Do you have twinges of guilt when you hear family and others talk about how busy they are? Do you occasionally feel boredom? What you need is more busyness. This guide will help show you the secrets to high quality busyness, so you can say with pride, “I’m just so busy all the time!“

1. Get skills. You need to maximize how many opportunities you have available to you. The more things you know how to do — or at least think you can figure out — the busier you can become. College, technical school classes, and on-the-job training are great ways to increase your skills. Skills that everyone needs are very helpful, such as computer work, car repair, house repair, home improvement, electrical wiring, plumbing, and medicine.
2. Be service-driven. Try to find ways that you can contribute, and help other people. This requires attention to what’s going on around you, at your job, and in your friends’ and family’s lives. You’re not trying to be nosy — you just want to see how you can pitch in and be of assistance. When you find a way you can help, then offer to help!
3. Try new things. For example: Even if you haven’t managed somebody’s web site before, taking on a web-site management project can be a great way to learn about web design, to contribute, and to stay busy. Don’t limit yourself only to your established skills; look for things you’d like to learn, and ways that you can learn them by doing.
4. Err on the side of optimism in your planning. It’s best to assume that things won’t take too long when you’re considering whether to take on a new task. For example, dropping someone off at the airport shouldn’t take any more than 20 minutes in any case. Why on earth should it take longer? Or sending an email to someone — how long should that take? Two minutes, tops.
5. Seek to live at your full potential. You have skills, intelligence, common sense, and perhaps a good personality. You should seek out ways to live and work at your full potential. If you’re ever going to be considered excellent at something, then you have to make choices that let you do that thing, and do it well! This means taking advantage of as many opportunities as become available. If you have a chance to do something you’ll enjoy or that will help somebody else, then do it!