Does this sound familiar?

Ramon quotes Tolstoy (click for his commentary):

War and Peace: Book II, Part III, Chapter VI

'During the first weeks of his stay in Petersburg Prince Andrei found all the habits of thought he had formed during his life of seclusion in the country entirely obscured by the petty preoccupations which engrossed him in that city.

'Every evening on his return home he would jot down in his notebook four or five unavoidable visits or appointments for specified times. The mechanism of life, the arrangements of the day so as to be punctual everywhere, absorbed the greater part of his vital energy. He did nothing - he neither thought nor had time to think, and whatever he said in conversation, and he talked well, was merely the fruit of his meditations in the country.

'He sometimes noticed with dissatisfaction that he repeated the same remark on the same day in different circles. But he was so busy for whole days together that he had no time to reflect that he was doing nothing.'

Commentary