Best 57 quotes in «busyness quotes» category

Inevitably we find ourselves tackling too many things at the same time, spreading our focus so thin that nothing gets the attention it deserves. This is commonly referred to as "being busy." Being busy, however, is not the same thing as being productive.

In my case, the attention deficit was all mine. I had moved to the country in order to lie down in more blessed fields, to live closer to the Divine Presence that had held me all my life, but I had once again become so busy caring for the household of God that I neglected the One who had called me there. If I still had plenty of energy for the work, that was because feeding others was still my food. As long as I fed them, I did not feel my hunger pains.

Most people’s minds are almost always too busy for them to feel their skins being caressed by the wind or the sun.

I think the church is often a culprit in the busyness, especially in the evangelical church. Again, it's part of being Americans. Part of being evangelicals too is that we're highly activist. We are always diving in, willing to solve problems, and again there's a lot good there. But we also need the theological balance that the Kingdom is not ours to bring or ours to create.

It is an oyster, with small shells clinging to its humped back. Sprawling and uneven, it has the irregularity of something growing. It looks rather like the house of a big family, pushing out one addition after another to hold its teeming life - here a sleeping porch for the children, and there a veranda for the play-pen; here a garage for the extra car and there a shed for the bicycles. It amuses me because it seems so much like my life at the moment, like most women's lives in the middle years of marriage. It is untidy, spread out in all directions, heavily encrusted with accumulations....

It's surprising how much free time and productivity you gain when you lose the busyness in your mind.

I understand our mornings can be busy; however, if we cannot make time for God now, then when?

Relationships take time, but we don’t want to take the time. In reality, too busy is a myth. People make time for the things that are really important to them.

My temptation is to tackle everything at once, or nothing at all.

Nothing consumes time like nothing.

One gets away with a lot when one is in an unchallenging relationship or is too busy to invest in one at all. Mostly, one gets away from oneself.

One of the most convicting things I have recently come to realize about Jesus is that He was never, not once, in a hurry.

People are very busy; they are so busy that when they walk in the crowds they see no one, no one but themselves; they hear no voice, no voice but their own voice!

Needs multiply as they are met. Woe to the man who would live a disentangled life. Be on guard, my soul, of complicating your environment so that you have neither time nor room for growth!

Over the slow pass of winters and summers, Amanda had grown to understand the cycles that made up small-town life. She knew that fewer tourists meant easier work for the staff, but fewer tips for the servers, and less chance of picking up extra hours. A busy summer kept everyone hopping and the tills full, but it also shifted the steady pace of life, tugging it into a frenetic rate.

Perhaps, it is not necessary to have so many things. Perhaps, it is not necessary to do so many things. Do we really need it all? Or are we drowning ourselves in things and busyness?

She was carried along by events, not reflecting on them, just letting them sweep over her.

Sometimes we feel that the busier we are, the more important we are--as though our busyness defines our worth...We can spend a lifetime whirling about at a feverish pace, checking off list after list of things that in the end really don't matter. That we do a lot may not be so important. That we focus the energy of our minds, our hearts, and our souls on those things of eternal significance--that is essential. --Joseph B. Wirthlin

The busier you are, the more intentional you must be.

The busyness of our lives can lead to imbalance if we do not take periodic breaks. This disequilibrium can put us ill at ease, making us prone to dis-ease...

Take all those things that would propose to be important, and weigh them upon the scale of your soul. Asking how much each thing actually impacts, not just the moment, but the years ahead. Discard all that is trivial masquerading as significant, and reserve your days for those things that truly matter.

The frenzy with which much of the church busies herself with things peripheral to the kingdom in a frantic attempt by her own ingenuity and effort to make God’s name holy or make his kingdom come is a sign that something is radically wrong. The church has lost connection with Christ, her living head; she has listened to the siren calls of this world; she has succumbed to the prevailing culture instead of what Christ Jesus created her to be.

The deep love that is born of friendship can too easily become stagnant when life becomes busy.

There is no social stigma attached to the frenzy, no peer motivation to slow us down. Rather it is the opposite; busy is popular currency, traded among members of modern society like a precious commodity. Busy is the silkiest cloth at the emporium, the most well-travelled spice. Living with a full schedule speedily typed into a pinging, vibrating device is a highly valued state of being. And, as with any addiction, it becomes self-perpetuating. We feel a rush from being in a rush; we take pride in the breakneck pace at which we travel through our days.

The opposite of busy in today's world is sustained, focused attention. It is deep engagement in activities that really matter to us, or in conversations with those we care about.

Time crawls when you are bored; walks when you are occupied; runs when you are busy; but flies when you are having fun.

Those who suffer suffer because hurt people hurt people, and busy people let it happen. So am I going to be busy or am I going to be brave?

There’s more to life than increasing its speed.

Time is an excuse to delay.

Unless we regain the ability to notice, to savor, we will be sucked ever more into unrewarding and unsustainable busyness." - from Busy, How to Thrive in a World of Too Much

We have become a nation of thoughtless rushers, intent on doing before thinking, and hoping what we do magically works out. If it doesn’t, we rush to do something else, something also not well thought-out, and then hope for more magic.

With text messaging and e-mails buzzing in our pockets, our constant availability for phone calls, and hot new apps and social media on our phones, we are more distracted, more unfocused and more enmeshed in sweating the small stuff than ever before. And this leads to many of us feeling like we're sprinting every day but really not getting anywhere.

What exactly did people do when they had all the time in the world and could do whatever they liked? (p 153)

When I claim more than what I can handle, I limit the opportunities for another person in my community.

When you begin to relinquish your ego, you will no longer feel compelled to prove to people how busy you are in an attempt to validate your sense of worth.

We're angry about this, upset about that, but who has the time to do anything anymore? There are those reports to report on, memos to remember, e-mails to deflect or delete. They bury us like snow.

When you're feeding the second coachload of tourists that day you aren't thinking about the birthday party for fifty next week.

Your busyness made me realize what loneliness is...

You never get time, So that you can create time.

Your busyness cannot stop God's business to save his children.

Busyness allows us to avoid the deepest questions of our souls. It keeps us at arm's length from our truest, most authentic selves. And when we don't know our deepest, most authentic selves, we can't know what work and what role God has for us in this world. In fact, when we don't know our deepest, most authentic selves, we don't really God, because it is God who creates our innermost selves, and it's God who invites this authentic self into deep relationship with him.

As kids, our stock answer to most every question was nothing. What did you do at school today? Nothing. What's new? Nothing. Then, somewhere on the way to adulthood, we each took a 180-degree turn. We cashed in our nothing for busy.

Everyone seemed to be in a blind hurry, and there was no relief in sight. Technology rushed us ever forward, and simple civility - a certain kindness and care - got sacrificed.

But if the Busyness = Status equation works, it’s strictly because a social game has emerged wherein relatively privileged, educated people with all kinds of Choice disguise their decisions to be busy as manifestations of the universe’s insatiable demand for their particular prowess. And the rest of us agree to be impressed. It’s a stupid game. We can stop any time.

Distraction leaches the authenticity out of our communications. When we are not emotionally present, we are gliding over the surface of our interactions and we never tangle in the depths where the nuances of our skills are tested and refined. A medical professor describes the easy familiarity with which her digital-native resident students master medical electronic records—but is troubled by the fact that they enter data with their eyes focused on their digital devices, not on the patient in the room with them. Preoccupation with technology acts as a screen between the student and the patient’s real emotion, real fear, and real concern. It may also prevent these residents from noticing physical symptoms that the patient fails to mention. The easy busyness of medical record entry is a way to sidestep the more challenging dynamics of human connection. But experienced physicians know that interpersonal skills are essential to mastering the art and science of medical diagnosis.

Full minds create chaos.

For lack of love one does a million other things.

He could take on anything and everything, it seemed, rather than leave himself time to reflect on his dissatisfaction with his life and what he might do about it.

If you are too busy to read, you are too busy.

I don't have any talent for vacations.