Friday bonus: The cult of busy

I work in a field where people routinely tell each other how busy they are, as if that's something very normal and very good. Many fields are like this. The default response when someone says they're busy and stressed is "Oh yeah, I'm really busy too." So many of us are routinely too busy. By mirroring it back to each other, we normalize it and valorize it. We tell each other how hard we're working and how valuable we are by continually telling each other how busy we are.

I really hate the cult of busy. This behaviour where we constantly validate excess busy-ness by mirroring the busy-ness of the other, by accepting that "too busy" is a reasonable and normal state to be in, is ultimately counter-productive to building collective support, to recognizing when people are struggling, and to the prioritization of good mental health at both individual and organizational levels.

I feel a little absurd spelling it out like this, because none of this is a remotely new insight. But my goodness, do I ever see a lot of anecdata around me, showing that it needs to be said again. Many people in my life (myself included) routinely compromise their own mental and physical health by running themselves too hard. They overwork, they overbook themselves, they are exhausted. The signs of burnout pile up. Stress gets passed around within teams, and compounds as it ricochets. Instead of hearing "I'm too busy" as a cry for help or a real complaint, we reply that we feel the same way, and then move on with the task at hand. This is absurd.

This is not an individual problem, but a structural one. While changes to the way individuals see the value of being busy can be good for the others in their immediate surroundings, it takes institutional and structural change to amend the reward systems that bring about the cult of busy in the first place. Job insecurity is one of the most obvious causes – if your continued employment depends on working harder than is reasonable, you damn well go for it. But those of us in secure employment also buy into and promote the busy cult. Every time we treat a "no" or a request by a colleague to respect boundaries as unusual, even unusual in a good way, we reinforce the normalcy of too busy. Every time a colleague burns out and we pick up their tasks (because they need to get done, or something bad will happen), we tell those above us that burnout is an individual problem without serious organizational implications.

I don't have a new solution to these problems, because the solutions are already out there, in not just the literature, but even in management magazines. When organizations treat overwork as normal, accept consequences like burnout as individual problems, and not only maintain perverse incentive structures, but amplify them through demands for increased output, this is a sign that the cult of busy is accepted and venerated. I fear it's going to get worse before it gets better, as the pressure being put on workers by the wide-scale adoption of LLMs, the continued weakening of social safety nets, and sluggish employment rates provide no incentive for employers to prioritize well-being.

So even though it isn't at all an individual problem, the next time a colleague says they're stressed or too busy, listen instead of reflexively telling them that you're busy too. They may be asking for your help. The next time someone sets a boundary, respect it without exoticizing it. And for goodness sake, treat "no" as a full sentence, not an invitation to negotiate.