Busy: A Manifesto for Distracted Times

by Carl Phillips

Look up for a moment, take in what is happening around you. What do you see? A sea of calm, happy faces perhaps. All focused on helping each other make the world a better place, in some small but meaningful way. Trying their best to leave positive footprints on the earth. Working hard but balancing that with ample time to rest. Making time for those that matter most. Being present and grateful for this moment. Totally in tune with life. Or is the picture a little different? Is everyone rushing around? Hustling and bustling. Running from commitment to commitment. Complaining they ‘don’t have time’. Not at all present, always thinking ahead, to whatever they are rushing to next. I’m guessing the picture you see is closer to example two. Everyone seems so busy. Busy on the phone. Busy juggling and multi-tasking. Busy trying to keep up. Busy trying not to drown under the mountain that is the latest ‘urgent’. Mostly it seems, busy being busy. How many of us find ourselves fighting this daily battle with busyness in our lives? Feeling like all our time is accounted for, before we really get started with our day. Busyness, it seems, has reached epidemic proportions. We’re busy, but what is getting done? So where is all this collective busyness getting us? Are we making the world a better place? Is all this busy meaning we get to spend quality time with our friends and loved ones? Is being busy meaning we get to make time for our hobbies and passion projects? Is busy meaning we get more quality work done? Quality, not just sheer quantity. Is busy leading us to less stress? Is it meaning we live healthy, balanced lives, full of adventures and positive challenges? If the answer is yes, great — let’s celebrate and keep on with all this busyness. Let’s keep engaging with it. Let’s keep chasing it. If the answer is no, perhaps we need to step back and ask a bigger Why are we spending time invested in busy, if busy isn’t working for us? That’s what this book is all about. Identifying the challenges we all face in our days that lead us to busy. It’s about how we can tap into another way of living our lives. How we can achieve our goals, with less stress. How we can strip back to the essential. How we can keep the margins, and white space, in our lives whilst still getting plenty done. How we can filter the signal from the noise. How we can reconnect with our ability to block out distractions and live a focused life. Because a focused life is a good life. How this book is broken down This book has several main sections. The first of these concentrates on the challenges, why we are where we are. The second section deals with tools, habits and solutions to help us get to a less busy place in our lives. We close by reflecting on one of our most important assets of all, time and its place in the busy conundrum. Are you ready for a life less busy?

73 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 23, 2021

About the author

Carl writes short books full of big ideas including: Journeys in Simplicity, Unplug: Disconnect to Reconnect and Slow: Seeking Stillness in Fast Paced Times.

He is also the proud owner of Frictionless Living (http://frictionlessliving.net/) which is focused on helping readers find and live their own version of a simpler, good life.

You can find out more and reach him at his blog (www.frictionlessliving.net).

Reviews

[Davidwills · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book

Great book ,makes you see you waste a lot of time on nothing important.
Very concise and makes you sit up and think !