How can I be less busy?

bythemethod | August 5, 2008

How busy are you? Most of us complain about how busy we are. No time to do anything – not even enough to do what we have to. There are jobs to do at work and at home. And have you ever tried bringing up four children and then have time for anything? How can I be less busy and how can I find time for anything spiritual anyway?

It was easy for my grandparents they had lots of time for stuff like spirituality

Most of us assume that there was some magical time in the past when everyone simply had more time. Life was slower and easier and people went to church and prayed and stuff because they had so much extra time.

Well I want first of all to dispel this commonly held mis-belief. The truth is that your grandparents had to work longer hours (in the main) without any labour saving devises or good public transport. We often get the impression that women in ‘olden days’ would sit around in rooms with loud ticking clocks working on their embroidery while the men would chat to their friends about business over a glass of port.

Sadly this was not reality for many people. Work was hard and long and they had few holidays and very little time. Remember also that generally families were bigger.

So how on earth did they manage to find time for anything like spirituality? And whether you agree with the way they expressed their spirituality or not people of previous generations were much more spiritual than we tend to be today.

You will always have too much to do

You need to first of all understand that there will always be too much to do. The world is jam packed with exciting things and new experiences to be had. This is a good thing. But if this means that there is always something new to do.

You will always have something to do – unless you take control of the way you use your time.

You feel guilty if you stop

You are also probably like the vast majority of people who feel guilty if they ever do anything for themselves. I know there are some people who are very selfish and you could probably list many of them right now but I’m talking about the vast majority of normal people who feel guilty about time spent on themselves.

Most people who take time off for themselves will tell you how they feel guilty taking this time away.

I’m not talking about when you leave the children with their grandparents here – grandparents love to do this kind of thing (most of them anyway).

I’m not talking about the holiday you have with the family either.

Time off for relaxation and holidays are excused because they are actually busy times. We excuse ourselves on the basis that we need the rest or it is good to spend time with the family.

I’m talking about time just for yourself. Just the kind of time you need to spend to be less busy and to have any kind of a spiritual life.

If you are ever going to be less busy you need to learn to overcome those feelings of guilt. Not making excuses – but genuinely feel that this is time well spent.

Busyness is your choice

You see being busy is a lifestyle choice. You don’t have to be so busy. Don’t make excuses about too many children or too many things to do or too much work to do. You are choosing all of these things.

I know it sounds tough but you really have to get hold of this idea. You really must understand that you are choosing to be busy.

This is not something that anyone else has made you do. This is not the fault of society or technology or your family – this is your choice.

The only way you are going to be less busy is to choose to be less busy.

Take control of your time

You need to take control of your time. Don’t let it get sucked away by things but take control of it. Tell yourself that from now on you are in control of your time – you will decide what you are going to do with it.

Some things you will have to commit time too. There are some things that just have to be done to live and they require time. But for all of us there is time that is not committed and can be spent in other ways – ways that we choose.

You don’t have to go shopping so often – you could even do it online if you wanted to. You don’t have to watch so much T.V. (a prime mover in the being busy but not actually being busy stakes). You don’t have to do so much stuff. Will it really matter if you don’t do so much cleaning (some of you reading this might need to do more cleaning so don’t use this as an excuse but there are plenty of people who spend too long over it).

I could go on but you get the point.

Perhaps somewhere out there is a person that had absolutely no time but I have not yet met any. And I’ve met some pretty busy people.

Choose to be less busy

Then you have to make a choice. You must choose to be less busy.

I’ve met plenty of well meaning people who believe that the secret to being less busy is to have a more simple life. They want us to give up all the modern conveniences so we can have more time. But it isn’t modern conveniences that use up time it’s us – me and you. Giving up computers and cars and washing machines etc won’t make us less busy.

A less busy life is not a life free from things (although they can make it much harder to be simple). It is not the things that make someone busy.

The only thing that can make you less busy is you.

Choose to be less busy so you can have a spiritual life

I’m going to be putting together some more posts that will follow on with this theme. This is a series about your spiritual life.

One of the important steps in having a spiritual life is to choose to be less busy. You are going to need time and space to build a good spiritual life and you can’t have those if you are making yourself too busy.