0:00

At the crossroads of artistic insight

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and intellectual curiosity, we find the

0:05

Edge of Reason. Dive

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into the heart of artistic inspiration,

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rooted in Enlightenment thinking, and discover

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how contemporary creators are holding

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a mirror up to society to reflect

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who we are, where we've been, and

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where we're headed. Join me,

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Jeff Chang, at the Edge of

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Reason, a new limited podcast from

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Atlantic Rethink, the branded content studio

0:27

at The Atlantic, and Hauser and

0:29

Wirth. Ian,

0:32

I was having lunch with a friend

0:34

last weekend who was trying

0:36

to organize a birthday party for her

0:38

colleague. Okay, great. Typical

0:42

story, she said she was

0:44

having trouble gathering everyone because

0:47

everyone was too busy and it was

0:49

impossible to get them to commit. Of

0:52

course. But my favorite

0:54

part was that she said one person in

0:56

the group said she couldn't

0:58

make it because she had to go to Crate

1:00

and Barrel that night. She

1:03

had to go to Crate and Barrel? She had to go to

1:05

Crate and Barrel at 7 p.m. on a Friday. That

1:07

was already in her schedule. She had a

1:09

flatware appointment? Wow.

1:12

When people say they're busy, I assume it's

1:15

for work, but these kinds of

1:18

reasons I just don't

1:20

understand because collectively, the highest

1:23

earning Americans, especially men on average,

1:26

have been working less hours. So

1:29

how can it be that everyone is busy

1:32

to this extent? And with

1:34

what? I just don't know. Yeah,

1:37

we're not just busy because of

1:39

work though. It's something else too.

1:41

I'm Bekah Rasheed, producer and co-host of

1:44

the How To Series. And I'm Ian

1:46

Bogost, co-host and contributing writer at

1:48

The Atlantic. This is How to Keep Time. I've

2:01

been reading a little about this

2:03

idea called action addiction and

2:06

I should say here that this

2:08

isn't necessarily, you know, fully accepted

2:10

in the behavioral psychology community. There's

2:12

a lot of dispute about what

2:15

kind of behavioral addictions really

2:17

exist. But the idea

2:19

behind action addiction is that, you

2:22

know, beginning a new task, any kind

2:24

of task, whatever it is, releases

2:27

a little dopamine in your

2:29

brain the same way that, you

2:31

know, the pulling the slot machine lever does. And

2:35

in the same way that all behavioral

2:37

compulsions do, that feeling decays

2:40

and then you long for more.

2:42

And that's filling our time too,

2:44

that desire for novel feelings, novel

2:46

sensations which we pursue instead of

2:48

going out to dinner with our friends. Right. And

2:51

I feel like many of us say we

2:53

don't have time for other people or wish

2:55

we had more time for a social life.

2:58

But it feels like there's some

3:00

compulsion to stay busy

3:03

with random tasks and chores to

3:05

the point of making ourselves unavailable.

3:08

Yeah. I wonder if that unavailability, being unavailable

3:10

is almost like a point of pride. Oh,

3:12

yeah. Or a way to just

3:14

signal to each other, sorry, I

3:17

have better things to do. You

3:19

should have gotten on my calendar earlier if you

3:21

wanted to pay me. I wonder how

3:23

this happened. You know, like if

3:25

it's become normalized to appear busy

3:27

culturally, when did it become accepted?

3:30

Mm hmm. Why is busyness supposedly

3:33

a show of importance when it

3:35

just feels pretty terrible

3:37

actually? Right.

3:40

So, Becca, I talked to Niro Paharia a few weeks

3:43

ago. She's a consumer

3:45

marketing professor at Arizona State

3:47

University and she studies busyness.

3:51

Time has this property

3:53

of being scarce.

3:55

So if you think about luxury products,

3:57

most of their value is in the

3:59

market. value is not functional

4:02

and instead is purely symbolic. She

4:05

had some revealing things to say about the ways

4:07

that time can be a type of social asset.

4:11

So if you think about, for example,

4:13

a diamond ring has actually no intrinsic

4:16

value. So then the question is, why

4:18

do people spend so much money on

4:20

something that has no value? And

4:23

it turns out there's a lot of psychological

4:26

value in something like a diamond. When

4:36

we think about products that are scarce, there

4:38

are very few of them out there. So

4:40

people really want them. When

4:42

we think about a person as being

4:44

scarce, then we think of

4:46

scarcity in terms of time. So how

4:49

much time do you have? Well,

4:51

if you have very little time,

4:53

then you in and of yourself

4:56

are somewhat of a scarce resource. And

4:59

then people might come to feel

5:01

that you're more valuable or have

5:03

more social status. So if

5:06

you say, for example, try and schedule

5:08

a meeting with somebody and

5:10

they tell you, well, I have about 15 minutes

5:12

at 4.15, two months from now. That

5:17

is a very clear indication

5:19

to the receiver of that

5:21

proposition that they must be

5:23

important. Or

5:25

if you go to a doctor and you can

5:27

get an appointment today, your inference again might be,

5:33

well, they must not be very good because

5:35

they're not in demand. Is

5:37

this a uniquely American phenomenon?

5:40

Are there other cultures

5:42

where busyness has the same

5:45

social status as it does in America?

5:48

We ran studies in both the

5:50

US and we ran studies in

5:52

Italy. So in Italy,

5:54

there is more of the sense

5:57

of status that the wealthy can

5:59

do. both waste time and

6:01

waste money and

6:03

that you gain

6:05

your social status from your family

6:07

and your family name as opposed

6:09

to the US where you gain

6:11

your social status by working hard,

6:14

earning a lot of money and kind of

6:16

climbing the ladder in that way. And

6:19

what we found was that in the

6:21

US, a very busy person

6:23

was seen to have more social status

6:25

than a less busy person. But

6:27

in Italy, it was the exact opposite. So

6:29

there, the person who had

6:31

time for leisure was seen as having

6:34

more social status than the person who

6:36

had to work. And so

6:38

that sort of reflects the more traditional idea

6:41

that if you're really wealthy, you don't

6:43

have to work. You have social status

6:45

in terms of having money and you

6:48

have social status because you have so

6:50

much time. People who

6:52

have less resources have to work to

6:55

buy food, to have housing, they

6:57

have to work and therefore the

6:59

busy people are a

7:01

lower social status. I mean, you've

7:03

looked into this in your work around the kind

7:06

of humble bragging that people do around their busyness.

7:08

Can you tell us a little about that? So

7:11

humble bragging is a brag

7:13

disguised as a complaint. So

7:15

I sometimes will just

7:18

notice what people are posting on Facebook.

7:20

And one person said something

7:23

like, I had a meeting

7:25

in DC this morning and then I

7:27

had lunch in New York in the

7:29

afternoon in Boston for dinner for another

7:31

meeting. I'm so exhausted. I thought,

7:34

wow, that like, what is the point

7:36

of that post? What

7:40

is the point of that post? Why would

7:42

we want to brag about not having free

7:44

time? Isn't that what we want

7:46

in theory? I can speak a

7:48

little bit to the historical context of it.

7:50

So there was a theory

7:53

many years ago by this gentleman

7:55

named Thorstein Beblin and

7:57

he talked about how the wealthy. have

8:00

both money to waste and time

8:02

to waste. So you can waste

8:04

your money on luxury products, gemstones,

8:06

etc. That kind of stuff. And

8:09

you can waste your time on

8:13

learning how to ride horses and

8:15

learning these very intricate mannerisms of

8:17

where the fork and the knives

8:19

and all that stuff goes. So

8:22

his theory was that the very

8:24

wealthy and the very high status

8:26

people have so

8:28

many resources that they could both waste

8:30

their money and their time. That

8:34

has evolved, at least in

8:36

American culture, where having

8:38

less time is seen as valuable. And

8:40

I think a lot of that has

8:42

come from our

8:44

sense of social mobility,

8:46

this belief that you can work

8:49

hard and climb the

8:51

ladder. I'm thinking

8:53

back to the diamonds, you need resources

8:55

to buy them. But I could

8:57

just pretend like I'm more

9:00

busy than I really am, which might

9:02

make myself appear more important. Do people

9:04

run that kind of calculus? Are people

9:06

thinking about their time in

9:08

that way? Yeah, so

9:10

you're asking to what extent

9:13

are people strategically doing this?

9:15

Right. I think people are

9:17

doing it, not

9:19

necessarily with a full

9:21

consciousness that, hey, you know what, I'm going

9:23

to say I'm busy because I want people

9:25

to think I'm important. But

9:27

sometimes these things kind

9:30

of linger in our consciousness right below

9:32

the surface. People are

9:34

motivated to be busy, because

9:38

they're not only signaling

9:40

to other people that they're important, but

9:43

they're signaling to themselves that they're important.

9:48

So Ian, I guess it makes

9:50

sense to me that we have

9:52

some innate desire to feel important

9:54

and valued by society's standards. But

9:57

I also wonder if people have

9:59

adjusted their levels of busyness since

10:01

the pandemic. I mean, I would think

10:03

that some of that compulsion to

10:05

use every minute of our time productively

10:08

or for some future goal is

10:10

a reaction to when we couldn't

10:12

go out, you know,

10:14

socialize like normal. Oh, that's

10:16

so interesting, Becca. So maybe some

10:19

part of this busyness thing is to make

10:21

up for that time we feel like we

10:23

lost. It's really tragic to

10:25

think about it that way, isn't it? Yeah.

10:28

You know, the pandemic was highly traumatic

10:30

and confusing, but it happened

10:32

and to continue to obsess over the

10:35

lost time and then to lose more

10:37

time trying to recuperate it is almost

10:39

worse. Maybe it's also

10:41

because we are conditioned to feel like

10:44

a busy person, you know, that kind of like

10:46

busy bee persona where you're always buzzing your way

10:48

out and getting things done. And

10:51

I certainly feel that way,

10:53

that that's a virtue I'm supposed to

10:55

pursue. I have like, I

10:57

don't know, half a dozen different roles at

11:00

the university, at the Atlantic, in my home

11:02

life. It certainly makes me appear busy.

11:05

It makes me feel busy. And it's

11:08

sometimes I wonder, am I

11:10

busy in a good way or

11:12

do I just appear busy?

11:14

You know, that it's easy to look busy by

11:17

just doing a ton of things that matter.

11:20

Right. And that doesn't seem to

11:22

match the spirit of what we mean

11:24

or what we think we mean when we

11:26

talk about a busy person who's productive and that's

11:29

why they're busy. Right. And it

11:31

seems like the doing it well is not

11:33

the point. Right. And I was curious to

11:35

ask Nero about that, about what it feels like,

11:37

what can happen when busyness starts to just completely

11:39

take over. There's

11:42

this tendency to

11:44

want to overschedule yourself.

11:47

And it could be coming from, I want

11:51

to feel important. I want other people to

11:53

feel that I'm important. There's

11:55

some existential dread of too much idleness,

11:58

you know, if I have to. much

12:00

time, you know, you might

12:02

go to dark places. I think a lot

12:04

of people do try and keep themselves busy

12:07

because it's a distraction, you know,

12:09

from maybe some of the bigger

12:13

existential questions that

12:15

would arise about our life here on

12:17

Earth and the time that we spend

12:19

here. So creating a

12:21

sense of busyness for yourself can lead

12:24

to a feeling that you yourself have sort

12:27

of a reason to be in a way.

12:30

Is there a way to stop normalizing busyness

12:32

as an excuse? I

12:36

feel like one of the things I

12:39

think would be to reflect

12:41

back and think about is

12:45

it making you happy? Is it

12:47

making you happy to overschedule yourself

12:49

if that is in fact what

12:51

you're doing or are you feeling

12:53

overwhelmed by that? The second question

12:55

is what is the fear? Behind

12:57

not having a schedule, is it that

13:00

you'll have nothing to do or that

13:02

you'll be bored or that you'll then

13:04

become agitated? There is

13:06

sometimes a compulsion to keep

13:09

going. Yeah, it's so interesting. I

13:11

mean, I wish there were easier

13:14

answers, but you're right.

13:16

It's so hard to stop. I

13:18

mean, one of the things we do in our family

13:20

is we try and

13:22

not overschedule ourselves. So many weekends

13:24

we have no plans at all

13:27

and have a few other families

13:29

and friends who also have no other

13:32

plans. And so then it becomes more

13:34

of a spontaneous kind

13:36

of way to get together with people.

13:38

It gives us some space, you know,

13:40

that, hey, what do we feel like doing

13:42

right now? Let's go get a coffee or

13:44

do something like that. Thank

13:54

you. I'm

14:00

Becca Rashid, producer and co-host of

14:02

the Atlantic's How To Podcast. I

14:05

like to think of my work as a way

14:07

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14:10

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14:59

gift. Hearing

15:10

Neeru talk about busyness as a

15:12

status symbol, Ian, is kind

15:14

of funny to me. It's like

15:17

this personal

15:19

suffering that we inflict

15:22

upon ourselves to make people think

15:24

we have a life or we're wanted

15:27

by a lot of other people. We're

15:29

popular. And at the same

15:31

time, it's its own sort of avoidance

15:34

mechanism. It seems like I have so many

15:36

friends who say, I actually like to stay

15:38

busy because I, you know, I don't want

15:40

to be alone with my thoughts. Oh,

15:42

my God. But what if

15:44

we would genuinely be happier taking

15:47

that time to do nothing and not

15:49

feel bad about it? Right,

15:52

exactly. And not feeling bad about it's important. Right.

15:54

Instead of multitasking into oblivion,

15:57

you know, like holding our phone while we're

15:59

watching. a movie or FaceTiming someone while

16:01

we're cooking dinner, always having to do

16:04

a million things at once. Yeah,

16:07

and trying to do everything all at

16:10

once, it's not even the most useful way

16:12

to get things done well.

16:14

Right, of course. There's

16:16

research on switching costs, which is just

16:19

a name for the time you lose when you

16:21

switch tasks. And

16:23

the evidence shows that the cost of switching

16:25

from reading a book to checking my phone

16:27

because it was advised, that actually

16:29

causes me to do both of those activities

16:32

less efficiently, less effectively. Like,

16:35

depending on the tasks that we're switching

16:37

from and to, one

16:39

study shows switching costs can lead to a loss

16:42

of up to 40% of

16:44

someone's productive time. Oh, wow. Yeah.

16:46

I mean, I'm not totally surprised

16:49

by that. But I also fall

16:51

into this trap of thinking that

16:53

those people who are really effective

16:55

at multitasking are also

16:57

the most ambitious

16:59

or sort of accomplished among my

17:01

friends. But the sort of busyness

17:03

for busyness sake, which

17:05

doesn't necessarily have anything to do

17:07

with accomplishing a big goal or anything like

17:10

that. You're just taking off boxes. You're

17:12

doing your to-dos even if you don't need to do

17:14

them. Right. I think it's

17:16

tough when busyness isn't

17:18

a choice. Like working parents,

17:20

the people taking care of

17:22

their children and their own kids.

17:24

Right. Simultaneously. And

17:27

just keeping up with the drop-offs,

17:29

the doctor's appointments, the shift schedules,

17:32

on top of just being healthy, having

17:34

a social life. I could

17:37

go on and on. But that small

17:39

hit of, I've done

17:41

everything I need to do today. I'm

17:43

being responsible. I'm a good, productive member

17:46

of society. That little high

17:48

doesn't feel the same as I

17:51

had the presence of mind today to ask

17:53

my kid how their day

17:55

went and actually hear their response.

17:58

Yeah. And you know, they're really scary. The scary part

18:00

is it kind of does make you a good

18:02

parent or whatever. You

18:05

could probably go your whole career, maybe

18:08

your whole life, just doing a

18:10

bunch of things, just taking off boxes.

18:14

And people would probably judge you to have

18:16

been successful. You were a good person. You

18:18

were a noble person. What's the alternative

18:20

to doing a bunch of things? It's like you

18:23

were slothful. You're lazy. Right. At

18:26

least that's the stigma, that you got nothing done. Even

18:29

if the things you got done were meaningless,

18:32

you still got them done. I found this

18:34

interesting research about parents' primary concern

18:36

with their teens' social media use.

18:39

And aside from just seeing

18:42

inappropriate content online, the

18:45

second two top concerns

18:47

from parents are kids

18:49

wasting their time and not getting

18:51

their homework done. Parents

18:54

which feel like that sort of

18:56

value judgment about, you know, I don't want a

18:58

lazy kid. Yeah. Yeah, you're

19:00

wasting your time. What are you doing? You're just staring

19:02

at your phone. Right. And

19:04

maybe it doesn't have to be, I'm

19:06

lazy when I'm not occupied. Right. But

19:10

maybe just not

19:12

having busyness be the main

19:15

thing that makes us feel like

19:17

worthy, valuable members of society.

19:21

It's like busyness on its own isn't necessarily

19:23

the problem. You just want the right amount

19:25

of it. And we definitely don't have the

19:27

right amount. I'm

19:29

curious to learn from an expert

19:31

who can explain where this pressure

19:34

comes from, to be

19:36

constantly busy, be task oriented ahead of

19:39

everything else. And I wonder if there's

19:41

a way to balance the social pressure

19:43

of looking busy with

19:45

the actual obligations of

19:47

our day-to-day life. Everybody

19:51

repeatedly told us that

19:54

right now is a particularly busy time. And

19:57

next week or next quarter or

19:59

next month. it was gonna get better. And

20:02

so I think we oftentimes make sense

20:04

of our busyness and our feelings of

20:06

overwhelm by feeling like if we just

20:08

get over this hump or this deadline.

20:12

So Ian, I talked to Melissa

20:14

Mazmanian, who's a sociologist from UC

20:16

Irvine, and she co-wrote a book

20:18

in 2020 called Dreams

20:20

of the Overworked, living, working, and

20:22

parenting in the digital age. And

20:25

her research analyzes why American

20:27

adults struggle with overwork and

20:29

this sort of unmanageable busyness

20:31

that she says goes beyond

20:34

just schedules. My

20:36

colleague Christine Beckman and a graduate student, Ellie

20:38

Harmon and myself, spent around 80 to 100

20:40

hours with each family. And

20:44

we just hung out with these families.

20:46

And through those kind of micro moments

20:48

of everyday life, you see how people

20:51

are trying to be the ideal worker

20:53

while still prioritizing other aspects of their

20:55

life. She lays out three myths that

20:57

motivate American adults to stay

21:00

constantly occupied, the desire

21:02

to be the ideal worker,

21:05

have the perfect body, and

21:07

be the perfect parent. Yeah,

21:10

those are definitely dreams. In

21:12

terms of the people that I'm studying, I

21:14

will find that the people who buy in

21:16

more tend to be

21:18

more stressed and feel like more of

21:20

a failure. Right? The

21:23

more that you feel like, no, no, no, I

21:25

actually should be able to be a perfect

21:27

parent. And I should be able to run

21:29

five to 10 miles a day. And I

21:31

should be able to be seen as an

21:34

ideal worker. The more you're committed to that

21:36

and unwilling to question, what does

21:38

it look like to be a good

21:40

parent and a good worker and a healthy body? The

21:43

harder it is because they are

21:45

fundamentally impossible. So Ian, if

21:47

you're saying busyness indicates to others

21:49

that were valuable in some way,

21:52

I asked Melissa to explain the other

21:54

side of that, how busyness can make

21:57

us feel valuable to ourselves. and

24:00

kind of created deadlines, which

24:02

make it feel like there

24:04

is always a next thing that if

24:07

I just get over this, I will feel better. Did

24:09

you find anything in your research that

24:11

explains that optimism that people have that

24:15

right now is the busiest moment, but next week

24:17

it'll certainly get better and I'll have more free

24:19

time to do the thing I actually want? So

24:22

I will say one of the explicit things

24:24

to mention here is that people in our

24:26

study were not unhappy. Because we're

24:28

not people who actually said like, I want to

24:30

do this. What they're saying is

24:32

I want to do what I'm doing better. This

24:35

is everyday life that at least for

24:37

these human beings doesn't feel like that

24:39

overwork, burnout about to lose it. This

24:42

is just, I just wish I could do

24:44

it with a little more sanity, a little

24:46

more sleep, you know, a little less intense.

24:48

We've become so committed to the

24:51

idea that doing it all is

24:53

what the goal is. This is

24:55

productivity. This is what I

24:57

need to do to feel good about who

25:00

I am in the world. And

25:02

so that optimism comes with the idea

25:04

that I'm actually getting a lot of

25:06

pleasure and satisfaction from feeling like I

25:08

can be the superhero. So

25:14

Melissa, some data shows that moms

25:16

with intense time pressure can face

25:18

a higher risk of mental health

25:21

issues. So I'm surprised to

25:23

learn that in your research, busy

25:25

or overworked people aren't necessarily

25:27

more stressed or unhappy just by

25:29

way of being busy. Were

25:32

there any gender differences in

25:34

the optimism around busyness or did

25:37

you discover anything about who's most likely to

25:39

achieve that sort of superhero

25:41

status with their busy schedules? There

25:45

is research by Erin Reeds that

25:47

shows that both men and women

25:49

chafe against these ideal worker norms

25:52

in the workplace, but

25:55

men have an easier time, quote,

25:57

passing as an ideal worker, meaning

25:59

that And if they leave early, someone

26:01

watches them leave early and they assume,

26:03

oh, that guy is

26:06

leaving because he's got another meeting somewhere else

26:08

or he's going to visit the client. A

26:11

woman leaves early, people tend to assume, oh,

26:13

that woman's leave early because her kid has

26:15

a doctor's appointment. So we

26:17

have gendered associations with how people use

26:19

their time and display it at work.

26:22

How did we go from that sort

26:24

of eight hour workday standard to becoming

26:26

obsessed with controlling every little block of

26:29

our days? Like the 8 a.m. to

26:31

8 15, I'll eat breakfast, 8 30

26:33

to 9, I'll do my workout. How

26:35

did we get to that point of

26:37

scheduling every minute? Going

26:39

way back in time to the Benedictine

26:42

monks. The Benedictine

26:44

monks, this was the first place

26:46

in Western society where you, and

26:49

this is work from Zerubavall, Evatar

26:51

Zerubavall, a scholar of time

26:53

and scheduling and kind of histories of time.

26:56

He looks back at the Benedictine monks as

26:58

the first time where what was seen as

27:00

a kind of a

27:02

valued social order and a kind

27:05

of desirable social order, one which

27:07

is spiritually pure,

27:09

I guess, is

27:11

one in which time is

27:14

regular at the level

27:16

of the hour. Before that, you kind

27:18

of have like religious rites during this

27:20

time of year or schedules based on

27:22

kind of festivals or holidays. But

27:24

the Benedictine monks, they brought it down

27:26

to the level of the hour and

27:28

every hour was supposed to have a

27:30

spiritual purpose. And this idea that

27:33

you wake up at this time and then have the

27:35

glory of God from 8 to 8 30

27:37

and then you go to Mass or whatever it is.

27:41

And in the monastery, you could look around

27:43

and know what time it was based on

27:45

what everybody was doing. So

27:48

what you do first, second, third of

27:50

the day was really sedimented in these

27:52

monasteries. And I think you can

27:54

see the roots of that into what you're talking

27:56

about in terms of our everyday lives today. get

28:00

back to something you said earlier about

28:02

these cycles of time or these cycles

28:05

in our lives, all of those sort

28:07

of time markers that

28:09

indicate when we should do what at

28:11

what time. And as

28:13

that relates to the nine

28:16

to five, like how did we

28:18

develop this cadence? So

28:20

prior to the Industrial Revolution,

28:23

people were working incredibly long

28:25

hours. Their work and

28:27

life were totally kind of merged together.

28:30

Then with the Industrial Revolution, people leaving

28:32

and going to factories, they were completely

28:34

overworked, exploited to the point where their

28:36

bodies were breaking down and so forth.

28:39

Ford established an eight-hour

28:41

work shift on his

28:43

manufacturing plants. That was right

28:45

before the Great Depression. Then

28:47

the Depression happened. A lot of people got

28:50

laid off and Kellogg, who was the Kellogg

28:52

serial guy, he actually instituted

28:54

a six-hour work shift. So

28:56

he'd pay people a little bit less, but we'd get more

28:58

people back at work by doing six hours. Now

29:01

interestingly, Kellogg actually had another belief

29:03

in the value of free time

29:05

and leisure time. And

29:07

there was this whole language around the

29:10

Industrial Revolution that we were going to

29:12

become so efficient that everybody was going

29:14

to have a ton of leisure time.

29:17

And that this was actually going to be a crisis

29:19

of humanity because we wouldn't know what to do with

29:21

all of our free time. So there's

29:24

a whole academic scholarship at the time that was

29:26

like leisure studies, which was like, oh no, what

29:28

are we going to do when we all have

29:30

too much time? Well, fast

29:33

forward 100 years, that is not

29:35

the case. And it turns

29:37

out that in the end, the capitalist enterprise

29:39

is so strong that if you have free

29:42

time, people tend to commit it back to

29:44

work in order to try and make more

29:46

money. So Kellogg kept his

29:48

six-hour shifts, but by the 1950s,

29:51

basically everyone had chosen

29:54

to go back to an eight-hour shift because they wanted those

29:56

extra two hours and the more money. So

29:58

we tend to prioritize. money

30:01

over time and I don't know

30:03

why but

30:05

I think that is a bit of

30:07

like a moral and social value that

30:09

we've become accustomed to. So

30:12

Becca about ten years ago now I invented

30:14

this term this phrase

30:18

hyper employment. Is it different

30:20

from just choosing to work more in order

30:23

to make more money? It's the idea

30:25

that you have all these little jobs that

30:27

you didn't previously have and they may not

30:29

be real jobs like you're not getting

30:31

paid for them but you're responsible for

30:34

the work. Like maybe you have to

30:36

do your own accounting and expense reports

30:38

at your job where previously someone else

30:41

would handle that work. There'd be a whole job taking

30:43

care of accounting for example. Think

30:45

of all the things that you

30:47

do because smartphones and computers let

30:49

you do them. You're your own travel agent probably. Right,

30:52

right. And you have to

30:54

manage your personal brand on Instagram or LinkedIn

30:56

or whatever and you kind of need to

30:58

do that to be a professional in the

31:00

world. It's optional but also kind

31:02

of compulsory now. Interesting and

31:05

that hyper employment also

31:08

adds that extra scheduled component

31:11

like now you have to buy a movie ticket in

31:13

advance or you have to put

31:15

in the work in advance to schedule it. Yeah

31:18

and now that's your responsibility and if you mess it

31:20

up it's your fault too. Right. Well

31:25

one of what motivates

31:27

us to act? What motivates

31:30

us to spend our

31:32

time in certain ways? What motivates

31:34

us to use technology in certain

31:36

ways? Well oftentimes your core motives

31:39

are truly a sense that you

31:41

know I'm a worthy human who's doing

31:44

the right thing and I can feel

31:46

good about myself. And

31:48

those core sense of self sure

31:50

they come from personality, they come

31:52

from background, they come from some

31:54

innate character traits. But as a

31:56

sociologist I'm a firm believer that

31:58

a lot of what gives

32:00

us value is based on our society. But

32:04

why would people aspire to do it all

32:06

when they quite literally

32:08

know that they can't? You are

32:10

giving these units of time like

32:13

what's appropriate to do at 8 a.m. a workout,

32:15

let's say. It's much harder to do at 2

32:18

a.m., at least for me. So is it

32:20

even possible? Well, you're

32:23

making us sound like very rational humans.

32:26

And I just don't think we are.

32:28

So I think that we have these

32:30

kind of values that translate into desires

32:32

or threats or hopes or dreams or

32:35

how we feel like we should live

32:37

our lives. So,

32:42

Becca, learning to catch yourself in

32:45

this act of talking about

32:47

being busy or feeling busy, maybe that's the first

32:49

step to taming it. Like

32:51

for me, that like, how are you, I'm

32:53

busy refrain. I think it

32:56

means like I know what I'm doing,

32:58

but I'm disconnected from why I'm doing it or

33:00

where it's leading. Interesting. So

33:02

for you, the busyness feels like some

33:05

distraction or cop out from

33:07

actually thinking about how

33:09

you're doing. I

33:12

think that Crate and Barrel story to

33:14

go back to that bothered me

33:17

because someone is trying to celebrate their birthday.

33:20

They have to also accept the

33:22

fact that they're less important than,

33:24

you know, a flexible home decor

33:26

chore that obviously can be shifted around. Right.

33:29

It could have been done anything. But, you

33:31

know, the person doing the home decor chore,

33:33

they may not even really be prioritizing it

33:36

over their friend. They're just like, I'm busy. I'm going to have, you know, what's

33:38

the next thing? I got to go to the store. I've got to do that

33:40

thing. I was going to do it today. You know,

33:43

and I know when I'm in that

33:45

mode, I just have this strong sense that I

33:48

don't know what I'm doing next and I need to figure

33:50

it out. And that sort

33:52

of gives you some feeling of security,

33:54

right? Like I know I know what's

33:57

next. And you're right. I guess maybe

33:59

I'm making. it more personal than it

34:01

has to be because, you know, mainstream American

34:04

culture doesn't make it particularly socially

34:06

acceptable to actually tell

34:08

someone how you're feeling. So many

34:10

conversations in adulthood are what

34:13

I call like life update talks. It's

34:15

just sort of an exchange of plans

34:18

and schedules and vacations coming

34:20

up and things that I have left

34:22

to get done this week. And I'm gonna

34:25

free up right after I get things done. And

34:28

yeah, I mean, sure, it does make

34:30

it harder to actually get a sense of

34:32

how someone's doing. I

34:35

think it would be helpful to tap into

34:37

why we do what we do. And if

34:39

we could explain or communicate a

34:42

bit more of that, it's

34:44

better than just, I'm busy,

34:46

and I don't want to let you into

34:48

my world. Yeah. And

34:50

you know, you know, when you are busy, it might

34:53

mean that you're just on autopilot. Hmm.

34:56

So like, it's just when

34:58

you feel yourself saying or

35:00

thinking, I'm busy, that's,

35:03

that's a good reply. It's like

35:05

an opportunity to reflect

35:08

and to ask yourself, what am I feeling in

35:10

this situation? What am I doing? And

35:12

the answer might be nothing. Or

35:17

at least less, or at least less. That's

35:25

all for this episode of How to Keep Time. This

35:28

episode was hosted by me, Ian Bogus,

35:30

and Becca Rashid. Becca also

35:33

produces the show. Our

35:35

editors are Claudina Bade and Jocelyn

35:37

Frank. Fact-checked by

35:39

Anna Alvarado. Our

35:41

engineers Rob Sperciak. Rob also composed some

35:43

of our music. The executive

35:46

producer of audio is Claudina Bade. And

35:49

the managing editor of audio is Andrea Valdez.

35:54

Ian, have you ever tried eating a clock? Eating

35:58

a clock. I haven't tried. that

36:00

back. It's very time consuming. Oh my God.

36:08

Hey, listeners, we want to hear from you. When

36:11

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36:14

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36:17

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36:19

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