CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap! Strategies for Coping in a World Gone ADD (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hallowell (Driven to Distraction; Delivered from Distraction) turns what he has learned treating Attention Deficit Disorder into advice on how to cope with rampant busyness, "the problem and the opportunity" of modern life. He explains how to turn "the rush, the gush, the worry, and the blather (which also includes clutter)" into allies, so that one can have the things one wants with the speed, volume and emotional energy of the crazy-busy lifestyle. The roadmap Hallowell offers is helpful; that is, if one can manage to pick this book out of the never-ending stream of stimuli and find the time to read it.
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Product Description

Are you too busy? Are you always running behind? Is your calendar loaded with more than you can possibly accomplish? Is it driving you crazy? You’re not alone. CrazyBusy–the modern phenomenon of brain overload–is a national epidemic. Without intending it or understanding how it happened, we’ve plunged ourselves into a mad rush of activity, expecting our brains to keep track of more than they comfortably or effectively can. In fact, as Attention Deficit Disorder expert and bestselling author Edward M. Hallowell, M.D., argues in this groundbreaking new book, this brain overload has reached the point where our entire society is suffering from culturally induced ADD.

CrazyBusy is not just a by-product of high-speed, globalized modern life–it has become its defining feature. BlackBerries, cell phones, and e-mail 24/7. Longer work days, escalating demands, and higher expectations at home. It all adds up to a state of constant frenzy that is sapping us of creativity, humanity, mental well-being, and the ability to focus on what truly matters.

But as Dr. Hallowell argues, being crazybusy can also be an opportunity. Just as ADD can, if properly managed, become a source of ingenuity and inspiration, so the impulse to be busy can be turned to our advantage once we get in touch with our needs and take charge of how we really want to spend our time. Through quick exercises (perfect for busy people), focused advice on everything from lifestyle to time management, and examples chosen from his extensive clinical experience, Hallowell goes step-by-step through the process of unsnarling frantic lives. With CrazyBusy, we can teach ourselves to move from the F-state–frenzied, flailing, fearful, forgetful, furious–to the C-state–cool, calm, clear, consistent, curious, courteous.

Dr. Hallowell has helped more than a million readers free themselves of the distractions and compulsions of ADD. Now in CrazyBusy, he offers the same sound, sane, and accessible guidance for anyone suffering from the harried pace of modern life. If you find yourself pulled into a million different directions, here at last is the opportunity to stop being busy, start being happy, and still get things done.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (March 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345482433
• ISBN-13: 978-0345482433
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #442,608 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

91 of 93 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Invaluable Book of Useful and Usable Coping Strategies, and an Invitation to Personal Growth, March 31, 2006

By	Dr. Richard G. Petty (Atlanta) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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We live in an addicted, overloaded society in which hypomanic behavior has become valued and rewarded. Is this something new, or a culmination of forces that have been acting upon us for centuries?

We have all been multitasking since before our ancestors came down from the trees, but our attention is now constantly being distracted by a host of new inputs: email, text messaging, instant messaging and a hundred other things. Just think of those news broadcasts that since 2001 have regularly had more than one item at a time on the screen. Many of us have learned to give only partial attention to the task before us. The downside of this is that the myth that we can all be competent multitaskers ("Look mom, I can do ten things at once!") is an illusion. If you are only working on a project with 10% of your attention, not only is it going to take much longer to get it done, but errors are far more likely to occur.

Edward Hallowell is well qualified to write this important book. He is a psychiatrist who tells us that he has also been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, and he has spent years working on practical solutions for his patients. He then realized that many of the strategies that he designed for sufferers of the disorder could also help people being overloaded by too many demands on their time and energy.

This is a well written book by someone with a personal interest in finding strategies that work, and who has test-driven and refined them in his practice for years. What I particularly like about his approach is that although he offers a number of suggestions for quick fixes, he also goes to the next step, and discusses how being busy, overloaded and forced into ineffective multitasking can present us with an opportunity. It is disappointing how few of those who give advice in books, magazines, on the Internet and on television, ever go beyond the psychological band-aid to developing long-term solutions. Dr. Hallowell spends a substantial amount of time on how to turn the challenge of being "CrazyBusy" into a source of creativity, ingenuity and inspiration. He goes through a series of simple steps that can help the busiest person unpack the causes and consequences of being caught up in a maelstrom of frustrating activity.

Some self-help books are frightfully impractical: a 300-page book on depression for someone suffering from the illness, who likely cannot read at all; a dense 250-page treatise on how to avoid being overly busy, aimed at people who don't have time to sit down to eat, and so on. This book does the difficult balancing act of providing plenty of "meat," while also getting down to practicalities that can indeed be incorporated into the day of a person whose life may have become unmanageable.

Dr. Hallowell has done us all an important service.

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important Reading for Anyone in the Workforce, April 13, 2006

By	Virginia Allain "(retired librarian)" (Poinciana, FL) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

I've been down the CrazyBusy path, so I recognized myself in some of Hallowell's examples. Pushing myself harder, multi-tasking, addicted to incoming emails, overloaded with information, and feeling like it might all come crashing down around me at some point.
This book gives "ideas about monitoring your mood at work, being systematic about how you invest your time and pushing your brain's reset button." The subtitle (Overstretched, Overbooked and About to Snap!) certainly described my feelings and those of many workers today. The strategies in this book may save your life.
The author's previous work with attention deficit disorder gives him insight into coping with the information overload and the pulled-in-all-directions feeling that goes with it.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From someone who knows..., July 7, 2006

By	James Hallowell (Cambridge, MA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a close relative of Dr. Ned Hallowell and I have read with biased interest everything he has ever published, even things that have not been published. With this same full disclosure, I will say that this is the first time I have ever written an Amazonian review of anything he's written. I found "CrazyBusy" compelling not for any great or unexpected insights it has into human behavior, but for almost the opposite reason. Dr. Ned Hallowell is direct and unabashed enough to point out what is obvious but what is also so often overlooked: stop to smell the roses, carpe diem...chose your favorite cliché, but know that these have become truisms because they are in fact so true. What is particularly refreshing about this book (and much of his other writing too, for that matter) is that Dr. Hallowell is not trying to be provocative or clever. He simply points out with clarity, humor and zeal the importance of not letting the conveniences of new technology lure one into thinking that one is being more efficient, effective, or even happy. In fact he makes a serious case that just the opposite is true.

I am someone who is not one bit "crazybusy." I drive under the speed limit. I read books word by word. But I appreciated Hallowell's new book because it so accurately describes many people I know, people who need help. In other words, I consider this a great gift book. I'm sure that those who need to read "CrazyBusy" the most will be the ones most likely never to hear of it, so I urge the widows, widowers and friends of those lost to their cell phones, BlackBerrys and Treos to send them this book as a highly readable reminder to "Call home."