Why I Try to Not Be Busy

Several times every week people make the assumption that I am really busy. They ask me about meeting some time and quickly add, “I’m sure you’re busy.” I recently received an email that made the assumption of my busyness by saying, “You have to be one of the busiest people on the planet.”

While being ranked about anything, as number one on the planet is flattering, my reply to these comments is always the same, “Actually, I am not busy.” Few really believe this at first, but it’s true. More and more in my life I am rarely busy.

This is not to say that I do not work well, but there is a difference between work and busyness.

Good work is simply keeping focus during the time allotted for those things to be done. For me, this is typically daylight hours. Working well (for me) is not producing, but engaging in something that is fulfilling and life giving. When I work well there is a good kind of tiredness that sets in around 10 PM.

Busyness is more a restlessness that pays no attention to the time allotted for things to be done. Busyness does not allow for things to remain unfinished. To be busy is to be someone who does not have an off switch. Keeping busy sucks life out of me and blinds me to what’s really important. When I am busy I am constantly fatigued, and get sleepy around midnight.

I have begun to see what busyness produces in me – edginess, an inability to be present anywhere, stress, and a fast-paced daily rhythm.

Conversely working well produces in me – more patience, a greater ability to be present everywhere, wholeness, and an easy-going daily rhythm.

For me, it is that black and white.

This is good on the one hand, because when I am busy all the symptoms readily appear. Then I can sit and look at what is occupying me and holding my attention. On the other hand, it is bad for when I am too busy, well as you can see - I become an irritable mess.

With this in mind, over the last several months I have really begun to address work and business in my life. I have begun to ask what brings me to a place of wholeness, what brings me emotional, spiritual, and physical health? What is a good daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly rhythm?

In pursuing this way of living, I enlisted the help of my wife, accountability partner, some pastor friends, and our elder team. I reorganized my weekly schedule, adjusted my teaching calendar, lessened how often I check email, and made some commitments regarding what I won’t do before or after certain hours.

Honestly, I began to do less, and in doing so God has allowed me to be more. It’s not that I have more time, but that I have time that is better. I have fewer commitments, yet I am able to better serve because I am more alive.

Every day the temptation is still there for me to be busy. It really is addicting. Most days I admit this is a problem and know, that with divine intervention, I can overcome it for the one day. Some days I have to think about this every hour. Other days I fail miserably and I start running downhill, and we all know how that ends.

This morning I sat with a group of pastors, several of whom spoke of their busy and chaotic lives. I was one of them. The last few days have been too much for me. So once again, it is hitting the reset button and starting new and fresh with a new day.

In a few hours, I will go home. I will turn off my computer, shut down the cell phone, and coach my son’s soccer practice.

Tomorrow, when I wake up there will be an email waiting for me that will get answered, there will be an office that I will spend some time in, a phone call that I return, and several other things left undone from the day before that may get done. When I leave tomorrow to pick up my kids from school there will be more things to do that don’t get done, and they will spend the weekend unfinished.

There are days when things left undone drive me crazy. On better days I recognize that there are things that may never get done, but it will be okay – and more importantly, so will I.