schedule,

and self-esteem may be damaged. One of the major causes of this is due to Attention-

Lastly, I journalized my own schedule for a day to see how I allocated my time. I began tracking my day immediately at midnight. To me, this felt like a fairly average day. I was able to accomplish everything I needed to, and still manage to get eight hours of sleep, and even have personal time to relax. After analyzing the activities that I had in a 24 hour period I think that I have an adequate amount of time in my day. If I had more time in the day than I would most likely spend it on non-productive