Sometimes I Tell People "I'm Busy" When I'm Really Doing Nothing

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On a good day, I get maybe 1 or 2 hours of free time each day to myself.

I wake up, take the kids to school, go to work, come home, make dinner, then spend time with the family. When that’s all done, it’s 8 PM and either bedtime or “me” time. Sometimes I go to bed. Sometimes I read. Many times I fall asleep while trying to read.

Don’t feel sorry for me. I chose this life. And life is great.

When the weekend comes around, I might not want to meet up for drinks, or go to your kid’s birthday party, or run a few non-essential errands. I think I’ve earned the right to say, “No thanks. I’m busy,” and not feel bad about it.

…even if I’m just lying on the couch doing nothing.

I spend the vast majority of my life taking care of and working for others. Curious, I decided to put how I spend my time into a pie chart.

Since there are 24 hours in a day, that means 168 hours in a week.

During the week, I went with the conservative 2 hours each day to myself (1 of which is always exercise). Regardless, that’s 10 hours.

On the weekends, I assumed a whopping 5 hours each day. Another 10 hours.

If I assume that I get 8 hours of sleep per night, that’s 56 sleeping hours each week.

So:

• 168 hours per week

• 20 spent on me

• 56 hours spent sleeping (I adjusted the graph for this)

• Which leaves 92 hours spent on others (168-20-56=92)

Maybe your graph looks similar. Maybe it doesn’t. My message is…

Who cares.

In the adult world, everyone’s busy. We all “have no time”. Some of us are full of shit. Many aren’t.

I don’t want to be one of those people who calls others out for sitting on their ass.

“Oh look at this guy. Says he’s busy but he’s just sitting on the couch staring at his phone.”

Again, it’s my (very minimal) free time, and I’ll use it however I damn well please. You are more than welcome to do the same.

Everybody needs free time. We aren’t meant to hustle and squeeze every last ounce of productivity out of every hour of the day. It’s OK to “have no time” and still do nothing.

My goal is to be happy. I don’t care about being rich (though I’m sure it would help). I don’t care about success in the same way that Elon Musk does. I just want to be happy, and I want others around me to be happy.

Sometimes, that means I’m going to sit on my ass and take a break.

Best,

Jason