Busyness has become such a social value that we will even create it, we will create that sense of breathlessness because we think that's how we show status and importance. That is a really interesting and troubling finding. We've taken this notion of hard work to a crazy degree.

Even when men do more housework and child care, a lot of times it's still women in charge, delegating, so you have all that noise in your brain. You're on a bike ride or picnic with your family, and it looks like leisure, but on the inside you are keeping track of everybody's emotional temperature, and did I pack this, what are the directions, how much time are we going to be here, do we have anything for dinner? It's like a toilet running all the time.

A gift, like a good friend drawing a personal road map out of the crazy busy swirl of our overloaded lives.

We live in a really crazy time when there is information coming at you, and there are so many demands on your time. It really comes down to choosing your own priorities and forgiving yourself a lot and checking your own expectations.

Because this is how it feels to live my life: scattered, fragmented, and exhausting.

I think that was probably one of the biggest revelations, is leisure is really in the eyes of the beholder...

As work weeks get longer and leisure time shrinks, people are becoming sicker, more distracted, absent, unproductive, and less innovative.