YOUR schedule? I’m so interested, tell me more.

Oh don’t, actually. Don’t tell me more. I’m too busy to listen.

Esther Rantzen, she of Childline fame, was interviewed about her new venture, The Silver Line, for older people suffering loneliness. She blames a culture of busyness preventing people from making time to visit relations or stop for elderly neighbours.

“I think it’s time we took stock of our real priorities," she said. Quite right, Esther.

“Busy” long ago replaced the word “fine” as a response to “how are you?”

"You're so busy" is high compliment indeed. "You need to make time for yourself" is verbal grease to the social wheel.

Busy is a badge of honour, a measure of self-worth. But one that is completely meaningless.

Everyone thinks they are busiest: the stay-at-home mum. The working mum. The working woman. Activity expands to saturate the time available for it.

Everything counts towards your busyness quota – from the necessary: work, childcare; to the worthy: volunteering, fundraising; and leisure: the gym, dress making courses.

I have a lovely chum who counts the ironing as a busy night. Another has a high-powered job, a volunteer role and five children.

But who am I to say which is more daunting - a pile of husband's shirts in need of neat creases or a home packed with bustling brood?

What I will say is this is a middle class affliction and one affecting mainly women.

As a single, childfree woman, the luxury of your presumed free time is often remarked on. "Lucky you, I remember when I had time to..." Insert various, from wash your hair to whoop it up on a three-day bender.

A three-day bender. That'd be nice. But even the barren are bloody busy.

On the flip side, for the mothers, this makes them simultaneously embarrassed of the fact they have cleaners and either bullish or completely in denial about any down time they might have.

Busyness is a guilt trap. It’s a means of control. It's an incredibly capitalist way to be, being valued for your output.

Yet it's also unproductive: busyness makes it respectable not to do one thing well but rather several things half-cocked.

We run down lists of everything we need to do and everywhere we need to be, stopping us from enjoying where we are right now.

If we’re not busy being busy then we use any spare moment of quiet, any opportunity for reflection, to whip out a smart phone and post to Facebook or Twitter about how frenetic we are. Usually with a quick photo of the glass of wine we're rewarding ourselves with.

It feels like a collective deep breath needs to be taken.

I would have made an excellent Jesuit. I believe in willing service as the bedrock of being part of society. Take only what you need and be as useful as possible, that's my motto.

What we forget is that we choose to be busy and then we martyr ourselves for it.

As I write this, I've been in the office for 12 hours. When I get home I need to read board papers for one volunteer role and panel papers for another. I've offered to read and edit a friend's college essays, book cinema tickets for pals and I have a suitcase to unpack then repack. In the morning I need to pick up a cat and take my bike for a service before work.

But look: I'm telling you to relax but I'm also making sure you know I'm not relaxing. I'm a productive member of society, thanks, and I bet I'm busier than you.

Who am I boasting to? Who's impressed? Who cares, other than my mum, who'll give me a row for making myself over-tired.

I'm far from first columnist to point out the Cult of Busyness but may I be the first to ask that we promote mild laziness as a respectable alternative?

Busyness is a choice and a privilege, it's not a matter to moan about.