Productivity vs Busyness

When it comes to productivity vs busyness, most of the noise surrounds corporate life.

It’s pointless meetings, learning to say no, and a calendar so busy that you never have time to do any meaningful work.

And although it makes sense that discussions around productivity come from a professional workplace, what about the others?

What about the people who, with no one telling them what to do, still struggle to distinguish between being productive and busy?

The ones who are sitting in their bedrooms on a laptop trying desperately to make something of themselves?

For these people, it looks like something else entirely.

What Busyness Looks Like

Learning to say no doesn’t work, as it’s you who’s creating to-do lists. Constantly answering emails doesn’t apply because you have none. And locking yourself away from everyone else isn’t a solution, you’re already doing it.

And although someone else bossing you around is the reason you started something on the side in the first place, it’s still a great form of external motivation.

Without that, you're on your own, and you can do an amazing job of being completely blind to your own behaviours.

Busyness masking itself as productivity is mostly just procrastination. It’s creativity delaying tasks that feel uncomfortable or fill you with fear.

Instead of pointless meetings or too much time in Outlook, it’s fear camouflaged as preparation.

It’s convincing yourself that you’re not quite ready, it’s doing that extra bit of research and endlessly planning things that just need radical action.

It’s doing what you’ve been doing for months and convincing yourself that the plateau of results is temporary.

You’re busy, but deep down you know that your attention and energy could be much better placed.

Why it Happens

The problem is, you’re on your own. Who’s going to call you out? There isn’t exactly a boss that’ll call another meeting to discuss your lack of impact. 

It’s just you, yourself and you.

Without that external friction, you’re free to hide inside the comfort of endless preparation.

That’s exactly why it happens, not because action is hard, but because it’s so easy to get away with.

If you haven’t invested money, and there’s no business partner to keep you honest, then you’re the only one keeping yourself accountable.

Breaking The Cycle 

Okay, it happens because of us, sometimes without us really being aware of it, and we’re also the only ones able to get ourselves out, so what exactly can we do?

The answer is nothing new. No, seriously, it’s not some newfound habit or skill you can build that’s going to get you through the endlessness of the busyness trap. It’s re-learning the same lesson yet again.

Deciding to journey the unventured path is no easy task, it’s uncomfortable, unpredictable and lonely. But somehow, even after getting yourself through the trenches of starting, you’ve become too complacent and comfortable for your own good.

After digging yourself out of the comfort zone, a new comfort zone has emerged, and you're once again playing tug-of-war with it.

That’s all that procrastination and endless planning is: fear of the unknown and fear of the work that’s ahead.

Therefore, the only way out is through.

Identify the work that scares you the most, the work you're avoiding, and focus all of your attention and energy on getting it done. Focus on the fear, as fear itself is the sign of progression.

When your standards rise, but your work doesn’t, a new comfort zone is inevitable.

Busyness is convincing, yet pointless. Productivity is doing what’s required to level up, which almost always requires discomfort to some degree.

If you’re suspicious of your busyness, you may have naturally entered a new comfort zone, where all progression goes to die. 

Find what scares you and chase it. Growth awaits. And growth is the best form of productivity.