Busy, busy, busy: I'm so busy. But what for?

Hi there guys, I would like to talk about a behavioural trait that I have observed in two people which we really ought to avoid. It is this tendency to keep busy simply to appear busy - allow me to begin with my nephew. He recently had an economics exam and he asked if he could skip a tutorial with me so he could spend more time revising for the exam, I said no: you need the tutorial. The reason why he has tried to do that is because the tutorials with me are a stressful, difficult process: I will ask him difficult questions about economics and even if he does know the answer, I will find a different, more difficult question to test his understanding on the topic. Whereas if he was sat in his desk, staring at his economics textbook, his parents will think, "he is working so hard, he has been studying all day! What a good student he is!" He also feels that he has a clear conscience if he has been 'studying' all day - but A level economics is not an easy subject, it cannot be compared to those Magic Eye puzzles (have a look here if you're not familiar with it). Those are 3D images that will magically float out of the picture when you stare at it for long enough; my nephew isn't going to magically understand his complex syllabus if he stares at his economics textbook day and night - no, if he doesn't understand parts of the syllabus, then he needs someone like a teacher to explain the topic to him. This is why my nephew is scoring so badly in this subject despite apparently working very hard and being the model Asian student who spends so many hours revising; however, given the way he revises by staring at the textbook without being challenged if he understands what he is reading, he may as well be playing computer games or basketball, as it would still just lead to the very same result. 

I am also aghast at how his education system is still based on the belief that keeping students busy is the answer to everything. My nephew is given an insane amount of homework by his teachers and there are punishments for students who do not finish their homework. However, there are gaps in his knowledge given how challenging the A level syllabus is and instead of dedicating time to help the weaker students in class who need individual attention, the teacher simply dishes out more homework if the student doesn't perform well in tests. Their logic is that if the students are forced to do more homework, then they are forced to go through their textbooks and notes more often and thus would become more familiar with the syllabus - there is this assumption that if you do this often enough, something will just click in the students' minds and they will understand all these complex concepts. Left without the possibility of getting any help from their teachers, the weaker students are then expected to find help externally, outside the school system. In Singapore, this usually takes the form of private tuition. I am shocked that the teachers are not held to account for this ridiculous, illogical approach to the problem - that they can use this old-fashioned belief of keeping the students ridiculously busy in this day and age, when we certainly expect our teachers to be a lot better trained and more enlightened when it comes to dealing with weaker students who need extra help to get through the exams. The worst part of it all is that my nephew doesn't question the tactics of his teachers - he doesn't realize just how awful they are, he does not question the system. 

My regular readers will know about my friend 'Vera' whom I have talked about in quite a few posts - she has been stuck doing personal training for a few years now and keeps complaining that she is poor. She is in her 30s and can barely make ends meet. So what did Vera do to try to get out of poverty? She started doing a degree but good grief, the degree is in photography and she is doing it at a university which is ranked 114th out of 130 British universities. Where do I even begin? Firstly, the degree is not worth the paper it is printed on if it is from a university languishing so near the bottom of the league table at 114th position. Secondly, the art photography is changing so quickly with practically everyone having a high quality camera on their phones - the moment we see something interesting, we take out our phones instinctively to take a photo. There is money to be made in photography of course but it is the people adapting the technology for smart phones who are on the cutting edge of this technology and they are the ones making a lot of money. Vera now has this dream of becoming a famous photographer and I'm like, really? You wanna be the next Annie Leibovitz or Cindy Sherman in this day and age? I'm not saying that professional photographers are a thing of the past but it isn't exactly an easy route for Vera to pursue if she wants to make money. Look if Vera was a rich kid with parents willing to support her dreams of becoming a famous photographer, then I would mind my own business. But I know she is a woman in 30s desperate to escape her poverty, that's why I think she is barking up the wrong tree by doing this degree in photography. 

Regardless of the fact that her university is nearly at the bottom of the league tables, they do keep her very busy by giving her a lot of assignments and projects to do. I recently saw on Vera's Instagram that she had just completed a big project for her university and there was an exhibition of her work - clearly she was very proud of what she had done and posted some of the content online. I could only shake my head in disbelief, after all, Vera was doing exactly what my nephew was doing. She is keeping very busy, she is working very hard and not getting enough sleep because she is dedicating so many hours to her latest photography project but is she any closer to making any money to get her out of her dire financial situation? No, she isn't - quite the opposite in fact. Not only is this degree getting Vera further into debt, all that time she spent working on her degree is time she could have spent earning more money doing something else more productive and lucrative. But is Vera lazy per se? No she isn't, but she isn't making wise decisions about her future. However, I can see why keeping so busy gives Vera a false sense of security: as a society, we chastise those who are lazy and we praise those who are hardworking. So when Vera puts in hours of hard work to do her photography projects for university, she feels that she can say to the world, "look, I'm working so hard, praise me for my hard work!" Some people would be culturally conditioned to give her that praise on the basis of her efforts whilst others like me would be more cynical and ask,  are you getting paid for all that hard work you're doing? So what do you actually get out of it then Vera? Will that degree lead to a well paid job in the end, is your university going to help to find a job after you graduate?" 

I have actually perfected the art of 'looking busy' during my time in the army - after all, we were all paid according to our rank rather than our output, so there was zero incentive to try to be more productive or contribute more. However, being lazy, slacking off and not pulling your weight is frowned upon and could even make you deeply unpopular amongst the people you have to live and work with. In fact, if the officers thought you were just sitting around doing nothing, they might punish you by making you do something like mop the floor or clear the weeds in the car park, just to keep you occupied. Thus we had to learn how to 'look busy' to give the impression to not just our officers but to our peers that we were indeed very busy when in fact, we were doing very little. A good example of that was a project that I did to look very busy but actually accomplished nothing. My army unit was housed in a very old building that dated back to the 1960s and whilst some other units had lovely new buildings that came with loads of modern luxuries like air-conditioning, we were in this dilapidated old building. To avoid being asked to mop the floor or clear the weeds in the car park, I got the permission of my commanding officer to start a project to improve the surroundings, to make it more comfortable for everyone and there were budgets available for projects like that. So I started this project to look at what could be done with this area between the building the car park, I started drawing elaborate plans to turn that empty patch of land into a nice garden. My intention was never ever to follow through with the plans but to have something to give the impression that I was occupied with a meaningful, purposeful project - please leave me alone, don't try to get me involved in anything else!

Before I could turn that patch of land into a beautiful garden, in order to decide what kind of plants would suit that landscape, I had to consult all the senior officers as the garden was for them. So the consultation process took forever as some of those officers had strong opinions about what their ideal garden would be - don't forget, this is Singapore where 80% of the population lives in HDB flats, for most of these officers, this was their first time when someone told them, "we're making a garden for you, what would you like to see in it?" Oh they couldn't resist and some wanted loads of flowers, others wanted a Japanese rock garden, one officer even wanted to see fruit trees and local vegetables grown to reflect a traditional farm. So in order to give each idea a fair chance, I would create a tiny sample to showcase each idea: so for the flower garden, I was given money to buy a pot of orchids. For the Japanese rock garden, I procured the budget to make a sample rock garden that measured 25 cm x 25 cm only and for the farm idea, I simply planted a few tomato plants. Oh I knew exactly how to string it out to make it look like it was work in progress - even when the officers gravitated towards the Japanese rock garden idea, then I would say, "there are different kinds of Japanese rock garden designs - I must go to the library to do some research on what can be done in this space." Oh we didn't have the internet to just look up images on Google back in the mid-90s, so I had to go to the library of course, where I spent so many hours sleeping on a big pile of books about Japanese culture. The garden was never completed and thus I simply passed the garden project on to someone else to take over when I completed my national service, in full confidence that he would never complete it either. The project was never to create a beautiful garden - it was merely an act, a cunning ruse. 

My uncompleted garden project was a cynical (and successful) attempt to convince those around me in the army that I was too busy to be asked to help with anything, so people would leave me alone. It worked shockingly well - I shouldn't have been able to get away with it but it worked. But in this case, I had complete self-awareness that I was nothing more than a fraudster and a liar trying to mislead the officers I worked for in the army. In Vera's case, the sad thing is that the only person she is trying to mislead is herself - her parents are not looking over her shoulder and asking her what to do with her life, if she was being lazy or busy; not at her age, she is already in her 30s. If she makes a very bad decision, there simply isn't a parent or adult in her life to hold her to account and force her to take responsibility for it. Whereas in my nephew's case, there's an element of him fooling himself but he is also socially conditioned to show his parents that he is a hard working person who is studying hard, because in our culture, we tend to reward this kind of behaviour. No one questions however if him staring at the economics textbook is a good use of his time or not, they tend to have this very simplistic "studying hard = very good boy, playing computer games = very naughty boy" attitude. I do know where this attitude has come from: when I was a teenager, my parents were not educated enough to help me with my school work but they knew that if I was at home studying, I was not hanging out at the shopping mall, getting up to no good. They placed a lot of emphasis on the act of studying and it was seen as an act of discipline, of denying yourself the right to enjoy fun leisure activities, but they could never actually evaluate if I actually spent that study time productively or not. 

This reminds me of a skit by one of my favourite comedians Pam Ann - her real name is Caroline Reid but Pam Ann is her alter-ego where she plays the cabin crew from hell. One of her most memorable skits is about how she can pretend to look busy whilst ignoring passengers. I actually found that skit on Youtube (see below) but that's what happens when people are placed in a position where their salary is not dependent on their productivity, so they end up trying to do as little as possible whilst still getting away with it.  My regular readers will know that I have just started a new job - as a business development consultant, my job is essentially to help the company find more clients and make more money. So one of my first tasks is to make a list of ten things I want to do to help increase our business; my bosses don't care how much (or little) effort I put into coming up with that list, as long as enough items on that list do generate some decent results. Welcome to the real business world, where we are evaluated on our results and not our efforts. To be honest, I spent no more than 30 minutes coming up with that list and whilst I have a draft of it, I probably will then spend another hour typing it up into a proper report. I don't think my new boss will care how I present those ideas, as long as they are good ideas that will work well. I was promised a big bonus if my ideas could deliver brilliant results and therein lies my incentive to succeed rather than just 'look busy'. By the same token, if none of those ideas worked, well then I would be sacked - it is as simple as that. My new employers are paying me to succeed, not to try extremely hard only to fail. In sharp contrast, there are environments of course (like the army), where you can simply coast along and look busy but do I want to see my nephew end up in a job like that? Of course not, perhaps I'm biased, but I do want the very best for him.

Allow me now to talk about this guy at my gymnastics club: we'll call him Ali (not his real name). Ali would love to be able to do all these difficult gymnastics tricks but he is very afraid of falling - oh dear. Not a good start for a gymnast. When we're learning new skills, you're never going to get it on the first attempt. You're going to fall on your head, your face, your ass, your stomach, your backside, your knees - you're going to fall in ways you never knew possible until finally, you figure it out and land on your feet. Ali doesn't want to go through all that, so he avoids it each time by saying, "oh my arms are not strong enough, I am going to do some exercises to strengthen my arms before coming back to this skill." Or "oh I am not flexible enough to do this skill, I need to go stretch now." Each time he falls, he makes a mistake to run away and do something less scary that doesn't involve the possibility of falling again. If I see Ali in the gym, I am always seeing him doing something like stretching or doing strength exercises - anything but actually training the skills he is trying to learn. So is Ali lazy? No, he is turning up at the gym regularly and when he is in the gym, he is always occupied, he is always doing something (unlike some of the people who turn up and spend half their time there on their phones, don't even get me started). So by that token, Ali is definitely always busy in the gym but is he actually productive? Is he making any progress? Is he learning any new skills? No, he isn't, because despite being 'very busy' in the gym, he is anything but productive and on top of that, he wouldn't listen to anyone's advice. After all, he is an adult, I can't tell him what to do. 

I predict that Ali would eventually give up on gymnastics and that's fine - evidently, it's not the right sport for him, but for people like Vera - I don't even think that people like her can be helped. You can bring a horse to water but you can't make it drink. I don't even understand what is going on in her mind; it's not like her parents are going to give her any money if she appears to be busy. No, it is something she isn't doing for monetary reward - a friend commented, "oh at least I hope she is having fun doing a degree in something she enjoys and is passionate about. Perhaps it makes her happy and surely that's a good enough reason for her to do it then?" I had to point out that there is a massive difference between having a hobby that you do on the weekends and a 3-year degree programme that stops you from working full time. If Vera was as rich as the Kardashians, then yeah you could do a degree for fun, just to challenge yourself - that's exactly why Kim Kardashian is doing a law degree; it's not like she has any intention to pursue a career in law. After all, she is married to Kayne West and currently has a net worth of about one billion (not million, but billion) US dollars - this woman is so rich she clearly doesn't need a degree, but for some reason, she feels she has a point to prove by studying law. But clearly, as a woman who is struggling to make ends meet, Vera doesn't have that luxury. After all, I do know what it is like to be poor, I grew up in a poor family and that's why I think Vera's priorities are totally wrong - she should be a lot more focused on improving her financial situation, rather than simply being busy for the sake of feeling good about being busy. 

Even I am still culturally conditioned to believe in the value of 'looking busy' - allow me share with you what happened yesterday. As you know, I have just started my new job and I am not confident enough yet to promptly leave the office when I want to, whilst I have others who would simply say, "it is going to rain very heavily, I'm going to go home before the rain starts." I felt tempted to do the same yesterday but that would have meant leaving the office before 4 pm and I thought, how would that look? I had a long list of things I had to do of course and quite honestly, I could have left at 3:30 pm to work from home if it meant avoiding the heavy rain that was due to start at about 4 pm - parts of London received one month's rain in just 24 hours. I hesitated and thought I would chance it with the rain; in the end I went home in the middle of a torrential downpour at 5:30 pm, kicking myself: why didn't I just go home early like everyone else? Why did I feel compelled to stay in the office knowing the storm was on the way? My common sense told me that it made complete sense to go home before that big storm arrived but there was a part of me that was worried what others may think if I had left the office so early. In hindsight of course, I don't think my directors would have cared what time I left the office, they would be far more concerned about how productive I was in terms of getting all those things on my 'to-do' list done and what kind of results I will be able to generate in the short run - if I am able to hit the ground running, or if I am struggling. 

So there you go, that's it from me on this issue, what do you think? Why are we culturally conditioned to look busy? Why do we make the assumption that someone who is busy is always more productive? Is this about the image we're trying to show others, the impression we're trying to give them? Or is this more a crutch that we use to assure ourselves that we're on the right path, that we're not lazy? How do we break out of this cycle of feeling the need to look busy and focus instead of being productive? What is behind this mindset? Please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.