The Psychology of Busy

Chris Brogan today writes, “You’re Not As Busy As You Think.” “Busy,” Brogan suggests, could be a psychological pattern of avoiding some things (“all the tasks I can’t seem to master in life, like paying bills on time”) or seeking other things in ways that may not be so practical and may not even be consciously acknowledged (visibility and feedback are two things we may spend time seeking without any particular purpose in mind).

In economic theory, the way to be less busy is to drop work on low-priority objectives. This requires recognizing the low-priority objectives in your work, which is not always easily done. Brogan suggests that you look at the things you do over and over again, and “Ask yourself quite honestly what purpose this activity serves.”

December is the busiest month for many people, and most of the time pressure that people face is unnecessary. During December I’ll be offering several ideas of simple ways to be less busy.

Open Thread and Request for Stories, Questions, and Photos

I am happy to see comments on my blog, and I am adding this “Open Thread” post to make it easier to discuss issues that aren’t so specifically related to the topic of a specific post.

Today Is “One Day”

Today is One Day.

The day can be written is 11/11/11 or 11-11-11, in all ones, so if any day can stake a claim as being One Day, surely this is it.

I just thought I’d mention this in case there is anything you said you would do “one day,” that you still haven’t done. Today is the day!

Starting a New Chapter

My new experience as a novelist has persuaded me that we have a greater capacity for change than we give ourselves credit for. If we are willing to apply a disciplined imagination to one specific change at a time, I believe we can make changes one after another, day after day, just as a novelist might write a new chapter in a novel every day.

Read about this in the Shamanic Economist blog: “Starting a New Chapter, Today.”

“Maybe Things Will Get Better Next Year”

People who follow U.S. economic policy saw two threshold moments today.

This morning, it was a speech from the head of the Federal Reserve Bank, who for the first time suggested that the economy might improve faster if the causes of its problems could be addressed.

Then tonight, the president addressed Congress with a call-to-action speech on the economy. Even with all the advance billing the speech got, it was startling to see from a president who until today had seemed content to just muddle through.

Self-Storage and the Endowment Effect

The BBC News Magazine story “The Self-Storage Craze” deconstructs the decision-making process that leads people to store possession they don’t use in storage lockers for months or years on end, at considerable cost.

Writers Tom de Castella and Kate Dailey go through some of the familiar mechanisms that make people save things they don’t like enough to have around the house: sentimental attachment, putting off the tough decisions about what to keep, a touch of confusion over the actual costs involved. But they also touched on one that I hadn’t really thought about.

Letting Something Decay Is Not the Same As Wearing It Out

Ask the average person what happens to most of their stuff, and they’ll tell you they use it up and wear it out. That actually doesn’t happen nearly as often as we think it does. One reason we think we wear out our stuff is that we give ourselves credit for wearing things out when we didn’t really. If we want to be more realistic about it, there is a difference to be seen between wearing something out through repeated use, and allowing it to decay through lack of use and the passage of time.

Lessons From the Clutter of Divorce

Today at Intent.com, the Forbes Sisters write about the emotional difficulties of the stuff that can be left behind after a divorce in “Divorce and Clutter Clearing: The Process of Letting Go.” The story about the wedding dress is especially relevant for anyone faced with cleaning up during or after a divorce, but it illustrates several other important points that are relevant to all of us.