Are you busy

I'll bite :) I'm very frequently busy, but not always focused on just one project. My "day to day bread winning" does get lots of focus, but I also try to spend time goofing around with Python-related (programming) stuff, spending time with friends, and writing. I've fallen behind on the amount of writing I normally like to do, and I'm trying to get back into it more. You're right, though -- lots of "busy work" isn't really productive. Witness the bulk of "homework" students are sent home with by their schools. Look at the mindless drudgework government workers (and, really, any worker serving as a "cog" in a big corporate belly) are faced with daily. Do you think anybody's actually *happy* to work at the DMV, for instance (unless they love wielding power)? I don't think that *every* endeavour needs to directly produce a tangible result, though -- I've taken a half-dozen stabs at writing a CMS in different programming languages (PHP, Perl, Python, and Ruby), but only one of those efforts produced any code that lives in a production environment right now. The rest have either been retired/destroyed before ever being put to use or put on the back burner since I am unlikely to have time to focus on them. They haven't been wastes of time, though -- they've helped me learn how to do certain things (and, more importantly, how *not* to do certain things). I've learned how to build scalable systems that are still easy for a user (and an administrator) to deal with. Now there've been days where I have to deal with insanely stupid tasks or chores that cause real problems if they're not dealt with. I hate days like that -- I lose entire afternoons to errands sometimes and those really cheese me off. It's stuff that has to be done but wastes time (bill-paying, for instance, or comparison shopping for insurance or groceries). I always hate that kind of junk. Then again, can we always spend 100% of our time doing stuff that leads to a direct, immediately obvious goal? A bit of downtime never hurt anyone, either.