An analysis of current busyness

Everything is busy recently. I’m too busy to get a decent perspective on it all, in fact, which is a vicious cycle and one to be taken seriously. I think my busyness comes from multiple directions, some of which are more flexible than others, but it’s definitely a heady mix of organising things, doing things, managing emotions, thinking ahead and thinking behind.

I’m tempted to call it fatigue in fact – feels like there’s a stigma and a taboo to that, but by calling it out on myself earlier than by the time it’s a proper problem, I’m more likely to pay attention to myself.

OK, a reflective list to help, uh, reflect.

1. Middle-aged family life is just busy. Parenting is hard, schools require a lot of engagement, and insurance policies and other annual renewals are just RELENTLESS. Paperwork seems to be like tech – it’s manageable so long as nothing changes or breaks, but be prepared for a few hours of pain when (not if) it does.

2. Freelancing is actually going alright. I’m in touch with some lovely clients who need support and help in different ways, and I’m feeling more comfortable with the idea generally. But I need to get a bit better at managing the various tasks requests coming in – a lot of them are ones that require finding a solution, and I think that’s what I enjoy, but need to handle the mini-pressure of not knowing the solutions all at the same time.

3. There is wayyyy too much content in the world these days. I’m increasingly acutely aware of this. Too much pressure to play this, watch that, read this,listen to that, etc. The pressure is from myself again – although as an extension of the larger cultural industry in general. And I noticed the difference when I don’t go on social media as much, which is the cause of a lot of it. The world is interesting, but that’s not sustainable.

4. There is farrr too much stuff I’d like to create as well. Ideas are cheap, as I used to say (internally) to my (imaginary, prototypical) managers. My problem is I often know how I’d implement them and think I have no excuse not to. I’ve never been good at finishing projects, but perhaps now is the time to start.

5. Is it just me, or have things felt busier since COVID? Maybe we have no real sense of collective, shared time and space any more, and feel that anyone can be reached and interrupted at any time. Context-switching is the new norm – instant messages have taken over from schedules. Maybe it’s not just me that’s ultra-busy – maybe we’re all hyper-active now?

It’s not all hand-wringing, I’m doing a few things to improve. I updated my task tracking filter yesterday to let me show only stuff of certain priorities, and only stuff marked as for the week ahead. I want to differentiate between “tasks” and “puzzles”, as these are very different kinds of work. At OCSI, we treated bugs distinctly, defaulting to a Discovery activity first rather than a Design activity – I want to do some similar mental switching now too.

Everything else, well… I think I just need to stop worrying. Close the tabs. Go slower. Finish one thing. Touch the artwork daily. Pace myself.

All good.