Dr. Hallowell writes in “CrazyBusy,”
“You can feel like a tin can surrounded by a circle of a hundred powerful magnets,” he writes. “Many people are excessively busy because they allow themselves to respond to every magnet: tracking too much data, processing too much information, answering to too many people, taking on too many tasks — all in the sense that this is the way they must live in order to keep up and stay in control. But it’s the magnets that have the control.”
One way to wrestle back control is to take a hard look at our priorities, he said, “to decide what matters.” This does not necessarily mean big career changes or moving from Manhattan to rural Vermont. It can also be figuring out in small, but significant ways how to scale down frantic to manageable.