Have you ever heard someone joke that they added an already-completed task to their to-do list just so they can check it off?
Almost all of us can relate, because we’ve been conditioned to maintain a busy mindset. The more we accomplish, the better.
Except, it’s not better. Busy does not equal productive, and productive does not equal busy.
Let’s talk about the differences between busy vs. productive, and how you can transition from a mindset that glorifies busyness to one that prioritizes productivity.
The Busy Trap: Why we mistake activity for achievement
In 2012, Tim Kreider published his infamous article, The ‘Busy’ Trap, in the New York Times. More than a decade later, his words remain true, maybe more so now than they were then.
“Almost everyone I know is busy. They feel anxious and guilty when they aren’t either working or doing something to promote their work.”
“The present hysteria is not a necessary or inevitable condition of life; it’s something we’ve chosen, if only by our acquiescence to it.”
Busy can look like any number of things. Immediately reacting to every email and notification that comes through on your computer and phone. Filling every available moment with work or obligations. Constantly prioritizing urgency over importance. But why do we choose this kind of life for ourselves? And what are we sacrificing along the way?
The psychological comfort of being busy
For many people, busyness functions as a status symbol. A packed schedule means that you’re important and diligent; those who make time to rest and relax must be lazy loafers who won’t accomplish much.
Busyness is also a psychological bandaid. A never-ending to-do list leaves little time for you to dwell on negative thoughts or address growing levels of anxiety and stress.
Finally, being busy provides us with a sense of purpose. Your life can’t be meaningless if you’re so in demand you can’t find a night to have dinner with your friends. Constant busyness at work proves that your job is important and you’re a vital member of the team.
Busyness makes us feel good—for a little while.
The hidden costs of constant busyness
Busyness and burnout go hand in hand, and neither are good for us.
77% of workers have experienced burnout at their current jobs, and that burnout impacts all parts of their lives.
91% of people say that too much work-related stress and frustration negatively affects the quality of their work.
83% of people say that work burnout has a negative impact on their personal relationships.
Staying busy is a sure path to feeling mentally and physically drained. It results in elevated cortisol levels, less time for rest and exercise, and constant fatigue.
Constant busyness misunderstands the difference between movement and progress, placing you on a treadmill. Just like when you exercise on a treadmill, you’re constantly moving but getting nowhere. You can work and work without seeing any real change.
Let’s change the narrative of your life.
Busy vs. productive: Key differences
Several factors differentiate busyness from productivity and can help you assess which one describes how you spend your time.
Mindset
A busy mindset is reactive. It automatically responds to anything that demands attention. Your mind is scattered, jumping from task to task.
A productive mindset is proactive, intentionally choosing tasks that align with long-term goals. You are able to focus on activities that drive change instead of trivial actions that may appear urgent but aren’t important.
Metrics
Busyness is measured by quantity. It considers how many hours you worked and how many tasks you completed.
Productivity is measured by the quality and impact of your work rather than the amount of work.
Emotional impact
Constant busyness results in stress and frustration. You’re overwhelmed by the seemingly endless number of tasks ahead of you.
Productivity leaves you feeling satisfied and confident in yourself. You can end the day feeling like you’ve accomplished something.
How to shift from busy to productive
If you identify more with being busy than being productive, it’s time to change your ways and successfully own your day. Here’s where you can start.
Audit your current habits
Once the holidays are over, take the time to perform a time audit and track your daily activities for a week. If you need a simple way to do this, use RescueTime to monitor the time you spend on your computer. Where are you wasting time with tasks that feel urgent but don’t contribute to your goals?
Don’t forget to look at your phone’s time-tracking features as well. For example, when you look at the Screen Time app on your iPhone, you can have the information broken down by day to see which parts of your day are spent on time-wasting apps and what those apps are.
Pro tip: Every person’s response to a time audit will look different, but here’s what it’s looked like for me: My iPhone habits showed that I wasted a lot of time scrolling at night, and I know most of this happens when I lay down with my oldest to get her to sleep or rock the baby back to sleep. It’s not necessarily a horrible habit—because I need to be physically present in these moments—but I wanted to be happier with how I spent that time. So, I started storing my earbuds in the hall beside their bedrooms. Now, it’s much more convenient for me to listen to an audiobook or podcast while I sit in the dark, and ultimately I feel better about how I spend this hour each evening.
Plan with intention
Time blocking is one of the best time management strategies to aid in productivity. Schedule time for deep work and for rest. You don’t necessarily have to eliminate all of your unproductive habits (doom scrolling, Netflix binging, etc), but leave them to a specific part of your day so they don’t overtake the important things you need to accomplish.
When it’s time to work, limit your daily goals and focus on 1-3 key priorities each day. If you need to, you can break those goals down into smaller tasks, but it helps to name the big tasks you want to have accomplished by the end of the day.
As you’re scheduling your day and penciling in your tasks, don’t feel like you have to commit to finishing a task in a day. You can break it into chunks over several days. When I’m writing an article, it can feel overwhelming to try and finish in a single day, and I don’t believe it’s how I produce my best content. So, I break the finished product into large but manageable tasks. 1,000 words on Monday, 1,000 more on Tuesday, and edits on Wednesday. The remainder of my workday is filled with other similar blocks of work.
Pro tip: (Freelancers and entrepreneurs, this one’s for you!) Schedule time to work on your business, not just in your business.
I get that this question has an obvious answer, but it still bears asking: would you rather work 40 hours a week and earn an average of $30 an hour, or work 20 hours a week and earn an average of $60 an hour?
When creating your schedule and naming your priorities, include tasks that help you grow your business (and raise your rates), such as updating your website, sending pitch emails, or taking a course to hone your skills. You are the owner of your business, and as such, you need to invest time in strategic planning and action.
Develop focused work habits
Say goodbye to multitasking and hello to single-tasking: the act of finishing one task before you begin another. Research estimates that it takes an average of 23 minutes to get back on task when you’re interrupted. How much more will you be able to accomplish when you’re not constantly switching from one task to another?
On that note, do what you can to eliminate distractions. This doesn’t mean you have to work in a windowless room with a single screen open, just that you optimize your space to help your brain stay on track.
Pro tip: Get the right technology on your side to help you focus.
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- Use RescueTime to track your computer work and block distracting apps and websites.
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- Pop in earbuds when you work in a public space to drown out nearby conversations or whenever you need music to focus. I recommend the Breezy Instrumental playlist created by Kendra Adachi on Spotify.
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- Use the Forest app to help stop jumping on your phone every time a notification comes through. I love this more than using airplane mode because I have small children and can still see if a text or call comes through. I’ll jump off the app and destroy my growing tree if the babysitter calls, but I’m not tempted to slide over to Facebook or check my inbox on my phone.
Take a break
In the conversation regarding busy vs. productive, it’s vital to clarify that rest is just as productive as actions that move us toward our goals. Tim Kreider wrote, “Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets.
Tools and techniques to support the shift
Shifting your mindset and behavior from busy to productive takes intentionality. Here are a few ways to simplify the transition.
Use productivity frameworks
Popularized by the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the Eisenhower Matrix helps you sort your tasks by urgency and importance. It looks like this:
Tasks fall into one of four quadrants:
Urgent and Important
Not Urgent and Important
Not Important and Urgent
Not Important and Not Urgent
Urgent and Important tasks are often unavoidable and include issues like a last-minute deadline that was sprung on you or a storm that floods your basement. You have to handle these issues, but living in a constant state of urgency is going to send your stress and anxiety through the roof. Mitigate these tasks whenever possible.
Not urgent and important tasks are where the magic happens. Activities that fall in this quadrant are the actions that have intentionality and help prevent you from moving into the area of urgent and important. For example, getting regular oil changes is not urgent but is important—ignore the task for too long, and your engine giving out on the way to work suddenly moves you into urgent and important territory. Other not urgent and important tasks include networking on LinkedIn, performing annual home maintenance, or updating your budget.
Urgent but not important tasks are what you’d call busy work. They’re small things like responding to a Slack message or purchasing an item while it’s on sale. These activities can eat up a lot of your time, so experts often recommend delegating them whenever possible. Instead of spending 2 hours at the grocery, schedule grocery delivery. Skip meetings where your presence isn’t necessary. Finally, learn how to group these tasks, like setting aside 3 times a day to check and respond to communication, and silencing notifications the rest of the time.
Not urgent and not important tasks are mindless time-wasters that can steal hours from you if you’re not careful. Too much social media or TV time falls in this category, but so do avoidance activities such as taking half an hour to color code your calendar instead of starting on your work. None of these activities are inherently bad; they become a problem when they are done in excess or take away time that would have been better spent on work, self-care, or creative endeavors.
Take advantage of helpful technology
One of the easiest ways to maximize your working hours is to look for patterns in your habits and capitalize on them. This is where RescueTime comes in. On your dashboard, you can see exactly how you spend every moment on your computer (and phone if you install the mobile app!).
Check out a couple of screenshots of my recent workdays. Many of my days look like this, with more neutral and distracting time right around noon. Reflecting on the pattern of my days, this is when I start to get hungry, lose focus, and ultimately find something to eat while I halfheartedly work.
Not ideal.
My solution moving forward? Set a hard stop—a little before I reach the border of hangry—and log off for lunch. A mental and physical refresh is what my body is craving, and I’m going to listen to it to capitalize on the time I spend working. Because some of this time is when I’ve been checking email and Slack, I’ll schedule a communication break around lunch, instead of constantly jumping away from my writing when I see a new notification.
Armed with similar insight about your behavior, you can create a schedule that capitalizes on your peak productivity hours and reduces the distractions that are keeping you busy without helping you move closer to your goals.
Make this your most productive year yet
Hustle culture is so 2024. In 2025, we’re making the most of our working hours and focusing solely on activities that move us closer to the overall vision we have for our lives. Your success is only going to come when you get off the hamster wheel of busyness and teach yourself how to be truly productive.
This is your chance to not just own your day, but own your life. Make the most of it
