How To Stop Being So Busy And Finally Find Some Free Time
You can clear your schedule without sacrificing anything
“The discontent and frustration you feel is entirely your own creation.”
― Stephen Richards
Part 1: Why You Are So Busy
If you’re reading this article, you’re probably a very busy person — and you don’t like it. Your schedule is jam-packed with meetings, work, and other obligations, and you’d like nothing more than to just take a day off.
Which is why you probably won’t like it when I tell you the truth:
You’re busy because you choose to be busy.
You chose it for good reasons, of course. You feel everything you do on a given day is worth doing, or you wouldn’t do it.
But just because you feel they’re worth doing, doesn’t mean they are worth doing. You only think they are because you believe in common misconceptions about productivity.
Most people believe a lot of misconceptions about productivity. They think the most productive people are the ones who are working all the time. In reality, though, the most productive people work less than everyone else, not more. As a result, they get to enjoy more free time than busy people.
How do I know? Because I’m obsessed with not being busy.
My desire to avoid busyness and have tons of free time has shaped my entire life.
Twelve years ago (when I was just 13 years old), I had a thought: If I can learn to do more with one hour, I’ll have to do school work fewer and fewer hours, and I’ll have more and more free time.
As a kid who hated school, this realization was the best news I’ve ever heard. I went to my dad’s office, stole his copy of The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People, and read it in a day.
Reading it caused me to have another, equally important thought: When I grow up and get a job, if I am very very good at being productive, I don’t have to work any more than I want.
That one spectacular realization changed my life.
It inspired me to spend the next decade or so reading book after book about productivity and entrepreneurship. It inspired me to practice entrepreneurship when I was just fourteen and fifteen, leading me to found my own startup when I was still in high school. And it inspired me to become a productivity writer, bringing all this information to you.
So trust me when I say I’m obsessed with not being busy. I’ve structured my entire life around it.
Without further ado, here’s what I’ve learned:
3 Key Truths About Productivity People With Free Time Know
People with free time know these truths about productivity:
You are not obligated to go to anything, even if you feel like you are. If you spend two hours out of every week at a University study group, you are making a choice to be there. If you always show up to a weekly after-hours work event, even when you don’t want to, you are still making a choice to be there. People with free time know they are not obligated to go to anything that doesn’t make their life better, even if other people shame them for it.
Every commitment comes with an opportunity cost. If you commit to attending class, going to Spanish club, and then going out to the bars with friends, you’re implicitly committing to not go to the gym, not spend time with your family and children, and not get adequate rest and relaxation. People with free time know what they’re choosing and what they’re not choosing.
You are not a failure for saying “no.” In America, we’re made to feel that letting an opportunity at work or home go by without saying “yes” is tantamount to being lazy or a failure. People with free time know that the opposite is true — that the most successful people are those who strategically use their time only on what matters most.
These beliefs are powerful in our culture, but they’re just that. Beliefs. While there are a lot of people pressuring us to live this way, no one is making us live this way.
If we want to be less busy, all we need to do is choose that for ourselves.
Part 2: How To Choose To Be Less Busy
If you're busy and no longer want to be, getting un-busy is usually pretty easy. All you have to do is take a hard look at everything in your life and decide which things you want to get rid of.
How To Decide If Something Is Worth Your Time
To aid that process, here are some questions you can ask yourself to determine if something is worth your time.
What would happen if I didn’t go this one time? Would you fail an assignment? Fail a class? Hurt a friend? Or, would it be no big deal? Would life go on without anyone caring much at all?
There are many people who feel obligated to go to something simply because they were invited. But in reality, while the people who invite you to events certainly want you there, it probably won’t break their hearts if you don’t go. If you need to get work done or rest, it is usually best you do that instead of going out for the evening.
What consequences would I face if I gave up this obligation? Would it place people in a difficult position? Would it cause harm in their lives? Or, would it just cause them to feel sad or let down?
For instance, an example of an obligation that we must keep attending is work. We need to go to work because we need money to not die. But many people feel obligated to go to things like Spanish club or swing dancing night — but if you stopped going to Spanish club, nothing would happen other than your Spanish skills getting rusty.
What am I giving up to do this? Am I just doing this with some spare time? Or am I sacrificing something important, like my physical health or quality time with my spouse?
Every time you carve out space in your life to something, you are taking away from something else. What are you taking away from? Is it what you want to be taking away from? In order for you to know whether your choice is worth it, you must know what you’re giving up to make it.
For instance, many people go out to bars with their friends on weekends at the expense of getting good quality sleep on the weekends. Or, they volunteer to do small tasks for their boss at the expense of getting important deep work done. Like I said, everything comes with a cost.
The good news is there are some changes you can make to be less busy that, once they’re pointed out to you, are fairly easy to make.
3 Changes You Can Make So You Are Less Busy
Here are the kinds of things you might want to cut out of your life:
Friendships that are draining you. If the notion of spending time with a particular friend is consistently more draining than it is exciting, you may want to reassess the friendship. Friendships should feel like blessings, not obligations.
Work commitments that are not pushing you forward. Thanks to the 80/20 rule, we know that 80% of our results come from 20% of our efforts. High performers know this, which is why many high performers do not work long hours. But thanks to hustle culture, most people feel like they should be working 10 hour days lest they are thought of as lazy — and fill those 10 hour days with activities from the 80% that has little to no impact. Cut out the 80%, and you get back a lot of time at very little cost.
Hobbies that are hurting you. There are a lot of hobbies out there that harm you far more than they help, like drinking on the weekends, spending half your day watching Netflix, scrolling social media, and playing video games. Giving up hobbies like these is a great way to reclaim time and health.
Critical readers will probably tell me my viewpoint is privileged. After all, some people are so poor they don’t have the luxury of cutting anything out; they need to work three jobs to make ends meet. Therefore, my recommendation to “cut something out” comes from the privileged viewpoint of someone who has the luxury of having chaff from which to chop.
Interestingly enough, though, I’ve yet to have one of these poor people comment on an article of mine. An army of social justice warriors is ready to step in and defend their honor, but the actual people who need defending are nowhere to be seen.
The people stepping in to defend their honor, however, are typically people with plenty of room to make cuts.
Consider a college student that spends most of her time working and studying, with two or three social outings a week to bars or to get lunch with people. She may think she has no room to make cuts in her life, but in reality, the time she spends at bars and at lunch with people (travel time included) is actually quite a few hours. Eliminating just one of those bar trips would give her back six or seven hours she could spend sleeping or otherwise catching up on self-care.
Does living like a machine who never goes out with their friends sound kind of depressing? Sure. I wouldn’t fault anyone for not making that choice. But the whole point of this article is to force you to recognize that the way you spend your time is, actually, a choice. Self-delusion is the enemy of growth.
People with busy lives often feel their time is out of their control, but it’s not true. Once you accept the way you spend your time is your choice, entirely under your control, you don’t have to be busy anymore. You can choose what matters to you and what does not, and focus only on what does.
When you do, you’ll become more productive and less busy faster than you can believe.
“When it comes right down to it, the challenge of mindfulness is to realize that “this is it.” Right now is my life. And I accept that.”
— Jon Kabat-Zinn
Want to 10x Your Productivity?
If you want to stop wasting time and finally start getting stuff done, my free course 10x Your Productivity is what you need.
