Not just normal busy. When people ask you how you’re doing you’re quick to respond, “I’m sooo busy!” wearing your busyness like a badge of honor. You work at a demanding job, juggle several side projects, wake up at 6am to work out, participate in a book club, volunteer, take classes, and attend networking events and wine tasting Meetups on the regular. But even without long hours at work or a plethora of organized activities, you can still find things to keep you very busy—doing errands, cleaning and decluttering, and obsessively checking email, Facebook, and Twitter to name a few.
Workaholism, compulsive busyness, and addiction to tasks and "To Do" lists are seemingly harmless ways to check-out. But they are more destructive than they appear, preventing you from being present and available to yourself, let alone to someone else. To increase your availability, leave a little room in your jam-packed schedule—it will give you the time to sit still and check-in with yourself, and the space to open up to another person.
