Why We Over Schedule

Yesterday I wrote about using caffeine and sugar as delay tactic tools.  Today I’m sharing a third delay tactic, over scheduling.

Over scheduling is quite the excellent delay tactic as we live in a society that lends itself to convincing us that if we are over scheduled then clearly we are super cool and important.  This is a false belief.  What you actually are is over tired and ineffectual from being spread to thin with lack of appropriate attention on the items that merit it.

As Thoreau so appropriately summarized, ” It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?”

Hoffer’s quote nicely summarizes the impact of using over scheduling and the harm it does to whatever our true purpose is, “The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else- we are the busiest people in the world.”

Being “busy” and over scheduled is just a way to put off addressing what it is you truly are here to do, but may not either want to think about yet, or are delaying pursuit do to fear.

We all do it.  In some form or another we all use various delay tactics.  Stay tuned, more delay tactics to come and soon they’ll all be packaged up nicely in my latest book, Flight Delay.