Idea in Brief

The Problem

In the corporate world everyone feels busy. “Time poverty” and stress are reducing firm productivity and leading to burnout. Corporations are mistaking activity for achievement.

The Causes

Corporate cultures lionize busyness. Even as the long-term damage of this becomes clear, individuals continue to mindlessly overwork because of an aversion to idleness (it feels good in the moment to be busy) and the need to justify their efforts.

The Solution

Leaders should conduct an audit to see whether employees have time for “deep work.” They should mandate paid time off, offer incentives for output, model the right behavior by disengaging from the busyness culture, and build slack into organizations to make them more resilient.

In my 2019 book, The Power of Human, I recount an anecdote about a man who immigrated to the United States and soon came to believe that the word “busy” meant “good” because when he asked people, “How are you doing?” they often responded, “Busy.” Nora Rosendahl, the chief operating officer of the performance coaching firm Hintsa, discovered the same thing when she conducted a small social experiment by documenting answers to the question “How are you?” over the course of a week. By her count, nearly eight out of 10 people said, “Busy.”
A version of this article appeared in the March–April 2023 issue of Harvard Business Review.
Read more on Time management or related topics Organizational culture, Personal productivity, Managing people, Psychology and Behavioral science