Why being busy is a comfort zone in disguise

I allegedly wrote a bar in the comment section of a Dan Koe's video.

People resonated with it so I thought I'd dive deeper.

Busy is the new mask.

Everyone's "busy." Non-stop meetings. Endless to-do lists. Calendar notifications every 30 minutes.

But here's the truth most won't admit: Being busy is just a comfort zone in disguise.

I've been there.

Checking emails while brushing my teeth. Taking calls during workouts. Scheduling meetings back-to-back.

It felt productive. I felt important.

But it was just noise.

Busyness provides the perfect escape from what actually matters.

Here's what's really happening when you're "too busy":

You're avoiding uncomfortable feelings.

You're distracting yourself from real work.

You're hiding from potential failure.

The brain is programmed as a an automatic goal-striving mechanism.

So when faced with a difficult challenge or uncomfortable emotion, it finds the perfect distraction: more tasks.

More emails. More calls. More busywork.

Why solve the hard problem when you can feel productive solving easy ones?

This is why mediocre opportunities steal time from great ones.

The comfortable mediocrity of being busy feels better than the uncomfortable void of deep work.

In the void, you confront your demons, you face potential failure, and there's nowhere to hide.

That's why breaking the busy addiction requires something radical: deliberate emptiness.

Here's how to escape the busy trap:

Create emptiness in your calendar

Block 1-hour chunks with nothing scheduled. Just you and your thoughts. No phone. No email. No distractions.

This will feel extremely uncomfortable at first. Your brain will find excuses to fill the space.

Resist.

Distinguish urgent from important

Use this framework to evaluate every task:

• Will this matter in 1 month?

• Is this advancing my primary goal?

• Am I doing this to avoid something else?

• If I did this 100,000 times, what would be the outcome?

Build Fast Feedback Loops

Measure output, not input. Count results, not hours. Judge completion, not busyness.

Most people measure the wrong things, like hours worked instead of new leads generated, new cash collected, or new content uploaded.

Face the void

The most productive moments often come after periods of boredom or discomfort.

Creativity emerges not from constant stimulation, but from stillness.

Stillness activates the default mode network of your brain.

It's the mechanism that takes the context out of everything you feed your brain, and turns it into breakthrough ideas.

When your day has gaps, your mind has space to see what's missing .

The most successful people I know aren't "busy" – they're focused.

They do fewer things, but the right things.

They say no more than yes.

They embrace empty space in their calendar.

Choose emptiness over busyness.

Choose focus over distraction.

Choose stillness over noise.

It's uncomfortable. It's necessary.

But it's where the real growth happens.

See you in the trenches,

—Kassimi