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Comment by thenerdhead | Hacker News Reader

I believe that being busy is a myth. It's one that we all fall prey to and end up accomplishing nothing because of it.

Like any system, you need enough slack. That slack makes you resilient over the long term. It gives you what you value in life. Autonomy, relatedness, and competence to whatever you set your goals towards.

I hate the mentality of "if it's not in a calendar, it's not happening" because this is the opposite of slack. There's a beauty in serendipity when it comes to not being busy. It opens more doors than closes them in my experience.

I would argue that the optimal level is negative in that you're not "busy" by the definition, but you are tackling your top goal until it is accomplished and then to the next one. You won't even make a dent in it if you're constantly distracted by small immediate things. You have to learn to set boundaries and say no. It's the only way things actually get done.

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There’s a great book by Tom DeMarco that argues for having slack, and for that being critical for innovation: “Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency”

Thanks for the recommendation! I'll add it to my book list. Would love to dive much deeper into this idea but have only found a few books thus far that barely touch the subject.

Even if it were true as you say that there is an optimal amount of “slack” with which to operate, how does that mean being busy is a myth?

There are jobs where you can get hired and almost immediately be at the higher levels of busy as described here, and it’s not really easy to get an entire culture or organization to quickly buy into a new philosophy.

People have paid the price in health and happiness for surviving in these situations. Whether they could be handled in a better way or not, I don’t see how it makes any sense to call their business a myth.

Thanks for the candor comment. Here's how I think about it:

I'm arguing for the individual to buy into a new philosophy. One of not being busy. Modern busyness is a construct we accept out of fear. Fear of getting fired, fear of missing out, fear of being passed over for a promotion.

Most of the things we think we need to do, we don't need to do at all. Constant context switching and divided focus is not a thing humans do well at. I think we've misunderstood the power of mono-tasking.

There's a great paradox in it all. The less busy we are, the more we can accomplish. Maybe others have noticed similar phenomena.

If you are wall-to-wall with meetings, any follow up items which require concentration have to necessarily take place after your work day.

I have been the top level of busy before, where I have work day full of meetings, and then a work day of actual work after all the meetings.

So you don't think someone like, I don't know, the President of the United States is not actually a busy person? (At level 7)

If the president is at Level 7 then it is an utter failure of their administration. Whatever the president's busy level is, it needs to be something that can be kept up with for years at a time without breaking down. They've got whole branches of government at their disposal to delegate tasks. I'd imagine the president's staffers try and keep it at or below a 4 90% of the time.

I'm saying people fall into the "busy" trap. There are presidents who are level 7 and accomplish nothing. There are presidents who are level 2-4 and accomplish a lot. Eisenhower comes to mind. He was pretty famous for his philosophy and methodology on this while willing to "do nothing". He accomplished plenty without the need of constant human intervention.

In my opinion needing enough slack in a system certainly rings true for many jobs that rely on high intrinsic motivation (probably also academia). Slack is also something that is essential for creative jobs, where you need the space to think and come up with new ideas.

Looking at the levels of busyness the concept of requiring slack is still compatible for me. If I am at low levels of busyness (< 4) there should be capacity for planned slots of slack, where goals can be worked on with own pace, ad-hoc meetings and guidance from peers (to fulfil the SDT motivational needs).

Technology added the phrases "set it and forget it" and "one and done".

Analog (some) can chase their tail and consider that busy while innovation is onto the next goal.

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