Busyness isn’t a problem - but it might be a distraction.

There’s a word that comes up in almost every conversation I have - Busy.

It rolls off the tongue without much thought.

“How are you?”   “Oh, you know… busy.”

Sometimes it feels competitive or like it’s a badge of honour or a shorthand for “I’m doing life right.” For years, I would’ve said the same. My days were full, my lists long, my calendar crammed but I’d often end those days wondering whether despite all the effort, what had I actually done that truly mattered?

Sometimes I’d tick a hundred boxes and feel empty. Other times, I’d barely ‘achieve’ anything, and yet feel calm, present, and connected to what really counts.

So I started to question whether my days were full of the right things? Or just full?

We’ve been taught to measure our value through visible output - what we produce, achieve, complete. Even in life outside work, we often measure our productivity by what we’ve cooked, cleaned, scheduled, organised.

But what about the quiet decisions, the thinking, the presence, the noticing? The invisible work of being human?

Now I see it more clearly: Being busy isn’t the problem. BUT it can be a distraction from the deeper questions. What might we be avoiding noticing by staying constantly busy?

I do believe that the pace we choose shapes how we experience our lives and the kind of future we’re creating. Pace impacts more than just our schedules. When we move fast, we live on autopilot. Our awareness narrows. We default to routine. We forget to check if the direction we’re going is still aligned. When we slow down, even briefly, we start to notice. What feels good. What feels off. Where our energy naturally wants to go.

Slow doesn’t necessarily mean lazy or unambitious or staying in our comfort zone. It means intentional. It allows space to hear our own intuition, to think creatively and make decisions from alignment, not adrenaline.

It can also shape our health, our presence in relationships, and our capacity to lead ourselves whether as parents, partners, professionals, or citizens. It even creates ripple effects because when we model a more spacious rhythm, we give others permission to do the same. That changes families. Teams. Cultures.

I think pace matters and we always have more power to shape it than we think.

I’ve been that fast paced, so-called ‘high achiever’. A friend once told me I was ‘always in the fast lane’ and at the time, I took it as a compliment. I was achieving. Delivering. Moving forward. But now I see how much I was missing.

For example, when you drive through a town at speed, you miss the details. The texture of the trees. The way the light hits the buildings. The feeling of the place. But when you slow down and, say, walk the same route, you see and experience much more.

Presence changes everything.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-busy. There are seasons for movement, action, growth.
But we can’t occupy that space forever. At some point, we need to slow down and check we’re still heading somewhere we actually want to go.

If you’ve been in the fast lane lately, and something in you is asking for space - Stop and listen

Because the right kind of productivity doesn’t burn you out.  It lights you up.