Not now, I'm too busy and important

A warning to anyone associating themselves with the capital's idle rich, elegant slummers, professional party set etcetera. Layabout chic is over. Frantic, stressed and mindlessly hectic is IN.

According to a recent survey, the nation believes that busy is good - and a concise shorthand for status, popularity, and success. Furthermore, the survey revealed, the inherent desirability of busy is so widely recognised that those unfortunate enough not to lead truly busy lives are faking them.

Of those polled, roughly one in ten were deemed not nearly as busy as they claimed to be. Of course, I'm a genuinely busy person. My life is one, elongated frenetic moment, punctuated by busy-induced panic attacks and deadlines. How amusing, though, to take a break from my perma-busy state, and fake a hectic lifestyle for 24 hours. That way, those of you who haven't yet perfected the art of pretend busyness can watch and learn.

Telephone attitude

My faux-busy day begins, appropriately enough, in bed. I wake up to discover that Trisha's been bumped up ITV1's schedule to allow for some silly quiz (how annoying), and I am just getting cross about that when the phone rings. At any other time, I'd ignore it. The genuinely busy pick up one in every three incoming calls. They allow their voicemail to get the rest, and return messages only when the caller has tried at least twice, and when an audible note of panic can be detected in their voice. But an unanswered call before 10am might arouse suspicion - particularly if the callee works from home, as I do.

Therefore, I answer (ensuring, first, that the TV is on mute, and my duvet is not in danger of rustling) with a brusque, distinctly imperious: 'Yup?' Next, I completely unnerve the caller by being really, really nice to them: 'Oh, hiiiiiii, how are you?' Then, I do the equivalent of speed reading their conversation by punctuating their every utterance: 'Yup', 'yup', 'yup,' as though I already know what they're going to say, and am not remotely interested anyway. I simultaneously browse Popbitch via the broadband connection on my bedside laptop, so that they hear the clacking keys and assume I'm busy writing The News.

Finally, I ring off abruptly and unexpectedly. It goes without saying that busy people always terminate phone conversations first, and that they have no time for extended civilities. (The caller happened to be my mother, but anyway.) While we're dealing with communication issues, it's worth noting that e-mail and text message are invaluable devices for the pretend busy, if employed correctly. Only ever respond to e-mails/texts with less wordage than the original message contained, and make deliberate typos of the 'teh' variety when you mean 'the'. Also, avoid using capitals at all costs. This says: I'm too busy even to bother manipulating two keys simultaneously in the name of good grammar. Very stylish.

Make other people do things for you

Since busy became so hip, an entire industry dedicated to servicing the perpetually hectic has erupted. For example, the concierge service at the Chelsea Club will do your dry cleaning for you, nutrition-edit the contents of your fridge, and book your tickets on Eurostar. And the personal trainers at The Third Space will pick up your organic veg order, and have it waiting in reception for you, post-workout.

Unfortunately, they'll also only do this for you if you're a member of their respective gyms, which I'm not. However, I do manage to get the receptionist at my Holmes Place gym to agree to receive an urgent fax on my behalf, so that I might collect it when I swing by for a speed-sauna later on. Sadly, all the chic little boutiques studded along Westbourne Grove refuse point blank to FedEx their new season's look books to the hotel room in Milan where my busy lifestyle might just take me at the weekend (who knows?), but lovely Matches on Ledbury Road does agree to call me the moment they get more Marc by Marc Jacobs in. They, at least, understand I don't have any casual pop-in-and-browse windows in my schedule.

Be evasive, unreliable and late

By 11.40am, I have booked four separate lunches with assorted lucky associates and friends, all of which I cancel 20 minutes before they're due to begin, offering a vague, dismissive and unapologetic 'hellish deadline' excuse. (For future reference, long-term postponing is a guaranteed in-road to confirmed pseudo-busy status. Book appointments months in advance, only to cancel them moments before they're due to happen. Re-schedule six weeks later, and repeat to fade. You'll seem impossibly elusive.)

At 12.50pm, I re-call one of the four cancellations, insist they meet me after all, and turn up late, wild-eyed and wired in a manner which suggests I've downed a six-pack of Diet Cokes, smoked 20 cigs, and written 2,000 words before lunch, because that's the way I like it.

I'm developing a signature repeat lunch order, in the style of Anna Wintour's salad, medium-rare hamburger and baked potato combo. This is quite powerful in itself, but also will eventually allow me to save crucial seconds otherwise wasted with menu perusing. This, however, is a work in progress ? I can't decide on a meal I like sufficiently.

Transport

The most lovely thing about pretending to be busy when you're not, is that there's a really, really thin line between this and just being lazy. For example, cabbing it from everywhere to everywhere else is an essential part of showing the world precisely how little time you have for things like public transport or parking. It's an expensive business admittedly, but hell: broke and busy-looking, or solvent with time on your hands? You choose.

I therefore wind up my lunch just as everyone else is agreeing that yes, it would be lovely to have a leisurely caff? latte, what the hell ('Lucky old you lot. I've gotta dash') and scamper out onto the fragrant paving stones of WC2, where I hail a taxi with a practised impatient air.

Accessorise

At no point in the day have I left my house without the appropriate accoutrements to a modern busy life. Delicate, miniature Fendi handbags are the embarrassing paraphernalia of the non-busy. Full bag = full life. Big holdalls are therefore the way forward, as even the fashion world recognises this winter.

Consider those massive Gucci mock-croc efforts. And don't be afraid to load yourself up with gym bags and portfolios etc and so on. Six months ago, this might have said: unsightly harassed person with substandard time-management skills. Now it says: cool busy person with no time to go home and drop stuff off. Massive desk Filofaxes are obviously fabulous - more space for more life management - and I hardly need to say how essential mobile phones are. Don't you dare even slope over the road to your nearest convenience store for a loaf of Kingsmill without one. Content that the world is sufficiently duped by my busy posturing, I head home, in anticipation of an afternoon spent watching repeats of A Place in the Sun, and toying with the sensibilities of all who dare ring me up.

Tomorrow, I might pop into Tate Modern, and ensure that I spend no longer than three seconds gazing at each of the exhibits, in keeping with the national busy-person average - which, according to last month's Vogue, was a whole seven seconds longer in 1987! Imagine!

But by then of course, I'll be genuinely busy again - and probably won't have enough time to squeeze it in.