The Cost of Busyness

A remembering for those of us who were never trying to avoid care — only drowning in motion

Busyness is the most acceptable excuse we have.

It absolves us.

It sounds responsible.

It signals importance.

It keeps us moving just fast enough that no one asks us to stop and look too closely.

This came up recently in my class while we were talking about why organizations struggle so deeply with knowledge management. Why lessons learned are rushed, skipped, or quietly shelved. Why change management becomes a checkbox. Why we keep reinventing the wheel, repeating the same mistakes, launching the same initiatives with slightly different language and the same predictable outcomes.

The answer was immediate and unanimous.

We’re too busy.

Everyone nodded. Not defensively. Not cynically. Honestly.

And in that moment, something larger revealed itself — because this isn’t just an organizational problem. It’s a cultural one. A human one. A life one.

Busyness as a Way of Life

Busyness isn’t just something we experience; it’s something we perform.

In our systems, busyness signals value. It says: I matter. I’m needed. I’m contributing. I’m not expendable. Slowing down, by contrast, feels risky. Reflective work doesn’t show up neatly on dashboards. Learning looks inefficient. Pausing feels like falling behind.

So we keep moving.

We move past the project close without asking what actually happened.

We move into the next initiative without grieving the last one.

We move forward without integrating what we already know.

And then we wonder why nothing really changes.

The truth is uncomfortable but simple: busyness prevents learning, and the absence of learning creates more busyness. We end up trapped in a loop where motion replaces meaning and activity stands in for wisdom.

Organizations pay for this in rework, burnout, disengagement, fragile change, and institutional amnesia. Knowledge isn’t lost because people don’t care — it’s lost because no one is given the space to hold it.

Knowledge management, at its core, isn’t about documentation. It’s about care for collective memory. And memory requires stillness.

Busyness Isn’t Laziness — It’s Avoidance

Here’s the part we don’t often say out loud.

Busyness is rarely about being overwhelmed. It’s often about what slowing down would require us to face.

Slowing down means asking harder questions.

It means noticing patterns.

It means admitting when something didn’t work.

It means acknowledging harm.

It means feeling disappointment, grief, or responsibility.

In organizations, busyness becomes a socially acceptable way to avoid accountability without ever naming avoidance. No one is blamed. No one is lazy. Everyone is just… busy.

And the system keeps humming along, unchanged.

The Cost We Don’t Track

But the cost of busyness isn’t confined to boardrooms and project plans.

It shows up at kitchen tables.

In living rooms.

In the small, ordinary moments of life that don’t wait for better timing.

For decades, I told my children I was too busy to play.

Too busy to linger.

Too busy to sit on the floor, to be bored together, to let time stretch.

I told friends I was too busy to gather.

Family I was too busy to visit.

Myself that rest would come later.

Not because I didn’t care.

Not because I didn’t want to be there.

But because busyness felt necessary. Responsible. Justified.

The lie embedded in busyness is that life will pause until we’re ready. That relationships will wait. That presence is something we can return to once things settle down.

They don’t.

They won’t.

They can’t.

Children don’t stay small.

Friends drift quietly when not tended.

Bodies keep score.

Life keeps moving — whether we are present for it or not.

What Busyness Steals

Busyness doesn’t just take time. It erodes presence.

It dulls our capacity to listen deeply.

It compresses play.

It flattens joy.

It delays repair.

We begin living one step removed from our own lives, always orienting toward what’s next, what’s urgent, what’s unfinished. And over time, this becomes normal. We don’t notice what’s missing — only that we’re tired.

Same Pattern, Different Scale

This is where the organizational and personal mirror each other perfectly.

Organizations repeat mistakes because they don’t pause to learn.

Humans repeat patterns because they don’t pause to feel.

In both cases, busyness keeps us efficient at repeating what doesn’t work.

We become very good at moving.

Very skilled at coping.

Very practiced at postponing the very things that would actually change something.

The Promise Busyness Keeps Making

Busyness always promises relief in the future.

Once this project is done.

Once this quarter ends.

Once things calm down.

But the horizon keeps moving.

Systems are designed to fill capacity.

Lives expand to meet the space we give them.

And “later” quietly becomes never.

Slowing Down Is Not Indulgence

Here’s the reframe I keep returning to.

Slowness is not laziness.

Reflection is not inefficiency.

Presence is not optional.

In organizations, slowing down to learn is a form of responsibility, it's stewardship. It prevents harm. It honours effort. It saves time in the long run, even if it costs time in the moment.

In life, slowing down is an act of love. Presence is not retroactive. Relationships cannot be repaired in hindsight. The moments we miss do not come back neatly packaged for later appreciation.

An Invitation

This isn’t a call to do less or optimize better.

It’s an invitation to name what’s actually happening.

Where am I calling something “busyness” that might actually be avoidance?

What keeps repeating because I won’t pause?

What cost am I quietly paying — or passing on?

What If We Stopped Calling It Busyness?

What if we told the truth instead?

That we’re afraid to slow down.

That we don’t know how to stop.

That we’ve inherited systems — organizational and personal — that reward motion over meaning.

Knowledge wants to be remembered.

Relationships want to be lived.

Life wants our attention while it’s happening.

And busyness, for all its respectability, is one of the most expensive ways we forget.