This past weekend, I attended two weddings in two different parts of California. My whirlwind trip involved planes, trains, and automobiles (and a whole lot of caffeine), and while it left me utterly exhausted, the fun I had easily outweighed my tiredness. Plus, there’s just something satisfying, even invigorating, about being that busy. I like having so much on my plate; it makes me feel like I’m living a productive and happy life. (That’s also why I enjoy to-do lists so much.) But why does a filled-up social calendar have that effect?
My friend and I started talking about the emotional effects of busyness the other night. She, like I do, tends to overbook herself into burnout—and, also like I do, she enjoys it, to an extent. In fact, almost everyone I know talks about being swamped with work, social obligations, and everything else that makes the world go ’round. We speak of it with pride, even though the consequences are stress and fatigue. So what makes busyness seem so rewarding?
The Benefits of a Full Plate
Not too long after my friend and I shared our busy schedules with each other, I read about a study published in a 2010 issue of Psychological Science that found a link between happiness and busyness. Researchers at the University of Chicago asked ninety-eight college students to perform tasks that tested their motivation and their emotional reactions to being busy. In the first experiment, participants filled out surveys, then walked to one of two locations: a room next door, or a room that was fifteen minutes away, round-trip. The researchers told the students they had fifteen minutes between that survey and the next task, so which location they chose was up to them. The students were also told that there was candy in each room, as a thank-you for participating.
Slight tweaks to this experiment revealed a surprising amount about the students, and about humans in general. When the students thought that each room’s candy was the same, more of them opted to take their completed surveys to the closer room and wait out the remaining minutes idly. Only thirty-two people took the fifteen-minute trek. But when researchers said that each room held different candy, the number of participants who walked farther increased to fifty-nine. Without incentive, the majority of students preferred laziness, but even a small motivation, like a different kind of candy, was enough to get them moving.
