Romanticizing Being “BUSY!”
If you’re wondering why I haven’t been writing, well…because I was busy! haha! jokes! not at all! let’s dive into yet another rant 💪
So! I was reflecting on a pattern which I noticed in people who are currently in my life, ex-colleagues, ex-relationships, and even people that I know about their life only “Online” and there is always the same pattern of people romanticizing the idea of being busy!
And I never understood why in their minds, “being busy” is such a positive thing that should be celebrated!
So lets debunk that by going through few life encounters:
A person who holds their phone literally the entire day, but when you message, they respond the next day or waaaay later on.
“Hey, sorry! I was sooo busy”
No they were not! you’re just not important enough for them to respond to you, as none of us is 24 hours a day busy, and even those who are truly busy if they respect you enough they would get back to you when they see your message to acknowledge it and tell you that they will get back to you later on.
Personally, I never intentionally leave a message not responded to because “I’m busy”, I always respond no matter what it is, when I see that message, and if I’m actually busy then I just inform the one on the other side that I’ll be getting back to them later, and I do that because if someone took a time out of their day to think of me, to message me no matter what it is, even if its a meme! then I owe it to them to respond! I actually love to respond its not like its a burden, and those friends of mine who send me loads of reels know damn well that I find time to react to each one of them, because I love to!
If you have reached the age of 30 and above, and you still think not responding to others or waiting days to get back to them just to portray the image of “I’m so important, I don’t have time to get back to you” then let me tell you that, at this age its no longer considered cool! and playing games means nothing but you’re a walking red flag, as we’ve all played those games when we were young that you should be mature enough now as an adult to realize that there are things in life way more important than that! your importance shouldn’t stem from a fake persona that you create by “Acting busy”.
Now when someone comes to my life and in the initial knowing a person stage the moment I see the person acting like above, it’s an instant disqualify, I don’t have time for games and fake personas — Major TURNOFF!
What about colleagues? during my career I worked at two places, completely two different environments, and at both I was doing SEO, and there’s no human in the world that can come convince me that they do SEO 8 hours a day and they are “SUPER BUSY” like it is just impossible!
And at times I did manage around 5 accounts fully covering both the account management aspect and the execution and yet, I never needed more than 4 hours a day MAXIMUM! and to be honest most of the times when I turn on my brain’s “Turbo mode” I can do the workload for all 5 accounts in one day and achieve great results for them, and spend the rest of the week slacking.
But at the agency people liked to “act busy” because “acting busy” gets you brownie points infront of the managers! wow that person is SUCH A HARD WORKER! they sit behind a desk and don’t move their head for 8 hours!
the same person in question, once when he was drunk he told me the exact following words:
“You know Lin, acting like you work hard is the hardest part in this job :)”
So he played his part well! our boss did think of him as he’s very hardworking! while me on the other hand I don’t know how to sit still! I’m always all over the place, chatting with everyone, laughing, brainstorming I’m just all over the place! because I had all the time in the world!
like seriously, I’m locked up in this office for 8 hours a day, lets say I worked 4 of them, what would you expect me to do with the other 4 — CAUSE NUISANCE! 😂
And would any manager like that? **absolutely not! **and I was told off alot of times but when its time for appraisals, I always proved my worth with my actual work, with things I created, with processes I’ve revamped, with results driven to clients, so how much I worked and whether it was 2 hours or full 8, it didn’t mean anything on paper.
But many managers if not most are old fashioned and they would actually rather the person who “fakes working” over the person who “actually provides value”, but such organizations always stay in the little league before they disappear into the abyss.
Now imagine me saying I used to work half a day at the agency managing 5 accounts and then going to corporate, to manage along with 4 other people “One website”…I never had that much empty time in my day as that short stint at the corporate place.
My entire workload will be done in 2 hours a week, I automated most if not all, that place was heaven for any salaried employee! there are hundreds of stakeholders managing one thing, its a typical workplace where people have meetings to discuss meetings about meetings and nothing sees the light! and if it does then it takes months :)
Shockingly however! my teammates were “BUSY!” so busy! overwhelmed! were dying from the workload! man this is so stressful! we need to hire more! HIRE MORE!
And I stood there in disbelief! like when I attended meetings it felt like I’m watching a circus, because everyone is putting on an act, but they actually also believe it!
like they truly believed that they are overworked and super stressed! but what are you even being stressed about?
I don’t know I’m stressed I’m busyyy…AHHHHHHH!!!!
And when I asked or tried to help to make their life easier they actually didn’t want to! because would it be in anyone’s advantage if a task that they claim its taking them their entire work week, if I go automate it to be done in half an hour? that would be a disadvantage really because how would they then claim that they are busy? how would they then prove their value to the organization if not saying “ AAAAHHHH we’ve been working on this for 2 weeks and still we need 3 more”
Honestly it’s fake shit show!
Now that I’m on my own journey, there are some tasks that I like to outsource, but I never delegate anything that I don’t know how to do myself first! I have a website that I wanted it to be redesigned and moved to another theme, and I know how to do that personally fully! both design and functional wise.
However, because I never really find time to prioritize this, I’ve been delaying that task, so I saw a guy on that theme’s facebook group who did design a website and he was showcasing it, I liked it! so I reached out to him and asked how much would he charge to do my website and how long will it take.
He gave me a quote of “$7000 USD” and 45 days.
I didn’t argue back — I just thanked him for his offer and moved on with my life as it’s not even worth it, to waste time talking.
I can tell you and this is not me lowballing developers offers but since I know exactly what I was looking for and I know exactly how it’s done, especially that I wasn’t requesting any additional functionality— that project should be reasonably costed at $1,000 and it should be done in a week, maximum 10 days and that is factoring in that the developer would have other projects and not working full time on mine.
Most people at agencies or freelncers in the tech field capitalize on the lack of knowledge of clients and thus they’d charge x10 and extend the timeline waaaaaay longer than needed!
I built a reallyyyyy nice fully functional landing page for a client’s event, one that had booking functionality and all — it took me 3 hours exact! 3 hours including even structuring the content and coming up with more content using ChatGPT. 3 hours! because with todays no-code /low-code tools and AI involvement, what used to take days, it take hours! and what takes hours now take minutes! across all industries and no one has managed to convince me otherwise so far.
Elon Musk cut down X’s workforce 80% and yet X is just as functional as it was before, and now it have even more functionality added to it — so what were those 6,000 employees doing? I tell you what they were doing:
“Exactly what I experienced at that corporate place — attending meetings the entire day, whining about being overworked the remaining time, looking busy for a few, and then going back home to bitch about how horrible their work day have been”
When the time comes and I’d need to hire fulltime employees — I’d look at indie hackers, people who build and ship things over weekends! people who find solutions for issues instead of holding on to those issues as that their survival raft to prove their value.
I don’t care for someone to sit infront of me 8 hours a day behind a screen, being average! matter of fact if I do see someone sitting behind a screen 8 hour a day and then the output is just some shit mediocre work I’d truly question their value!
Task based > Time Based
Old fashioned ways doesn’t have place in the fast paced modern times.
Now lets speak about character, let’s circle back to the idea of:
Who told you that being busy is anything to be celebrated?
When I join a workplace or a new joiners come, I usually almost always go suss out if there’s potential to be friends or not, because I like meeting people and new stories excite me — so I remember a girl who I tried talking to multiple times at work.
And every single interaction she always says that she’s so busy and overwhelmed at work! even when I tried to stir away from the topic of work, she brought it back to work.
Actual conversation:
Me: Oh yeah work can be hectic but what about the weekend? what do you do on the weekend?
Her: You know I get so exhausted from work that over the weekend I just sleep, I don’t do much because I need to recover from how burnt out at work I feel.
in my mind: HOW BORING! and UNORIGINAL!
Like imagine not having a life that your weekend is spent recovering from how overworked you are! and that girl is a mere social media exec who does the most basic kind of content!
if it was Codie Sanchez or Leila Hormozi who told me the statement above, I’d understand as those women are building empires and inspiring millions! but if you are an average salaried worker who is that junior and you act this busy…how underwhelming that is! yuck!
Immediate disqualification for friends potential! I feel like I no longer have tolerance for people who only talk about their workplace, I mean I do like office gossips and it is part of my conversations with friends but it cannot be the entire convo! like if you don’t have anything else to talk about in life other than how shitty your work is….fam go spill that negativity elsewhere, as I’d rather actually catch some Zzzz than sitting with you.
Bottomline — no one is really busy every single day in their lives! and if you are truly really busy every single day then you should be a very exceptional human! one who is building empires, making millions or changing/saving lives — and your work will be speaking for itself! else it’s all fake :)
I personally have all the time in the world, and I always had free time my entire life! whenever work overwhelmed me, I automated it! whenever life overwhelmed, I took time to not do or be anything!
I have all the time in the world to laugh on the silliest of memes with friends, to travel whenever I want to, to be involved in all the gossips and family drama, to be interested and invested in the lives of those who matter to me!
Maybe I’ll be busier overtime but I’ll never be busy to let “work” or anything else consume my entire existence, I’ll always make time to be with those who matter to me, to do things I like or to even not to do anything! as I like to live by the Italian saying:
“Dolce far niente”
And that means….”The sweetness of doing nothing”
We didn’t come to this world to **“act busy” **we came to enjoy! to experience! to actually live all of the aspects of this human experience and not just to exist.
