Busywork Quotes

Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.

There is no kind of idleness by which we are so easily seduced as that which dignifies itself by the appearance of business.

Those who have least to do are generally the most busy people in the world.

Being busy is a form of laziness - lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.

A molehill man is a pseudo-busy executive who comes to work at 9 AM and finds a molehill on his desk. He has until 5 PM to make this molehill into a mountain. An accomplished molehill man will often have his mountain finished before lunch.

People who never have any time on their hands are those who do the least.

My fingers always seem busier than my mind.

Most people spend most of their time on low-priority busywork because it requires no additional knowledge, skills, or imagination-or courage. In a word, it's easier.

Writing is busy idleness.

Did you know there's a difference between being busy and being fruitful? Did you ever stop to think that just being busy - running around in circles all day but not accomplishing anything - is the same as wasting your time? It's frustrating to expend so much energy and time and not have any fruit from your effort!

Some folks can look so busy doing nothing that they seem indispensable.

Enthusiasm is more active than faith, though enthusiasm cannot remove mountains nor call into action any of the omnipotent forces which faith can command. Activity is often at the expense of more solid, useful elements, and generally to the total neglect of prayer. To be too busy with God's work to commune with God, to be busy with doing church work without taking time to talk to God about His work, is the highway to backsliding, and many people have walked therein to the hurt of their immortal souls.

I like to make stuff and I try to stay busy.

I used to be nervous about not working and so would work for the sake of it.

P.S. Nothing personal, but I think this journal assignment is a waste of time. I know I have to do something to make up for all the work I'm missing at school, but I HATE busywork. And that's what this journal thing is. Half the teachers at school assign work they never read. When we get stupid assignments like that, I always write somewhere on my paper "blah blah blah" or "I bet you're not even reading this," are you? or "Give me a sign if you're reading this." They never are.

Many are idly busy; Domitian was busy, but then it was in catching flies.

These people who are always briskly doing something and as busy as waltzing mice, they have little, sharp, staccato ideas, such as: "I see where I can make an annual cut of $3.47 in my meat budget." But they have no slow, big ideas.

Are you laboring under the impression that I read these memoranda of yours? I can't even lift them.

There is a great deal of busywork to a writer's life, as to a professor's life, a great deal of work that matters only in that, if you don't do it, your desk becomes very full of papers. So, there is a lot of letter answering and a certain amount of speaking, though I try to keep that at a minimum.

It's pointless to have a nice clean desk, because it means you're not doing anything.

The Devil often finds work for them who find none for themselves.

Before I had kids, my bag was clean. In case I need to occupy them, I like to have Hot Wheels cars, See's lollipops, and a deck of cards.

Just let them sit in the goddam sun. But the world won't let them because there's nothing more dangerous than letting old farts sit in the sun. They might be thinking. Same thing with kids. Keep 'em busy or they might start thinking.

How narrow is the vision that exalts the busyness of the ant above the singing of the grasshopper.