The Busy Trap Revisited
If “busy” is the default in 2025, then it’s on us to be intentional about what we’re busy with.
If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “ So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.” - Tim Kreider, The Busy Trap, 2012
This week, I revisited Tim Kreider’s 2012 New York Times essay, The Busy Trap. And more than a decade later, it feels like digging up a time capsule, only to realize we never actually changed the habits we buried.
At the time, Kreider’s essay wasn’t just a cultural critique; it was a red flag waved frantically at a society sprinting toward burnout, powered by calendar invites and inbox dopamine. I’ve written about it often, including at the 2 and 9-year mark, where I feigned surprise that not much had changed. And yet, here are are 13 years later, and it still resonates.
That quote above is killer, but here are some other good ones:
“Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day…”
“It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.”
“Almost everyone I know is busy. They feel anxious and guilty when they aren’t either working or doing something to promote their work.”
If we’re going back to 2012 to revisit The Busy Trap, we should probably also go back to 2014 and Hannah Rosin’s piece in Slate, Stop Bragging About How Busy You Are, which picks up where Kreider left off:
“Are you too busy? You should be, and you should let people know in a proud but exasperated tone.”
“The art of busyness is to convey genuine alarm at the pace of your life and a helpless resignation, as if someone else is setting the clock, and yet simultaneously make it clear that you are completely on top of your game.”
“These are not exactly humble brags. They are more like fretful brags, and they are increasingly becoming the idiom of our age.”
In her (also 2014) book, “Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time,” Washington Post reporter Brigid Schulte called this cultural epidemic the “overwhelm.”
In the book, Schulte cites self-perception as a huge source of overwhelm, citing sociologist John Robinson, who is known for using time diaries in his research to show how people ACTUALLY use their time. He’s quoted in the book saying:
“It’s very popular, the feeling that there are too many things going on, that people can’t get in control of their lives and the like. But when we look at peoples’ diaries there just doesn’t seem to be the evidence to back it up.”
So wait? We all feel busy. We say we’re busy. But… butt.. we’re not busy??
Maybe that’s because of this term mentioned in both the book and Slate piece called“contaminated time.”
The concept of contaminated time occurs when you’re SO BUSY doing SO MANY THINGS within a 24-hour period that everything blends into each other and your day has no distinct phases. Those phases help our brains contain and process all the things we do. And when things blur (contaminate), it feels overwhelming.
Sound familiar? It did to me 13 years ago. And still does.
But Greg, I’m Still Pretty Busy
And yet, here we are in 2025, still #humblebragging about being “slammed,” “swamped,” or “booked solid." As if busyness itself were a badge of honor or a proxy for purpose.
Try catching up with any old friend or colleague and not use the B-word. I dare you.
Instead…
What if we accept this is the new pace and then adjust accordingly? Maybe it’s time to stop fantasizing about a return to balance and instead start designing for a world where imbalance is the baseline.
That doesn’t mean surrendering to chaos. It means rethinking how we define productivity, presence, and even rest. In a culture where the line between work and life has been fully blurred — ahem, thank you, smartphones, AI, and Slack — we need new rituals, new boundaries, and yes, maybe even new metrics for success.
The goal isn’t to opt out of ambition but to build systems that support both achievement and sanity.
If “busy” is the default, then it’s on us to be intentional about what we’re busy with. What does that actually look like? Start with small shifts that reduce friction and reclaim your focus:
✅ Get out of meetings you don’t need to be in
✅ Turn a meeting into an email
✅ Turn an email into a Slack
✅ Turn a Slack into... nothing (you probably didn’t need to say it at all)
✅ Block time to think, not just to do
✅ Say “no” more often, especially to urgency theater
✅ If the task will take less than 5 minutes, do it right now!
✅ Use an AI assistant to help you organize your to-do list and motivate you to do it
✅ Protect your energy like it’s billable, cause it is
These aren’t hacks. They’re habits. Micro-decisions that add up to macro-impact.
🛑 Quick reality check: I know not everyone has the privilege of reorganizing their day like a productivity puzzle. Some of us are holding it together through caregiving, chronic stress, financial pressure, systemic barriers, or just the relentless grind of life right now. This isn’t a “just try harder” moment. It’s a “be gentle with yourself” one. The tools and tactics here aren’t magic fixes, but they can be scaffolding when you need a little support in the blur.
5 Minute Sprints, Realized!
In my to-do list I have a list called “5 Minute Sprints” where I keep a list of tiny things that if I have 5 minutes before a meeting or a kid pick-up or whatever, I’ll scroll down to and knock one out. Sometimes these things we’re procrastinating or that can make us feel busy just need prioritized and knocked out.
For inspiration: I shared this in a Social Signals issue last month (reminder, paid subscribers can access full archives), but I’m obsessed with this series of TikToks where a woman shares things she’s been dreading doing for months or even years (organizing her junk drawers, cleaning the pantry, or making a dentist appointment) and then she times herself doing them while filming it. Junk drawers? 30 minutes.
Dentist appointment she dreaded making for 3 years? 9 minutes!
Contaminated Time = Margin Time = All of the Time
Maybe the answer isn’t to eliminate contaminated time, but to embrace it. Not as dysfunction, but as reality.
What if the blur is the point? After all, the boundaries between work, play, parenting, learning, creating, and resting were always a bit artificial.
Instead of striving for clean lines and perfect compartments, maybe we lean into the mess. It reminds me of the concept of Margin Time that my wife introduced to me a few years ago. Basically, unscheduled, flexible time used for various purposes.
Contaminated or margin time, if approached intentionally, can become integrated time: where ideas cross-pollinate, where inspiration shows up mid-errand, and where the richness of modern life isn’t lost in the blur, but born from it.
I’m not saying doing less couldn’t lead to a less stressful day. But what if less isn’t actually more (especially if you have to do more!)?
AI: Your Cheat Code for the Busy Trap
The robots aren’t coming to save us from being busy, but they are absolutely a tool in helping us do busy better.
If we’re embracing contaminated time as integrated time, it helps to have tools that can meet us in the blur. Enter AI. Not the kind you fear is coming for your job, but the kind that can help you actually get to inbox zero, prep for that meeting, write that follow-up email, or even remind you to reschedule your kid’s overdue dental appointment.
This isn’t about replacing your brain. It’s about outsourcing your overwhelm. When used right, AI becomes your cognitive sidekick. Your “I-need-a-second-brain” brain. Your “I-wish-I-could-clone-myself” cheat code.
Try this: instead of opening your to-do list and spiraling into the overwhelm, open a chat window and drop this prompt in:
“I’m juggling a ton today. Can you help me prioritize my top 3 tasks based on impact and urgency? Here’s what I’m working on…”
(Then paste your full to-do list, calendar, or backlog.)
Or go deeper:
“I have 45 minutes between meetings. Here’s what’s on my plate. What can I realistically finish in that window that will give me the most relief?”
Or even:
“I’ve been procrastinating on these 5 tiny but annoying tasks. Help me batch them into a power sprint with a little motivational pep talk. After each task, reinforce me with a win and then break the next one into a doable step.”
Because when the boundaries are blurry and the calendar is cluttered, sometimes the smartest thing you can do is phone a friend, especially when that friend is a chatbot with really good time management skills.
Reconciling The Busy Trap at 13 Years Old
So no, I’m not here to sell you on the dream of a perfectly color-coded calendar with pristine time blocks for “deep work” and “soulful rest” and “being intentional” and sharing a lot of memes about “practicing idleness” while paradoxically scrolling social media for another hour and then waking up at 6 am to do the day again.
I could get a lot of social juice from writing that, sharing that content, and empowering this community to “do less” even though none of us believe it’s realistic.
What I am suggesting is that we stop chasing balance like it’s some rare Pokémon and start building lives that work with the blur instead of against it. With the busy, instead of pretending we don’t have it. Embracing contaminated time as integrated time, because it is.
The future isn’t about doing less. It’s about doing differently. And maybe, just maybe, that starts by admitting that a little business and contamination might be the most honest reflection of the way we live now. And we can use some intention, some tools, and some of that busy time to embrace what we can control.
After all, if time is going to be messy, it may as well be meaningful. -Greg
✍️ Web Comic of the Week
🥸 Spotify Gets a “Create” Button?
⚡️ Social Signals
Here’s this week’s roundup of signals worth noting. We’re trying something new this week, and there are 14 more signals below the paywall for Paid Subscribers and those who support this community. Interested in supporting Social Signals? Upgrade your subscription here.
Study of the Week: A comprehensive meta-analysis of 51 studies reveals that ChatGPT significantly boosts student learning performance and moderately enhances both learning perception and higher-order thinking, with the strongest gains observed in problem-based learning and STEM contexts. WHAT?? Yep. This research suggests that when applied with thoughtful scaffolding and duration, AI can be a powerful, personalized learning ally.
Walmart’s Sparky joins the chat. Carter Jensen shares his POV on Walmart’s AI assistant (similar to Amazon’s Rufus) and how it may upend on-site product search and recommendations.
Remember when people meeting and getting married ON THE INTERNET was seen as rare and cringe? From custom-coded quests to vows on Discord, today’s metaverse-native couples are saying “I do” in Minecraft, Roblox, and VRChat. They’re turning digital worlds where they fell in love into unforgettable wedding venues that blend intimacy, creativity, and community. As Gen Z continues to age up, we’re going to see a lot more of this.
Still think the metaverse is a fad? Roblox is in Vogue Magazine! —> Adults Are Now Obsessed With Roblox, Thanks to This Fashion Game
Mark Zuckerberg just pitched a future where brands skip creative, targeting, and measurement. Just plug in your objective and bank account, and Meta’s AI handles the rest. It’s a bold vision of “infinite creative,” but I’m skeptical: handing over your brand’s voice, strategy, and trust to a single platform isn’t innovation; it’s surrender.
Key quote: “You’re a business, you come to us, you tell us what your objective is, you connect to your bank account. You don’t need any creative, you don’t need any targeting demographic, you don’t need any measurement, except to be able to read the results that we spit out.”
My take: Yes, the vision is bold. But so is the risk of a one-size-fits-all ad future where platforms call the shots and brands become interchangeable. Also, this was sort of inevitable. Let’s continue to use our human brains for the good stuff and let the AI take some of this slop.
Reddit of the Week: This millennial delivered an entire speech in Gen Alpha slang for Language Week. Fun fact: my 14 year-old reported this video was “cringe, but also good.” (h/t: Dustin Smith)
YouTube of the Week: America’s Funniest AI Home Videos