The last two months or so have been extraordinarily busy for me. Between work, setting up the Product Design Guild, professional networking and social commitments, I moved into a state of having serious calendar packing. Today, was the end of this long burst of anaerobic work and I declared a moratorium on busyness for the next month. I left work early, randomly decided to head over to Berkeley, wandered around a bit, had dinner with a friend and was just generally aimless for the entire afternoon.

I have a very strong aversion to busyness that I have carefully cultivated over time. It’s one of my most cherished traits. Unbusy people like me seem to be a dying trend, especially in the hyper-go-go Silicon Valley. The norm here seems to be that even dinner with friends must be planned a week in advance with careful checking of calendars to ensure an open slot. Even when I am “crazy busy”, I’m at a complete amateur hour compared to some people I know, my busy would be their normal.

Being busy undoubtedly makes you more productive. And part of the reason I went on this two month sprint was simply that I needed to get a lot of stuff done. But there’s a certain essence lost in the busyness as well. I couldn’t jump on opportunities that came my way with expiring deadlines, I couldn’t open myself up to serendipity and try completely new things. Also, with the cloak of busyness, I felt my inspiration, creativity and insight slipping away. Life fell into a tunnel vision of focusing just on this next thing.

One of the lessons I’ve learn from this experience is just how vigilantly I need to guard my unbusy schedule. And how much value I gain from being unbusy which I never fully appreciate except when it goes away.

  • http://www.ribbonfarm.com Venkat

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    To me busyness is a big sign of ineffectiveness in 90% of the people who claim the state. 10% are actually productively busy. The rest are either trying to appear busy to impress others, or being dumb about how they work, or plain old workaholics.

  • Hang

    I think both busy & unbusy people, 90% of them are ineffective. I’m not especially glorifying unbusyness in any way. I know during my unbusy times, I spend large chunks of them being gloriously unproductive and I do get more done when I’m busy.

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    We lay quietly on the bed for a few more minutes, listening to the rain. At some stage, I began prodding him with a foot, the way he’d been doing to me discount ugg boots earlier. Eventually he retaliated and pushed my feet off the bed altogether.    
    “If we’re really going,” he said, “we’ll have to decide about the animals. You know, choose the best ones to take along. Maybe six or seven. We’ll have to do it quite carefully.”    
    “Okay,” I said. Then I stood up and stretched out my arms. “Maybe we’ll take more. Fifteen, twenty even. Yeah, we’ll go and see her. What can she do to us? We’ll go and discount ugg boots talk to her.”    
    Chapter 21    
    From days before we went, I’d had in my mind this picture of me and Tommy standing in front of that door, working up the nerve to press the bell, then having to wait there with hearts thumping. The way it turned out, though, we got lucky and were spared that particular ordeal.    
    We deserved a bit of luck by then, because the day hadn’t been going at all well. The car had played up discount ugg boots on the journey out and we were an hour late for Tommy’s tests. Then a mix-up at the clinic had meant Tommy having to re-do three of the tests. This had left him feeling pretty woozy, so when we finally set off for Littlehampton towards the end of the afternoon, he began to feel carsick and we had to keep stopping to let him walk it off.

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    “Well at least I can buy it for you,” he said with a grin, and before I could stop him, he’d started down the floor towards the front.   
    I went on browsing around the uggs discount back of the shop while the old guy searched around for the tape to go with the case. I was still feeling a pang of regret that we’d found it so quickly, and it was only later, when we were back at the Cottages and I was alone in my room, that I really appreciated having the tape–and that song–back again. Even then, it was mainly a nostalgia thing, and today, if I happen to get the ugg boots discount outlet tape out and look at it, it brings back memories of that afternoon in Norfolk every bit as much as it does our Hailsham days. f AS WE CAME OUT OF THE SHOP, I was keen to regain the carefree, almost silly mood we’d been in before. But when I made a few little jokes, Tommy was lost in his thoughts and didn’t respond.   
    We began going up a steeply climbing path, and we could see–maybe a hundred cheap uggs online yards further up–a kind of viewing area right on the cliff edge with benches facing out to sea. It would have made a nice spot in the summer for an ordinary family to sit and eat a picnic. Now, despite the chilly wind, we found ourselves walking up towards it, but when there was still some way left to go, Tommy slowed to a dawdle and said to me: “Chrissie and Rodney, they’re really obsessed with this discount uggs for women idea. You know, the one about people having their donations deferred if they’re really in love. They’re convinced we know all about it, but no one said anything like that at Hailsham. At least, I never heard anything like that, did you, Kath? No, it’s just something going around recently among the veterans. And people like Ruth, they’ve been stoking it up.”

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    One of the guards pressed a button and Pashtu music filled the room. Tabla, harmonium, the whine of a dil-roba. I guessed music wasn’t sinful as long as it played to Taliban ears. The three men began to clap.   
    “Wah wah! _Mashallah_!?they cheered.   
    Sohrab raised his arms and turned slowly. He stood on tiptoes, spun gracefully, discount uggs for women dipped to his knees, straightened, and spun again. His little hands swiveled at the wrists, his fingers snapped, and his head swung side to side like a pendulum. His feet pounded the floor, the bells jingling in perfect harmony with the beat of the tabla. He kept his eyes closed.   
    “_Mashallah_!?they cheered. “Shahbas! Bravo!?The two guards whistled and laughed. The Talib in white was tilting his ugg boots on sale head back and forth with the music, his mouth half-open in a leer.   
    Sohrab danced in a circle, eyes closed, danced until the music stopped. The bells jingled one final time when he stomped his foot with the song’s last note. He froze in midspin.   
    “Bia, bia, my boy,?the Talib said, calling Sohrab to him. Sohrab went to him, head down, stood between his thighs. The Talib ugg boots cheap sale wrapped his arms around the boy. “How talented he is, nay, my Hazara boy!?he said. His hands slid down the child’s back, then up, felt under his armpits. One of the guards elbowed the other and snickered. The Talib told them to leave us alone.   
    “Yes, Agha sahib,?they said as they exited.

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