The Social Life of Busyness

The Social Life of Busyness engages with the assumption that busyness is taking over everyday life through exploring busyness at work, home and during leisure time. In a world where the notion of being busy is commonly experienced, and even expected, how do we understand the reasons for busyness?

Developing an account of everyday busyness through analyses of a variety of secondary data sources: one-day diaries, self-help books on busyness and time management, accounts of a writing day and interviews about family work and time, and combining these analyses with personal observations, Clare Holdsworth identifies busyness with a relational interpretation of time. Revealing busyness as the point of negotiating responsibilities for ourselves and other people, and showcasing how experiences of busyness are varied, Holdsworth concludes that tactics and habits to deal with excessive busyness need to recognise its relational status. Rather than assuming that busyness is an issue to be resolved through individual time management, she argues that busyness needs to be considered as a collective challenge.

Understanding that time management solutions need to focus on the spatial and temporal distribution of responsibilities and how these are managed between people, this book is a timely call for collective responses to busyness in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic that has intensified the unequal distribution of responsibilities.