For over twenty years, I've been ‘busy’
Is it good to be busy all the time? For me, it might be.
For over two decades, when someone has asked me how I am, my reply has been ‘busy’. Recently, I’ve been thinking about this a lot.
When I was in my twenties and I’d had a big night, I’d always do some cleaning before going to bed: I knew I wouldn’t enjoy it in the moment, but I’d appreciate it in the morning. I called this ‘a gift to my future self’.
Until recently, I didn’t see the connection between always being always busy and these gifts to my future self.
Busy in the past
Let’s backtrack a bit.
I made my first webpage at the end of the 90s. In 2000, I began regularly creating and sharing artwork and stories online. I became very busy.
I soon set a fortnightly schedule of putting new animations or games online, alongside working on a PhD. I ran my own merchandise business, and a community forum with at a couple of thousand members… And I started this newsletter somewhere around then too!
After seven years, I completed that PhD study and moved to the mainstream games industry. I kept on making a twice-weekly webcomic for another eight-ish years, while having a full time job and moving country.
Busy in the present
I’m seeking an agent for my debut horror novel, editing a second one, and writing this newsletter every week. I’m a professor and consultant/freelance writer/designer with the video game industry, and running millions of Euros of research projects for my day job.
In short, over two decades later I’m still busy.
This leads me to wonder whether I’m doing life right.
Should I always be so busy?
Surely there should be a goal or end point or big sense of achievement or… something? Surely there should be a point where I slow down or even stop? Why do I keep going?
It may be worth noting here that I’m technically on holiday while typing this for you to read.
I’ve learnt this about myself: I don’t feel okay if I’ve not got a big long-term project.
During my 20s, that was my part-time PhD, my 30s had commercial video game projects for other companies and then Fragments of Him, and now I have novels and research projects.
Notice how the big goals aren’t about money or fame. They don’t rely on competition with others. They are things I can do without domination or bending the world to my way.
Big goals give me a sense of direction and purpose, but they also mean I rarely truly rest. There’s always something to be done.
My adult life has been delineated with external and personal deadlines, daily writing goals, project deliverables, and more.
It probably sounds exhausting to most people, but projects can bring energy if you set the right goals.
What kind of achievement is satisfying?
Looking back, I’ve often been in the right place at the wrong time.
For example, with my old website, the online advertising world wasn’t set up for my big-but-not-mammoth visitor count, and places like Redbubble didn’t exist so I had to run every step of the merchandising chain myself from a tiny cheap bedsit in Winchester. Good numbers, good content, good ideas, but the systems weren’t there. Right place, but the wrong time to be able to truly hit it big.
But still…
If I’d had some sort of enormous commercial success, would I feel like I could slow down?
Somehow I doubt it.
My friends tell me I’m an almost ridiculous over-achiever: worked on multiple major games and franchises, internet-famous in the 2000s and with two series broadcast on MTV2, PhD and tenured university professor, internationally known speaker about diversity and ethics, circus performer, and so on.
It doesn’t feel that way to me.
For example: even though it’s not published, I’ve at least written a novel. That’s huge! It’s something many people dream of doing but don’t sit down and actually do. To me, it felt natural: it was something I wanted to do, a logical progression of interests and skills, so I took the necessary steps to do it.
It doesn’t feel BIG, it’s just cool and satisfying to do.
More accurately, it’s satisfying to have done. That’s what achievement really looks like.
This is a key part of real achievement: I do things in the present because I know in the future I’ll be pleased I did them. I look back on the last 20+ years and I’m happy I did so many things.
It’s not always fun being busy all the time, but I really like having done things.
Perhaps there is a happy middle place — lots of busy-time, but also down-time. I’ve not found it yet.
Do things you want to remember
The psychologist and economist Daniel Kahneman talked about the present-self and the remembering-self. The self that exists in the moment has one form of fleeting experience, but a vast part of ourselves is shaped by our memories of past experiences.
I believe unconsciously, when I was young, I chose to focus on activities, such as creating art and stories, which my remembering-self would be happy to cherish. On a lifetime-scale, we’re back to those ‘gifts to my future self’.
Doing nothing feels wrong. This life we have is precious. Filling it with activities, to be always ‘busy’, could be a stressful burden, but I’ve always strived to follow passions and interests that delight my future remembering-self.
… And in some ways, I’m driven by fear. I fear regret.
It terrifies me to think, in the future, I might regret my choices and the life I’ve lived. I keep doing things to make future-me proud.
This is why I try to let kindness to myself and others guide me. Everything else leads to regret.
‘Overloaded’ versus ‘occupied’
This makes me wonder whether I use ‘busy’ too broadly.
‘Busy’ can mean ‘near overloaded’, and I’ve used it that way plenty of times, but at other times it can mean ‘happily occupied’.
For the future, I want to move the needle so it points to ‘happily occupied’ much more often than ‘near overloaded’.
Find what will make you happy to have done it
Take a look at what takes your time each day and week, and try to find where you might create these gifts for your future.
A bunch of my week’s tasks are life-admin of sorts: laundry, cooking, and other necessary things I share with my partner. Frame these in your mind not as obstacles but instead as necessary parts of supporting you to do things you want to achieve.
What will you look back on from 2024 and say ‘I’m happy I did that?’.
For me, working on my writing (in this newsletter, novels, screenwriting, and video games) is the gift I’m making for myself. It’s a skill I take great pleasure in developing.
You don’t have to know where things will lead
I just see what looks like fun and then dip into it, getting started whether I know where I’m going or not. Let curiosity guide you, not money or success.
Find a skill you want to gain or a milestone you want to reach, then take steps towards it. It might take you months or years, but seeing yourself move incrementally closer will always feel good. Let yourself feel happy about progress, no matter how big or how small.
Be kind to yourself and others.
Before you go:
This was a bit different to the usual stuff I write on here. It was a bit more ‘productivity and living well’ focused. For me, this is an important part of being creative, writing, and being happy, but I’m wondering if you want to occasionally see more things like this?
Comments are open and welcome :)
See you next week!
Mata xxx