An idea to help us escape 'the busy trap'

“I’m so busy” is the plea of most workers.

That “plea”, writer Tim Kreider says in the New York Time arises when people find they have fallen into what he calls “the busy trap”.

Tim Kreider's book,
 'We Learn Nothing'.

Kreider says that those in that “trap” is “almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence”.

Writing in the “Opinionator” in a story headed: “The ‘busy’ trap”, Kreider said that almost everyone he knows is busy.

The idea of busy is just that, an idea, and if people imagine they are busy then they are busy – it illustrates the power of ideas.

Working eight hours a day, and frequently longer, is simply an idea an idea that has perverted the human psyche and the four-hour day is just that, an idea; an idea with the power to erode the idea of ‘busy’.

Tim Kreider is the author of “We Learn Nothing.”

Jackson urges us to be less productive

Tim Jackson who has argued
that we should be less
productive.

Tim Jackson who wrote about growing less and yet still prospering. told readers of the Sunday Review in the New York Times about the need to be less productive.

In an opinion piece headed: “Let’s Be Less Productive”, Jackson wanted to know if the pursuit of labour productivity had reached its limit.

Jackson, who explored the concept earlier in his 2011 book “Prosperity Without Growth”, again encourage his reader to think about the urgency with which we appear to live; an urgency that appears to be rooted in growth.

In discussing the switch to a different economy, Jackson said:

“Of course, a transition to a low-productivity economy won’t happen by wishful thinking. It demands careful attention to incentive structures — lower taxes on labor and higher taxes on resource consumption and pollution, for example. It calls for more than just lip service to concepts of patient-centered care and student-centered learning. It requires the dismantling of perverse productivity targets and a serious investment in skills and training. In short, avoiding the scourge of unemployment may have less to do with chasing after growth and more to do with building an economy of care, craft and culture. And in doing so, restoring the value of decent work to its rightful place at the heart of society.”